TreeFiddy

I just rewatched Wyche's Hudl video yesterday and was wondering to myself if he could be a returner. He has some shiftiness and a nice burst. Not much on top end speed, but cuts nicely in tight quarters.

Littrell was asked about incoming jucos and whether we had lost any. He said that it is always a risk with jucos that are not here for the spring, but what I thought I heard him say was that we had not lost any yet. It seems like he would know by now if kids took care of business or not since the semester has been over for a little while. Now, if he has kids that have to go this summer to complete their required work, then that is a different story.

Remember, George's view of all of this is from the other side of the glass. He definitely cares about success, but over the years he has built up defensive mechanisms to deal with the failures and I am not even sure he is aware of it.

This event was not put on by the AD office. I don't think the intent was to have 2,000 people attend. I believe the consultants reached their target audience. The consultants, as well as a few of our key BMDs were able to see/hear first hand how the other 99% view the athletic department.

Evidently Hank has been working tirelessly to address these issues for years but could not allow his actions to become public until now for fear of being ostracized. Thank you for your courage Hank...

The low number of HS commits so far could be due to the number of jucos/transfers the staff plans on targeting. We already know the numbers of scholarship players is low (68) and the depth is very thin. To compound this, we have roughly 25 seniors on the roster (not all scholarship) that will likely be moving on after the semester. Many of these players are contributors that will need to be replaced. We may have bought a little bit of time with the jucos that we brought in this year, but remember that we have already borrowed numbers from next year's class as well. Let's say that we sign 6 blue shirts that count against the 2017 class (not sure the are all blue shirts, but: Jenkins, Hoston, Thomas, Wyche, Jackson, O'Hara). That leaves us with 19 spots. If we go heavy on jucos again (we signed 7 this past mid term/spring), that leaves us with roughly 12 spots for HS players. We already have 3 committed, which could be about 25% of our class. With such a large number of seniors set to graduate and many holes to fill, the staff may have no choice but to keep riding the juco/transfer hamster wheel. However, if we hit on several of the incoming jucos/transfers it might allow the staff to add a few more HS players.

I was looking at the recently release CUSA media guide and saw that Hank Dickenson was listed as the AD (interim) on page 33 , which was not that surprising. However, I also noticed Jordan Stepp listed as the SID. I was expecting to see Capper's name listed. I had read where Bartolotta had left, but is Capper gone as well? I still see him tweeting so was a bit confused. http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/c-usa/sports/m-footbl/auto_pdf/2015-16/misc_non_event/2016CUSAFootballGuide.pdf

This still seems dumb to me. One university, one list.

@cerebus didn't you have some knowledge of this project? Is it still moving forward?

It is crazy to have so many different mailing lists. One list of names and contact info and then you should be able to subscribe to the different groups that you want to receive information/mailers from.

Anyone want to throw up a little (or a lot)? link on CUSA board discussing the number of home games various G5 teams have scheduled at home against P5 teams in the next few years. NOTE: UNT has 0. http://csnbbs.com/thread-782974.html

Benford brought up the poor state of their locker room and weight room. I assume he means the locker room at the Pit, but not sure where the weight room is located. I guess they don't use the weight room at Apogee next to the dorms? Later in the meeting is was mentioned that the locker rooms were being taken care of, but I am thinking that this tweet means that it is just the football locker rooms that are being renovated and I guess no plans for hoops?

Good point, probably just a coincidence.

I got a call in the middle of Litrell's speech from Nittardy. If I were cynical, I would believe that they took the sign in sheet for the event and then ran to see who had not yet renewed for 2016. But that's just tin foil talk. Right?

Another attendee expressed frustration with the AD not having his current address. We should have a prominent link on the AD (or better yet the university) website that allows you to review the current contact information the university has for you and allow you to submit a request for change. This kind of goes along with not having the ability to submit a 'support request' to the AD/university for assistance in the same way you can normally go to a corporate website and request assistance. Make it easier to interact with the university.

If you guys ever start missing the good ole days we have some folks you might be interested in interviewing.

Don Lovelace was also there.

I hear what you are saying but we have been following that approach for decades. I am all for trying a different approach and seeing what happens.

There was a magazine/article (Athlon?) that listed Litrrell as the 128th best coach in FBS. Maybe it wasn't Athlon, but it was a pretty recent article (just noticed Littrell ranked 123 in this Athlon article: http://athlonsports.com/college-football/ranking-all-128-college-football-head-coaches-2016)

I don't disagree that the new AD shoulders some of the responsibility. MGC numbers are a joke. Season ticket numbers are a joke. Customer service is a joke. The number of BMDs is better than it was, but still a joke for the number of alumni that we have and the wealth in the surrounding counties. Someone already pointed out an area where funds could potentially be redirected from that is not a direct impact on an academic program. I am sure there are plenty of examples other than the student affairs example. I trust the Pres to find the funds. We are only talking about roughly $1M to eliminate guarantee/paycheck games for football and basketball. It does not seem to be an insurmountable number. If you want the AD to eventually pick up the tab, then set some performance/fund raising goals so that the funds are eventually replaced by the AD, but reality is that if you choose to require that the program fund it by themselves from the start then you just prolong the process. Look at what are considered to be the top 20-25 programs at the G5 level. Study them. See why they are successful. See how our metrics compare to theirs. Set performance goals to bring our numbers in line with theirs.

I don't see it as quite the black and white as is being painted here. Nothing personal, but IMO this is the type of thinking that has hindered our athletic program for years. The excuse as to why not to fund the program at levels required to be competitive with its peers always uses the crutch of 'it will be at the expense of academic program X'. Therefore, leadership feeds just enough crumbs so that we can check the box. Notice that I AM NOT suggesting to increase the student fee although we should not apologize for having one and using it as appropriate and consistent with other universities. There is a reasonable amount already coming from that source. I am suggesting the university to increase its support. Is UH an institution of higher learning? What about Cincinatti? East Carolina? ODU? Memphis? Boise (well, maybe bad example ;-) ), SDSU? On and on. Look at programs in the MWC and AAC. They are perceived to be a level above us. If so, and those are the universities that we want to consider our peers then they are who we need to study and imitate. Look at their support. How do they do it? Why can't UNT be expected to do the same? Take advantage of our resources. We should have a huge advantage over many institutions based on our size and resources yet we seem to continually apologize for having an athletics program and seem intent on making sure we don't somehow succeed because we might offend another area of the university. Once again it is time to fish or cut bait. We faced this decision once before and we shat the bed by voluntarily moving down to AA. Will we essentially repeat that decision by standing pat? We demand different results but refuse to change the way it is supported/funded? Crazy. It requires investment. An investment with an expected future return. Investment comes with risk, but the rewards of having a nationally recognizable program and nationally recognized degree could far outweigh the risks. Think of the alternative.

I disagree. If they are using athletics as a very visible window to the university then it is worthy of funding it at a level that allows the programs to compete at the highest levels. UNT's level of institutional support is low when compared to some of our peers. For example, WKU provides $15M of institutional support to athletics and they are half the size of UNT. This isn't all on the AD's shoulders. Show that the university is truly serious by getting outside of our historical comfort zone and fund this thing at levels consistent with the top programs in the G5. Get out of our comfort zone. Show that we are committed like never before. Do more than check the box.

I hope that Trip and Michael browse through some of these topics to look for additional feedback. Last night the athletic department as a whole received most of the criticism, and rightfully so. However, in order to fix this thing and get it moving in the right direction it will take more than just a new AD. One of the things that Benford and Littrell both mentioned was the fact that they are required to play guaranteed/paycheck games. I don't put this requirement solely on the shoulders of the AD. I believe this is an area that Pres Smatresk and Brint Ryan can specifically look in the mirror and ask themselves if they are really committed to having an athletic program that is competitive with our G5 peers. We are requiring the basketball team to raise roughly $250k via guarantee games and the football team to raise around $1M via guarantee games (paycheck - FCS). If the university is serious about fixing this thing then fund the athletic department with enough support to eliminate these games. According to the last numbers that I saw, the university is providing roughly $9M of institutional support. This from a university with over $800M in annual revenues. If Pres Smatresk and Mr. Ryan are serious then look in the mirror and address this unnecessary burden we place on our teams. Fund the program in such a way that they can schedule for success as well as put together the most attractive home schedules as possible. This should be a no brainer to fix if we are really serious about making substantive change.

^^^ Does this number jive with the scholarship spreadsheet on this board? I am pretty sure that SL mentioned the number was 68 after counting the incoming 2016 class. That would mean we were down to about 45-50 players after last year. Hard to believe it was that bad but just more evidence that Mac had quit if true.

@Harry (or anyone) can you get an email for Trip and/or Michael as it relates to this effort? There are a couple of things that I wish I had brought up and now I don't know how to get them the information.