meangreen2016

I'll be there plus 4. It's my birthday, only present I want is a Mean Green W. Stay warm everyone!

Does anyone know when JUCO and transfer players start making their decisions? My head tells me it's part of the recruiting process and they've all already decided. But my heart hopes there are still a couple of extra defensive players and offensive linemen we could pick up to start next year.

I just wish he had more protection from the offensive line. Not sure how many times he was sacked today, but defenses know you can blitz and usually get to him. After so many hits any person will wear down and feel a sense of pressure to get rid of the ball, leading to bad throws. I never watched Maher play, did he have a good line in front of him?

Remember when we use to comment on here after beating a team and say stuff like “Fayetteville fan forums are burning”, or “so and so’s fans are pissed”. We use to laugh at the other fan forums and how their comments just spiraled out of control. sigh, those were simpler times. Now look at us.

-1 from me you can go back to my posts about supporting this team after their two losses and trying to be a half glass full type of guy. I’ve tried to defend them but this is the 3rd time in ONE SEASON they have blown a big lead and lost the game. That is unacceptable. We can’t just keep saying “well at least we didn’t lose to Portland state”. In order to build a winning culture you can’t accept crap like today. You have to hold people accountable. I’m definitely NOT saying fire Littrell. But something needs to happen. Maybe the depth of this team is just horrible and we can’t rely on the 2nd team players, but if that’s the case neither should ODU. Like somebody said above, 7-2 should beat 2-7.

I work at the hospital the next day. Gotta be there at 0645 and it takes me 45 minutes to get there. But I'm going to be at this game with my "Fine for Heisman" shirt supporting the Mean Green. Time to get some payback for last year.

Just bought four tickets! Thanks for posting this!

I just bought one, have yet to receive anything saying that they discontinued the shirt. I'll let you know.

Thought about this early today. I would say definitely. It's easy to forget that these guys are students as well. If I was a student athlete having a game every single week for an extended amount of time would definitely impact my studies and vice versa. I'm sure a break will be really helpful for them.

I think he "found him" with his close ties to the Oklahoma area coaches or something, nonetheless he still found him like every other coach finds a player. Took a chance on him when nobody else did. Following that logic, Littrell is the reason we have the greatest QB in program history.

Littrell was the one who found Fine and took a chance on him..

@MeanGreenHoops Totally agree. I want to win the conference championship every year (or at least be in the race at the end). I'm not trying to downplay any of those disappointments, because I hate losing. I still think we can keep it in our minds that this staff has done a lot with little in terms of recruiting and facilities. It is impressive. If we finish with an 11-2, that is not a "Bad" season. A lot of struggling programs would kill to be in that position. Is it disappointing in many ways? Heck yes, there were a lot of scenarios I would've liked to see play out to the end. But only 2 or 3 losses is not exactly what I expected from the team that was returning almost all of the exact same starters from an atrocious defense. You are totally right, Littrell hasn't won "the big games" yet, but he's gotten us to them multiple times now. That's more than any previous coach can say. Anyways, I appreciate the honesty. In order to get better as a program, we have to raise our expectations. We should expect to be in the race for the conference championship right now.

Appreciate the post @StealthEagle84. Glad to see that, while you're not ok with losing, you can still find joy out of a possible 11-2 season. Lol. I mean seriously, can we as a fan base stop to smell the roses for a second. We're light years ahead of where we were in Littrell's first season. I don't think anyone is content with not going to the Conference championship. I for one am just enjoying how much we have improved and how much higher the ceiling is now. I don't think Wren Baker or Samtresk are ever going to be ok with losing, so the programs future is in good hands.

I think the points being made here are both correct. Should we have higher expectations? ABSOLUTELY. According to Underdog dynasty, "After being 5-0 in one-possession games in 2017, the Mean Green are now 1-2 in such games this season." We got worse in an area that we were very good in last season. How does that happen? Possibly coaching, possibly player mindset. In reality, all of that mixed together and more. Coaches should definitely be held accountable. That's what you do at a program that is trying to get away from losing and move towards a winning culture. It's extremely frustrating, but you do NOT throw the people that got you here under the bus. You trust the those people to get you out again because that's what they've done before in an even worse circumstance. Littrell is the best bet we have at becoming a relevant football program. He's going to be something special, and while he makes mistakes (which he owns up to) he always improves on those things. Example: Defense from last year was garbage- significant jump. Mason Fine sacked too many times last year- significant jump (although now it seems worse). Win total improved 4+ first two seasons and probably going to improve again. Does he need to win the big games? Heck yes. That's something you don't immediately start doing as a first time head coach at a program that hasn't ever been known for winning important games. Yes other areas are worse too, but I think we can say that a huge reason our offense hasn't been as productive is because our RBs aren't as good as Wilson. The one back that looked promising went down for the season. Sometimes you can only do so much adjusting and after that you trust your players to make a play. It's cool to be upset about losing. I HATE losing with a passion. But let's not roast each other in the comments section over it. We gotta be better fans. Don't throw away the season just yet. It's not a conference championship, but there's still a chance to go 11-2 (with a bowl win) and there are worse seasons to have. I'm liking the high expectations, though. Shows I'm not the only one hyped about UNT football. GMG

@NM Green Agreed. Since you brought up TCU, look at the program they have been able to build with a consistent influx of majority 3-star recruits and good coaching (a couple of 4 star recruits per class as well). Then take a look at our incoming class- majority are 3-star recruits with some 2 stars. Plus we have a great coach. I like where we are headed and I'm hoping this is just the beginning. GMG

I was initially going to post two topics in here but decided to split them up. Just wanted to encourage fans to keep our heads up and not sink back into that old Denton mindset. We are in the midst of an awesome season. Seriously. We have the opportunity to go 10-2 if we play to our potential (which hopefully we do) and 11-2 if we win our bowl game (remember we're 0-2 in the Littrell era with bowls). I'm going to keep encouraging fans on this board as much as I can because we have come so far as a program in 3 seasons. Yes, we should have won both games, but you get everyone's best game when you are the team to beat. Heartbreaking losses happen sometimes for a program that is trying to take it to the next level because expectations are high. There are so many could've, should've, would'ves. It's easy to become cynical when you've been a Mean Green fan, but push through that mindset. Another thing, we are incredibly lucky to have Littrell as a coach. I've seen some comments making it seem like we've outgrown him or that he's not all that he's chalked up to be. While I love the accountability for coaches as it shows that we expect the best, must I remind everyone that we are the first school he has been a Head Coach at. We should still expect some mistakes as a head coach. What we shouldn't have expected was a +4 win increase for UNT over the first two seasons (and possibly another +2 this season). The dude has done an amazing job. Be thankful that we don't have a Jason Garrett. This isn't a "we shouldn't ever say he makes mistakes" post, as there were times during the previous losses that I was dumbfounded by decisions. It is however a "he's going to be something special one day" post. Keep supporting the Mean Green, y'all. Show up to all of these next home games and keep the place rocking. I'm sure they are more upset about those losses than we are. To be a better program, we gotta do our part as fans too.

Y'all , I saw a bowl projection with them playing Army again and I almost started screaming. That would be the 4th time we've played them in a 3 year span. Anyways, I think Servpro is probably the bowl game for us in terms of building hype around the DFW area for recruits and getting fans to the game. Remember, we're in a hotbed for recruiting here, we don't need to go out of state in order to have recruits see our game. Recruits from Oklahoma can also make their way down here as well. TCU and SMU are down and may not even make a bowl game. We have a good opportunity around here to continue to build on a solid season. I remember feeling the hype in the DFW area from when they were in the HOD bowl game in 2014. Magazines were writing about us, Omni Dallas hotel put up the "Go Mean Green" lights, and we had a ton of people at the game which looked great on TV. Now if we could get a P5 school or someone like Houston (as mentioned above) that would be the ultimate goal. Main thing I'm hoping for is a postseason W (Remember we're 0-2 in the past two years in bowl games).

Totally agree. I was thinking about this after seeing the comments by Littrell and fine being frustrated. Offense has been playing about how they started the season (points wise). Only thing I would say that is different is the amount of yards Fine has passed for and Easly being out with an injury. Maybe the pressure Fine has been getting by defenses has been their issue?

That’s exactly what I was thinking. Although UNT is a pass first team, we’ve played one game away in a downpour (@liberty) and won off the ground game. We’ve also played at home in wet conditions and won once we got the ground game going. Although I wouldn’t call rain an advantage for us because it almost always makes teams reluctant to throw, I would definitely say we have more experience playing in it.

Reading this, UAB is going to be jacked up on Saturday. This is their version of what UNT vs La Tech was for us. Should be a good game with an awesome atmosphere. That being said it would be awesome if UNT just completely dominated them.

Curious to know what our injuries are right now. When do we get our key defensive players back?

Wasn’t FAU 11-2 at the end of last year and they still weren’t ranked after drilling Akron in the bowl game, if I remember correctly.

@GMG_Dallas all good points. After I posted my comment about the stats I went back and looked through their schedule. They definitely haven’t played the best teams. It seems like the only decent offense that they’ve played was coastal Carolina and they got smoked. Seriously. Go look back at all of the teams they’ve played and none of them have any sort of explosive offense. Although I would argue we have a 3 point win against a lowly UTEP team which doesn’t look awesome, but to your other point it was after an emotional game for us. All that to say, I think we’re the better team. If we don’t choke like we did against La tech, the offense gets into a rhythm early and doesn’t let up I feel confident UNT wins. Who knows, maybe UAB comes out with their hair on fire and completely proves me wrong.

UAB's defense: #1 in pass defense in CUSA (134.8 yds per game... good lord), #6 in Rushing defense in CUSA (149. 0 yds per game) UAB's offense: #11 in pass offense in CUSA (202.7 yards per game), #2 in rushing offense (232.7 yds per game) We rank 3rd in rushing defense so I like that aspect of our defense overtaking their offense buuuut they also have the #1 pass defense and we have the #1 pass offense... I think we'll need to get the run game going like we did today but earlier in the game. Hopefully that will set up the passing game. Source: http://conferenceusa.com/stats.aspx?path=football&year=2018&

Cool article by underdog dynasty about Mason Fine looking up to Drew Brees and watching his passing record. Not sure if anyone posted this but it’s a quick read. https://www.underdogdynasty.com/2018/10/9/17956878/both-always-being-told-theyre-too-short-mason-fine-watched-drew-brees-make-history-north-texas-unt?_gl=1*4jqkxa*