UNTX

I sincerely hope that Les Miles is a class act as a coach. LSU absolutely has the ability to break an NCAA record for most points scored in a game. It'll be there for the taking if they want it.

What will be far more hurtful is next season when SMU comes into Fouts Field and routs us before a large crowd. Mix that in with another rout by La Tech, this time at home, and getting seriously boogered by Texas as well, and we have another fine season we can look forward to! Too early to make such predictions? Ah, it'll be more of the same next year.

BBA '92 Finance MBA '96 Human Resource Management Certified Management Accountant (CMA) Started out in accounting, and hated it, so I got the Master's in HR. HR jobs didn't pay enough, so I'm still in accounting! But at least it taught me to manage my staff well (I guess). I've worked for Brinker, Michaels, and just started a new position with EDS.

Attendance won't improve until / if we get into CUSA. A new stadium might provide a honeymoon period of increased attendance and an occassional better OOC opponent. But we'll continue to draw 13-17K against SBC opponents (and that's if we're doing well) and it'll stay that way until we can get into a league that provides us with a steady diet of Texas based I-A schools to host at home. When we've had them (or schools like them) at home: Baylor (28K & 29K) TCU (26K & 24K) SMU (23K.....)

Aside from the plates not being updated for the new logo, thought you all might be interested in this article regarding collegiate plates I found on Killerfrogs.com. Looks like our plates will continue to be available for now, but we need more people to order them...............SUPRISE, SURPRISE! State puts brakes on college plates 07:05 AM CDT on Tuesday, June 28, 2005 By TONY HARTZEL / The Dallas Morning News Many Texas colleges and universities simply don't make the grade when it comes to specialty alumni license plates. Dwindling support for the program at some colleges and universities has led the Texas Department of Transportation to phase out 24 of the 49 higher education specialty plates. Texas Woman's University will be gone. So will be the University of Texas at Dallas. And the one person each who currently sports Brookhaven College or Richland College license plates should be prepared to turn them in at their mandatory replacement age. "We haven't heard from the universities yet," said Christina Flores of the Transportation Department's vehicle titles and registration division. "We may be hearing from some alumni soon." Specialty plates, which tout and support things like universities, organizations and veterans with special logos directly on them, have taken off. In May, more than 356,000 of almost 19 million Texas vehicles had some type of specialty license tag, up from 342,000 a year earlier. Statewide in May, 16,647 cars and trucks sported collegiate plates. They and most other plates require an annual fee of $30, generally with $8 going to defray production costs and $22 going toward programs associated with the plate's theme. Faced with $15,000 in production costs for every new plate issued, the Legislature passed a law several years ago that established criteria for eliminating many low-performing plates. And though stricter criteria went into effect in September, the state is now beginning to look at the plates issue. According to the state transportation code, specialty plates should be allowed only if: •3,500 sets of plates have been issued during the plate's life span; •the Transportation Department has made $15,000 from the issuance of the license plates; •a university or other sponsoring group deposits $15,000 to start a new plate, keep existing plates available or restart a plate in the future. That money would be returned once the minimum number of plates, including annual renewals, had been issued. The rules, which the agency is not required to enforce, eventually could affect other plates, such as the United States Olympic Committee plates (195 in use statewide). The state has no plans to discontinue any noncollegiate plates, said David Pyndus, a spokesman for the vehicle titles and registration division. For universities, the $15,000 requirement is the same, but the threshold for plates issued during its lifetime was lowered to 1,500 sets. "Quite a few of the smaller colleges and universities didn't even come close," Mr. Pyndus said. It wasn't a difficult decision to eliminate the program at TWU, where 78 university supporters have a specialty license plate. "It just wasn't economically feasible," said university spokeswoman Amanda Simpson. "There wasn't enough demand to warrant the cost. We're a public university, and our No. 1 priority is to our students." On the opposite end of the spectrum stands Texas A&M University, which outpaces all other colleges and universities in specialty plate registrations. With 6,346 plates in May, Aggie pride easily outdistanced its closest license plate competitor, the University of Texas, which has 3,121 plates. Taking the bronze medal in the competition is Texas Tech University, with 2,764 registrations. Texas Christian University (472) has the most specialty plates of any North Texas school, and the University of North Texas (320) draws the second-highest local support. Although the bumper-based measure of school pride is sure to warm the hearts of Aggies everywhere and frustrate Longhorn supporters, the money raised goes to a good cause. This year, the plate helped raise enough for $156,000 in need-based scholarships, said Mike Huddleston, the university's executive director for contract administration. "We're very thankful for the program, and we're very proud of the success we've had with it," he said, adding that it does give College Station a certain measure of bragging rights. "That's always fun. This is the friendly part of the rivalry." A&M doesn't do much special with its license plate programs, placing brochures at spots including the university visitors' center and the parking garages. "Most of it is the camaraderie our students feel to each other," Mr. Huddleston said. "They like to be associated with the university, and they like to show pride." E-mail thartzel@dallasnews.com PHASING OUT Universities whose license plates are being phased out by the Texas Department of Transportation, and the number of vehicles registered with those plates in May: St. Mary's University – 101 Texas Woman's University – 78 Tarleton State University – 61 Lamar University – 39 Abilene Christian University – 36 Texas Lutheran University – 36 University of Texas at San Antonio – 32 University of Texas at Dallas – 30 Texas A&M University-Kingsville – 23 Midwestern State University – 22 Texas Wesleyan University – 22 Howard Payne University – 21 Houston Baptist University – 18 McMurry University – 18 Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi – 16 Incarnate Word College – 15 University of Texas at Brownsville – 12 Huston-Tillotson University – 10 East Texas Baptist University – 8 Texas Chiropractic College – 7 North Central Texas College – 4 Brookhaven College – 1 Richland College – 1 Parker College of Chiropractic – 0 PLATES IN 1. Texas A&M, 6,346 2. University of Texas, 3,121 3. Texas Tech, 2,764 4. University of Houston, 571 5. Texas Christian, 472 6. Baylor, 446 7. University of North Texas, 320 8. Rice, 269 9. Prairie View A&M, 253 10. Texas State, 228

Um, until we can prove that we can beat ANY team outside of the Sun Belt - I myself wouldn't predict any sort of victory over either La Tech or Tulsa. Athlon (for what it's worth) has both teams ranked quite a bit ahead of us. Same old thing. Just like in years past everyone predicts victories in OOC games, only to get pi$$ed off and position themselves on the ledge when we lose them all. Remember Baylor last year? Don't set yourselves up for disappointment.............

What is this stuff about water bottles? You mean to say you bought a bottle of water at concessions, and they wouldn't allow you to take it to your seat? That doesn't make any sense. Was is something you brought from home, that wasn't purchased at concessions? I also don't get the comments from UNTGirl04 about not being allowed to leave your seat. They wouldn't allow you to go pee, and go back to the original seat that you payed for (student guest seat or otherwise)? Seems there must be something else to this. Was the seat still not the one originally designated for you, or were you not able to actually produce evidence of having a ticket? If these things really happened as you guys have presented, then we have a serious problem with the CSC events staff we've hired to work the games. But it sounds like something isn't right with your stories. At least I'm hoping that's the case.

Why are we going on the road for the second straight year at UTPA? Or is that the school that we played twice last season, home and away?

Why not women's gymnastics?

What the hell are you talking about? No support from the athletics dept.?! They got Jones a contract extension through 2008 approved after the team slid backward and only won seven games season before last. I think he's got as much support as RV can afford to give him.

Well, after the bowl game, it might lift the spirits of some to know that Jones's crew pulled out a road win in OT down in Edinburg. I didn't catch but the last few minutes of the game, but it was tied at the end of regulation, 77 all. So we showed yet more heart to focus and do what was necessary under pressure to get the win by dominating in OT. Only other thing I can add is that Hank was making me laugh a little. He did a great job as always but sounded just plain worn out (as you can imagine coming from New Orleans to Edinburg to do yet another game). At one point he trashed UTPA's "fieldhouse" by saying it was strange place to play and was one of the worst managed facilities he's ever seen with, "kids running all over the place, cheerleaders running all over the place." Guess he was in the mood to call it like he saw it!

Well, oh so close. This was a game where I can't even guess how many times the lead changed hands. Very hard fought game on both sides. We had maybe 30 people in total there, scattered about the arena, including Dr. and Mrs. Pohl. Once again Jones used the entire bench making frequent subs. Johnson had a mixed debut playing about 7 minutes total. Had an awesome rebound and slam dunk, but ultimately fouled out of the game, but some of the calls against him were questionable. No way TCU had more than maybe 1500 in attendance but the crowd, like our game with Baylor, really got into it during the second half. It was a very defensive game, with both teams shooting poorly in the 30-35% range. This was for sure the type of game that can give you a heart attack. So damn close, no one had a lead of more than 5 or 6 and the other team would alway close it up quick. These are hard to take, but we're making continuous and serious improvement.

I'll be there for sure. Although I will be bringing a Tech grad with me. We won big last time we were there - right before Christmas too.

I remember hearing at one point that Blakely was fired right after having lost to Texas Wesleyan (or at season's end for losing to them) we then went and hired Texas Wesleyan's coach. Don't know if that's true or not.

I've said it before and I'll say it only one more time, that if more alums are wanted at the games they've got to move the start time back to 7:35 - like it used to be a few years back. I can't get away repeatedly with leaving work early, and asking a friend or friends to do the same to make it up to Denton in time for tipoff, coming from Dallas. I'll arrange to leave a little early to make to the Baylor and Indiana games. Already did it for NW Okla. Other than that I'll make the Saturday games (Hardin-Simmons, NMSU and S. Alabama) and it's too bad there aren't more of those this year. I'll also go to TCU in Fort Worth (Saturday, and everyone that can should make that one). Wish it could be more.

Is NW Okla State even Division II? The game program mentioned their trips to the NAIA tournament back in the early to mid-nineties. Perhaps they moved up a few years ago, but if we had that much trouble with a NAIA school - it could make for a long season if we don't get some major bugs worked out. Hopkins looks heavy, played just a few minutes and seemed winded. He was also looked pretty slow. I hope that he'll be able to return to previous form soon, because we really need him I really liked Roniger in this game. Mid way through the 2nd half he really turned up the emotion, seemed really pi$$ed that we were running behind and established an "Uh - I don't think so" attitude on the court that was picked up by the rest of the team. Attendance, might have been 1100. Not surprising for a team no one has heard of. Hopefully we'll turn that around as well.

No. I'm not surprised. Just painfully aware that we've got to improve - NOW.

Saw Athlon's college basketball preview mag today. The entire Sun Belt only got one half page. Seems like each team got a page in previous years. WKU is again picked to win the league outright. We were picked last in our division with La. Lafayette picked first and NMSU second. Next to our name there was only a one sentence write-up "North Texas must find a way without Chris Davis, the best player in school history." We really need to prove them wrong and show some kind of progress this season. It's that whole "conference realignment thing" you know.

I'm very happy to see us play some of the other teams in Texas like Lamar and UTPA. I've always been an advocate of bringing in some our old SLC rivals home-and-home for non-conference games, only as opposed to playing Div. II no-name schools like Hardin-Simmons and NW Oklahoma. However, I was surprised to see us going TO Lamar and UTPA. Hopefully they'll be giving us at least one if not two return trips.

Just saw on Channel 5 news that Gov. Rick Perry signed a bill today to provide $300 million in additional funding for UTD. They will get the money over the next few years to bolster their engineering and computer science programs. These programs are seen as strategically important in order to provide for additional engineers within the DFW area and make the area ever more attractive to high tech firms. Great. Terrific. I know we're just starting our engineering school, but I thought we had a pretty decent computer science dept. Aren't we older, larger and more comprehensive? Why is it that we always seem to miss the boat or just flat miss out period - all of the time? Leading University of the Metroplex? Sure, maybe not for long. Damnit.

My sentiments exactly, EagleMBA. I stopped buying season tickets to the basketball games two years ago because of this very reason. We used to tipoff at 7:35 I believe a few years ago. We need to go back to it. That extra 30 minutes to get there would help out a lot. I do always make the Saturday games, and make the weekend road games as well when they're within driving distance.

Aren't we supposed to finally get Baylor at home? We've gone down there at least two seasons straight now without a return trip, right?

Unfortunately, UTA would never consider joining the UNT System. I've always felt the UTA administration has had very little respect for UNT. Remember the whole fracas over that proposed bill a couple of years ago proposed by a state representative (Garcia?) that wanted to merge UTA and UT-Southwestern into the UNT System, with UNT as the flagship? UTA's then president Dr. Robert Witt was interviewed on the prospect in a DMN article and basically threw a fit and dissed UNT, blatantly extolling UTA's academic superiority. His vitriolic comments pissed me off considering that the bill was obviously hopeless from the beginning and was only intended to draw some attention to UNT and the need for consolidation in general. Another issue is that UTA seems to be upset regarding the UT System's lack of emphasis on THEIR goals of becoming a national research university. UTA already does FAR more research than NT, and gets millions more than NT in external research funds. I don't remember specific numbers, and they would be a little dated even if I did. But when I was working at the school, the fact that UTA and UTD pulled in significant more dollars for research over NT was a major embarassment and sore spot with our administration, and they were studying strategies to catch up. Hopefully the addition of engineering at NT will go a long way towards accomplishing that. I doubt UTA will go anywhere. The state is moving toward consolidation in terms of the structure of our public institutions of higher education. They are not going to allow another independently governed school, as it would only lead to additional inefficiencies and duplication that the state is trying to rid itself of. The UT System is the richest and best managed with access to 2/3 of the Permanent University Fund, compared to A&M's 1/3 and Tech's zero share. Houston? Please. They'll make noise, settle down and nothing will change.

Heard on CNN that the joke going around that White House is that: "Going to war without France is like going hunting without an accordian." Laughed a little out loud at that one.

I finally caught one of those damn rubber balls the cheerleaders throw to the crowd!!!!!!!!!!!! Sounds silly, but.........I've been trying to catch one of those things for like 10 years maybe. Everyone on this board probably has one, but they'd never come my way! Now.....I've got one. Yes I do, and it's right here next to me at my desk while I type. Oh, I enjoyed the game as well.