ForneyGreen

Steton Hall was a strong team - tonight was their only real challenge through the tournament. I thought Seton Hall would win tonight, but ISU played hard and proud. We were definitely eliminated by a really good team.

This is my concern also. Are we just not paying as much with NIL as our AAC peers? Why are other schools able to retain their elite players? EDIT: I see now that East Carolina has 5 players entering the portal, so not feeling so bad 🙂 Still wish we were able to keep our best talent.

I thought it was interesting to see Hodge loosen-up the offense and shot clock management a bit toward the end of the conference slate. The first half of the season was very McCasland-like where we would score in the mid-60's and try holding the opponent to low-60's or less. Our latest games have been pretty different scoring in the 70's and 80's. I wonder if this "new, faster" pace is more of what Hodge wants to run in the future?

I would think there's a good possibility of a CBI invite based on our record (18 wins), reaching the quarterfinals of the AAC tourny, and having a NET ranking probably in the 70's. 100 teams go to the NCAA tourny (68) and NIT tourny (32). The CBI takes 16 teams, so it seems we would have a good shot if Hodge and the team want to participate. The CBI is a little weird because you need to be invited and also agree to pay into the tourny (like $28k).

Wow - that was big to get a road win when we only shot 20.8% from 3-pt range. I'm not sure what our season average is from 3-pt range, but guessing around 35%

Having Earle here as a ready-to-go backup makes me feel more comfortable given Morris' injury history ... plus he can push Morris a bit just as he pushed Rogers last year.

4 Home Games in a row: Army, East Carolina, Tulane, and Tulsa ... that is pretty awesome. All in all, I really like this schedule! I would rather have our 2 first games flipped... would be great to start with SFA at home and then go to USA ... but otherwise I'm a happy camper.

This is really what I would expect based on player production (6 all-conference players - none on first team) *except* for Rogers not even being 3rd Team which really seems to be some major disrespect. That being said... we need to ensure Rogers is NIL compensated at UNT - he's an outstanding young man, excellent QB, and a great representative for the Mean Green.

Since Rogers has already transferred (twice I believe?), he would need a waiver from the NCAA to grad transfer if I understand the rules correctly. That being said, waivers have been pretty easy for big programs to get from the NCAA historically... although the NCAA is supposedly implementing tougher waiver guidelines based on their 2023 Convention. From the NCAA Transfer Rules Page ... Q13: What if the student-athlete transferred previously from another four-year school as an undergraduate student A13: Generally, a student-athlete who has previously transferred from another four-year school would not be able to use the one-time exception as a postgraduate transfer. However, a waiver process exists for postgraduate students with a previous transfer history.

From the SMU locker room... "Alright guys, we're not paying you thousands of dollars to go out and lose to a bunch of student athletes from up the freeway! Now go out there and earn your BMW's in the 2nd half!!" 🤣

What's even more bothersome is that SMU and other programs with mega-million NILs can come and buy our best players after each season, meaning programs like ours will be in a constant year-over-year rebuilding mode through the transfer portal trying to pick-up P5 scraps (Texas State style). I agree that I really see no reason to play SMU or any mega-million NIL school in the future. Let them play together and attempt to out-spend each other by throwing bad money over bad. So much for student athletes! 😄

SMU - 62 UNT - 24 This is going to be a beat down of epic proportions unfortunately 😐

Well sir, you've peaked my interest and I'd love to hear your thoughts. 🙂 I'm not sure if there is a purposeful undercurrent of non-support for athletics per se (I could be wrong here - I just haven't experienced it myself). Edit - I do accept that the downgrade to I-AA in the early '80's could be defined as purposeful non-support - or a horrible decision at a minimum. I see UNT's apathy problem simply as not having a multi-generational support vehicle like "big" programs have enjoyed. Think of how some high schools around Texas have huge support for a particular program, even when the program is having 1 or more down years. At my HS, it was marching band that had multi-generational, never-wavering support, and the support came from many, many years of success across generations. Some "big" programs also have that type of support (and subsequent t-shirt fans) where kids are born into a generational support vehicle for a program. UNT just hasn't had sustained, high-profile success across generations to create a large following. Apathy can be overcome (at least short term) by becoming high-profile ... having consecutive 10-win seasons, having a generational win (see App St. vs Michigan), having a Heisman candidate, or maybe a high-profile coach (see Colorado). I hope UNT hits on one of these eventually and then starts the process of larger-scale generational support.

Coach Morris mentioned that Landon Sides will probably start this week (Freshman WR) meaning that he won't be redshirted. Pretty impressive if Landon has moved up through the ranks of a deep WR room (not sure which slot guys might be hurt right now).

Agreed. Looking forward to today's press conference to see what kind of tone Morris has toward "we need to coach better" or "our players need to buy in and play better". When coaches start taking the 2nd tone (put crappy play on the players), you often see coaches start putting "their" recruited players into the mix and forego most of their "inherited" players from a previous regime.

La Tech - 51 UNT - 34 Won't be pretty... there's no fixing the defense this season.

While I agree 100% and also agree this would happen at D1 schools who really care about football, it won't happen at poor UNT. I hope we can score 70 against ACU and eeek out 1 win this year.

It won't change - this is just good 'ol incompetent North Texas. We'll continue to run this garbage defense out again and again with this foolish bunch of coaches.

UNT - 37 FIU - 31 I expect to see us move the ball more consistently 1st and 2nd half. I really don't think we can hold FIU's running game in check - hope I'm wrong, but I fear another big day for our opponent's running game.

Agreed - very nice and cordial fans. I could tell from the ones I spoke to that they were almost a little embarrassed by how badly Cal was beating UNT.

Well, given what I saw yesterday, we go from thinking we might have a 6-7 win team to hoping we can at least beat FIU and ACU. This will be a long season ... and I don't see what we can do other than continue giving, attending, and supporting. The coaches have to find players that can compete. Yesterday was one of the starker realizations that our players are simply not close to being at the same level as lower P5 (or upper G5). We are small and slow in comparison. Not sure if our coaching staff is either... but again, I can't change who Coach Morris brings in to run this circus.

Agreed - Stone didn't have an excellent game, but Cal was able to play pass-first defense after they figured out we couldn't run the ball. Our O-Line may be much better against a run-of-the-mill CUSA team, but Cal's D-Line dominated our guys today. Cal's LB's also filled gaps really well - they are fast and strong.

That play told me 2 things absolutely for sure. 1) Yes, the 3-man defense is a horrible defense for us to be playing - it gives us very little chance to win. 2) Even though Cal is not a good P5 team, they have guys that are absolutely bigger, stronger, faster, and more athletic than our guys. I don't like to admit it, but it is simply true. The way their OL pushed our defense *at least* 15 yards into the end zone on a simple between-the-tackles run was so embarrassing and showed just how big a difference in strength there is in our lines. But, kids get paid more to go to Cal than UNT, so not sure exactly what we're going to do about that.....

7-5 Regular Season (4-4 in American, 4-2 at DATCU, 3-3 on the road). Wins: FIU, LaTech, ACU, Navy, Temple, Memphis, UAB Losses: Cal, Tulane, UTSA, SMU, Tulsa End 8-5 after finally getting a bowl win 🙂