Legend500

To celebrate our glorious victory over SMU and Arkansas, I did a thing: I bought a domain, which is far too un-Christian to spell-out here, but if you're looking for to it, it's here. Where should I forward it to? Right now, it just goes to this. If the link is not showing up when rolled over, it's just the best line of the chant in the middle of the fight song. Regards, A Gentleman.

National Emblem has been used at UNT since NTSTC, at least. It's more of a tradition than Fly is, certainly. Still, the Mickey Mouse March choice is ... odd. Unless Dr. Williams is trolling, in which case I can fully respect that. The entrance has improved. In that there is a semblance of one. I do like the attempt to get the fans to learn the band cheers, but UNT needs to use unique ones - not the same ones every band at every level except pro uses. Hell, even UTEP does a great job of this, their Out in The West Texas Town to the theme of Texas Fight is absolutely superb. I don't have to expand on the fact that UNT has a slightly higher music rep than UTEP has, right? Notice: This whole conversation goes into the folder of "Extraordinarily Good Problems to be Bitching About."

In the eternal words of George Takei... Ohhhh Myyyyy

It would be good to have a place in the vast wasteland which is bordered by 121, Loop 12, and Preston. For real association rules football, I usually go to the Londoner, but I'm sure somebody's already claimed that one.

Saw several of the Shuttles stuck in the Blue Armageddon on Bonnie Brae. Not surprised there were problems. I've used the gameday shuttles before to get from the train to Apogee, and they were usually quite good, but this clearly was mucked-up by the new parking situation. Again, this is by far the sort of problem I've always wanted at UNT, so that's good. Seems like Athletics has already gotten on the ball to try to fix it as well.

Spot on. This obsession with those dastardly kids at SMU thwarting our every move is really quite old, and hasn't been accurate for some time now. Especially in the case of the American, the biggest opposition doesn't even come from anywhere close to Texas - it's the concern that having too many non-P5 Texas programs in one conference makes selling games nationally an impossibility, and makes the conference unbalanced. In SMU's specific case, they'd love nothing more to replace going to UCONN with us - it offers better home exposure, gives them another week on the schedule, allows them to save a bucket of money, lets them sell 8 "home" games to their fan and recruits, and gives them a pretty full stadium once every two years. The last round of realignment was all about geography for the G6 (poor, dearly departed WAC) - Mountain West didn't kick the tires in El Paso because the Miners would add football value, but rather because it lets TV package another "early" game for national audiences while giving the MW a chance in the Texas recruiting market. American didn't add Tulane because of sterling on-field performance. The 2023 round is going to be much different - with three new trends significantly impacting what happens. Unlike in previous rounds, ESPN won't have the money to bribe Group conferences to arrange themselves in a pleasing manner for network schedulers. Also, viewership is time-shifting and going online: this means that giving you advertisers a good Nielson rating matters much less in the next round that it used to. Finally, the megaconference is out there, and may be the only choice for teams who are truly elite programs but trapped in unfavorable situations (hi Notre Dame and Texas!). So everyone here has been right - you need to move up (even though it's like going from a soggy deck chair to a moist one on the Titanic), you need to work on what you can do to make things better (facilities and winning), and you need to try new things. As they are, the American, CUSA, Sun Belt and XII are all terribly unstable creations of network programmers who are losing money and power. That won't last much longer.

Hi. The official attendance was 41,288. What you do is you take the number of people in line at La Mad, double that, add everyone in the stands, sextuple that, add in the number of people who pass by on 75 during the 3 hours of the game, and then round to the next highest 41,288. Meanwhile our game was well attended. According to pony rules, we had our usual 97,081.

129 is way too high. In fact, after last weekend, San Jose, ECU and Kansas are all too highly ranked. I thing SMU and Rice suffered too much for their losses - SMU ran into a team they were simply outclassed by, and Rice showed great ability sticking with Houston. But then again, that Rice v Prairie View game. Ok, they're fine. At a certain point, one cannot dig any deeper. UTEP, to their credit as Miners, clearly want to see how deep you can go. The Ponies won't be able to match that level of dedication.

I'm absolutely thrilled that we have to worry about problems like this and hope they get worse in the future. That said, the situation with the Blue Lot was unacceptable. Having only one person standing there was completely insane, there was little traffic control when the backup reached 35, and there is the ongoing concern about devaluing the Blue pass. They just seemed completely unprepared.

I'm really conflicted. I've plenty of friends who did their undergrad there before coming over to St. Mary's for law, and I think that Jim's is slightly cleaner than the rest but not as good as the one off Huebner. Still, it's the St. Mary's v. Incarnate Word rivalry... so I'm hyped.

The running game needs work, and this is the time to do it. Backups go in in the 3rd, poop the bed less than they did against SMU. 38-17 Green.

I've been following Incarnate Word since they started a decade ago (at the time the only team in San Antonio). The program is good, but was originally kind of a vanity project for a particular alumnus who wanted to bring college football to SA since the NFL is never going. UTSA kinda screwed up that plan, but it's still got an ok program, and I really liked the Morris hire. A few more years, and this would be a job interview for him.

Really really, we're burning through money at the rate of about $4.2 million a year - and we've now got the 5th most expensive program of public schools in the state, with the largest deficit of any school. It's still only about a 13% deficit to income ratio, but that's piling up annually, and needs to get corralled at some point. Startlegram had a good article on it: https://www.star-telegram.com/sports/college/article202356619.html

Exactly what I was gonna say. It's already planned, but the problem isn't really numbers or visiting teams related, it's that we've got an athletics department which is deeply in debt and needs to dig out of that before it starts thinking about the moon. Not sure if the long effort to bring baseball would override this - there is a contingent of people who feel that adding men's soccer would be a far wiser long-term goal for the department.

I recall one of my first development meetings with Arts & Sciences - being briefed on some program or the other, I made the huge rookie mistake of asking how our programs compared to peer institutions, such as UTA, UTD, and SMU, plus the other flagships. Stone-cold, immediate response by random tenured professor with a slight French accent who sounded like he was tired of saying it: "SMU is not, academically, a peer institution. They have neither the necessary masters nor doctoral programs in the relevant fields, and lack research which would be expected of institutions even of their caliber." I have never been so aroused. But facts are much less important that perception these days. And the perception remains somewhat muddled. I don't blame SMU fans for feeling the way they do - again the perception overrides their knowledge of the facts - but I do think it only ends in them combusting quite enthusiastically when the perception is shattered. Most of their active alumni are still from the 70's, and that was a much different world than the one we now inhabit. The athletically #1 school in the region now swings back and forth between #2-3, and academically... they're playing between #4 and #5. The only thing that helps these days is that they were saved by building a library to a non-alum, a library and institute which actually have no formal relationship to the university. That's a tough pill to swallow - far harder even than UTEP, UNT and Houston (initially) being stonewalled from the SWC because they integrated first. I don't blame them at all, and I'd be equally pissed. I would be, if I didn't have a wise admissions counselor at my tony North Dallas private high school level with me and say that I could go to SMU or UNT, but I should probably pick the one that was 1/10th the cost and had more programs on offer. Owe that man a lot.

We'd do much better if we moved the UNT-SMU game to Texas Stadium. Where is that "duck" emoticon?

I don't blame anyone who's been around the program for a while for being suspicious at the hype. We've seen it before - The big home wins for the first in a series of championships against NMSU, plastering SMU and Baylor, those heights were matched with things like the incredible 7-OT game against FIU, where both teams were so bad nobody could win. It was actually funny after the 4th OT... like two pensioners trying to beat each other to death with oxygen tanks they couldn't pick up. So I'm quite reserved in my expectations, but there's two things that absolutely have to happen - beating SMU, and bowling. The rest is mere background.

Hi. I don't know why the Ticket thinks we care about some religious commuter school that isn't even a research university. Ugh, Ticket San Antonio is probably also running ads for Incarnate Word's game in Denton. I mean, the difference between SMU and Incarnate Word is that at least Incarnate Word has a Central Market next door. SMU has a 7-11. They don't run ads for our basketball games versus UTA, and that's an actual... university. I'm also a St. Mary's alum, so I'm quite happy that we play two "rival" teams for preseason before starting the season proper. At least Incarnate Word is the best college team in SA.

Good gods, this place has become like PonyFans when they talk about us. Anyways, I promised myself I'd never come back until we made it back into the NO Bowl, so here I be. Do we really need a 4th home field in DFW? Apogee, Ford and the Cotton Bowl are already great for us. Plus, It'd be funny for us to go to Toyota Stadium asking for a fair share for our fan turnout vs. the Ponies - we get 19750 tickets, they get 250. University Bowl. Only a few exits down from campus, and you can avoid the Huebner traffic. Plus, the Goodwill in the parking lot has a tech store.

I have been gone for some time. And now that I am in Boston, it will be difficult to attend anything. But Rick, as bad as he may be now, still has a permanent bye. Apogee, CUSA and 10 years of SMU. In the dark days of 2005, I would have killed for any one of those three. So some perspective is in order. Mac has had a thing for McNulty for years, and it's been costing us games for a few years. We need a coach who can dump his boy and his pride. The shame is I like Mac. There should be nothing like what ran Darryl out (I would have bought him a cake, too). No pity for someone who just couldn't do the job, like Todd. Mac needs a inning season, or he';s gone.

As far as potential and actual rivalries go: We have 2-3 "natural" rivals - SMU, TCU and either Baylor or TTU. We have 1 "special case" rival - UTEP, being the only other non-SWC (while it was around) Texas school. 5 "historical" rivals (teams we've played the most) - NMSU, Tulsa, UTEP, Memphis & Cincy. ...and 4 potential "they're a lot like us" rivals - UTSA, TxSt, MTSU & FIU. I don't like the "they passed us/they're too young rivals" because that would include everyone in the state except Texas, A&M, Baylor and TCU.

Wait - after SMU we have to play more games?

Oh, I can hear the Pony cry! It's not hard to wonder why. Tho' they lost to the worst, In a conference hardly first, They still thought they had chance! HA! HA! HA! Now they can wait for the fall, And try to play real foot-ball, 'Cause when it come to the Dance, They've never had a chance, Even Mavericks* can play better ball! *UTA

I don't know what playing SMU gets us. Beating a team which can barely handle FCS teams does us no favors, and playing a barely research university (on the same academic level as UTEP) with less masters degrees than the University of Phoenix hurts our university's academic prestige. I'm enjoying this too much.

As a Jesuit grad, all I want is looser recruiting & rules, and I'm ok with everything else.