vpackrats

ANY name but a corporate sponsor is fine with me. Call me old school but college athletics -- alledgedly not-professional -- should be without corporate naming rights.

GREAT JOB STUDENTS!!!!!!

Well, you shouldn't be reminded of Southlake when you see the unis sir. Southlake is better.

I don't expect this to be too long of a thread because Smitty summed up EXACTLY my thoughts on the situation...and probably many others as well. I'm going to defer to Coach Dodge on what's best for the team because he knows a helluva lot better than little ol' me, but as far as I'm concerned, YIKES! We could have had Riley to QB us for 2 years and now he'll be the QB for one year (assuming Vizza plays all 4 years) ... just because we need a WR!?!? We need to save his talent for when we have a solid football team w/key contributors at important positions!

What about Shreveport? It's in LA so it's still LSU's territory. They have a decent stadium there w/the Independence Bowl & it's far enough inland to avoid really damaging weather. Yeah, it's a self-serving idea 'cuz I have 3 hotel rooms already booked there Friday night on the way down to Baton Rouge w/the guys, but it's not a bad idea.

Yeah, I agree. The coverage the DMN gave the game is pitiful. But at this point, I think the title thread should be "Dmn Coverage, Pitiful!" & make it an overall topic. The paper is now .75 cents a day instead of .50, the staff cutbacks are getting crazy & the sports section is getting smaller & smaller. Trust me, we're not the only ones getting shafted. The Texas Rangers have been in the middle of the paper with half-ass summaries & they've been the only game in town going for months. The problem is the shorter & less informed their articles get, the more people choose to get updates on the Internet & then they have to do more cuts & then more people go to the Internet ... and well, you get the idea.

Not only is the Cajun nickname offensive, they are Ragin Cajuns. The nerve!! Why do they have to be ragin?!? I fully support any & all schools who chose to fight the NCAA ridiculous ban on Indian nicknames. Seminoles, Chippawas, Utes & Illini are OK to keep using their nicknames, as per their Indian tribes. The problem with Arkansas State & La-Monroe is their nicknames were too generic. What Indian tribe can vouch for you when you are just the "Indians"?. Screw the NCAA & their P.C. police. That's my hot sports opinion for the night...

Kudos to both the North Texas & Navy players, coaches & staff for their awesome sportsmanship after the game. It looked like a little league game after 0:00 hit w/both benches emptying to shake hands & congratulate each other for a well fought game. Even better, it was classy for Coach Dodge & all our Mean Green players to walk over to the Academy's side to hear their song & then for the Navy players to reciprocate the favor & walk down w/our players to hear our band play the alma mater. Yeah, I know we lost but I just wanted to point out I haven't seen anything like that before & it was just really cool to see. Coach Dodge is teaching our guys to be good sportsmen & it goes w/o saying that the Naval Academy continues to supply our best & brightest to protect our country in the coming years. Great job everyone!! Wish sports had more of this...

Yeah, that sounds like some severe discrimination. Having to wear hats properly or no hats at all. Making them try & talk in a respectful manner. Etc. The nerve of the coaching staff!! Not only are they trying to coach these guys to win football games, they're trying to improve their chances for success in the real workforce when they graduate. How dare they teach them about manners & societal norms! Better to keep it real in the hood than to change. Because we all know that's the path to success. I'm glad 98% of this board thinks this is a load of manure & are supporting the coaching staff in these tough times.

Hey, wow ... MeanGreen 61 ... thanks for the picture! I'm cruising along reading this thread 'bout ready to go to bed & then I'm like, whoa, that's my kid's picture. I never would have known about the "meet your buddy" recap on the Athletics website if it weren't for that post. My wife is busy e-mailing the link to her folks as I'm typing this. Thanks again! I absolutely agree. Mean Green football IS fun for the whole family.

The "Meet Your Buddy" night was awesome. My 4 year old had a great time -- as did Daddy. The players were very happy to sign autographs, take pics, etc & were very appreciative of the support. It was a 2-way street though as I felt the same way about what they were doing. I'm sure the other people who attended thought the same way. The players were GREAT! As we're about to leave, here comes Todd Dodge down the hall & he hung out for awhile w/people, signed autographs, etc. I now have a great picture of my little squirt on Coach's lap. Sweet!! I'm telling you, Coach Dodge has gotten us more pub in 6 months than the last 8 years combined. He knows how to coach .. and make time for the little things too. Just an all-around good guy!

I wonder if Dr Phil reads this message board to do analysis of why some people are never happy. We set records for most total yards, most yards passing, most pass completions, etc but screw all that, "I want to win". OK ... fair enough. But we had years of posts on this website after beating Nicholls State or ULM or whatever 13-10 that the game was boring, yeah it was a win, but our QB sucked, our offense was vanilla & we have no playmakers, the whole situation sucks, etc. BUT, HEY, WE GOT THE WIN -- WHY WEREN'T WE HAPPY? I'm not in the mediation business but I figured out the only real solution to keep all posters happy: We need to have record offensive stats every game AND win each game like 47-0. That should keep everyone happy. I don't know ... maybe people at the game had a different perspective from people not there. All I know is it was the most intense ... and enjoyable regular season game I remember being at since the North Texas - NMSU game during Andrew Smith's season when we were playing for a berth in the New Orleans Bowl. The DART train was packed w/UNT fans ... we pretty much filled up a good portion of the visiting side stands ... people were LOUD. It was a GREAT game. Went down to the wire. Etc. Look man, I'm enjoying the ride. Saying the defensive coaches grace period is over after 2 weeks is ridiculous. Wouldn't you just love it if our jobs worked like that?! "Hey Bob -- your sales for GlobeCo suck since you've been here -- pack your crap up & leave". "But I've only been here 2 weeks sir. I was the #1 sales producer at Atler Industries". "Yeah, well, you're in the big leagues now. If you don't sell XXX widgits in the next week you're toast". "Sorry sir". Ahhh yes, good times.

Yeah, I'm glad we don't stoop to SMU's level when they call us NTSU all the time. Hmmm, wonder how many MUTS references will be coming up in the next few weeks. Or FAWho. Peace out.

I agree w/everyone else on this topic. Meager only threw for 601 yards & broke pretty much all the school records last night. That guy could have easily thrown for 700 yards last night if he was on his game. Also, he could have broken the all-time NCAA passing record in one game if he was a decent QB. But he didn't. My position is if Meager can't throw for 800+ yards a game & 7-8 TD's we need to bench him immediately. In fact, I say bench Meager & put in Ditka. Ditka would have thrown for 1000 yards on that horrible SMU secondary! Also, Ditka wouldn't even have needed an offensive line to block for him as he could scramble away from the defense all by himself. I say Ditka 104 SMU 45.

Ummmm, has anyone NOT gotten their tickets yet?!?

Nothing gets me on my soapbox faster than a Laura Miller thread about the Dallas Cowboys. BabyArm was on the money w/all his points (feels weird typing that). Anyway, is she not the worst mayor Dallas has had or what?!?! I remember Laura Miller commenting about Jerry's discussions w/Arlington & that it was fine by her because nobody would vote to give Jerry the kind of package he was wanting. Yeah, right ... another missed forecast by Madame No. And now Arlington will have the crown jewel in the region while Dallas will have zippo. Our mayor fiddled while Rome burned. Either that, or she wanted to prove she could be tough & stand up to a strong personality like Jones. Well, she sure did ... and the city will suffer for years because of it. But hey, this is from the same mayor who was vehemently against the AAC project because the developers promised all this development & after the AAC was open for a few years she carped about where's the development? where's the development? The city got sold a bill of goods, etc. Well, I wonder what she's saying now about the project? IDIOT! The Cowboys could have done the same thing for Dallas. How great would that stadium look framed up against downtown Dallas?!?!? I have to face the fact I live in a "can't do" city now. It goes for lots of things. Did we even TRY to keep the Dallas Burn in town? Nope ... see ya later. Now they're in Frisco. Having soccer games ... Jimmy Buffet concerts ... and so on. Could have been Dallas. Nokia Theatre? Could have been Dallas. It's just awful. Where's Ron Kirk when you need him? If he were mayor I guarantee you the Cowboys would be playing where they should be. Well, at least he gave us the AAC!

Plumm -- Glad you were able to take the joke on my little post earlier. You're a good guy. I swear, I try the same stuff on my fantasy football website & some guys think I just insulted everybody & started WW III. Game on! We now return this thread that I hijacked back to it's regularly scheduled topic. Do I think we can sign a blue chip QB this year? Um, no.

PlummMeanGreen writes: Who do we have who can fix all this from our state capital in Austin such as any specific legislators we could all call, write or email? Anyone have some suggestions with all that or some names and addresses from that group? I don't know but I think the state should be VERY interested in the progress of our football team. I hope Rick Perry can launch a full-scale investigation into this as soon as the election is over. Or maybe Kinky Freedman? He'll handle this problem ASAP! I encourage people not to vote for one tough Grandma though. Word is she's not that interested in appointing a committee to oversee the goings-on of UNT football. Actually, I do have a specific legislator we could call about this problem. I went on the Texas Senate website & determined after exhaustive research that this is our man: Senator Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa from District 20 (Mission, TX). That guy'll fix things, by god! If anyone wants to know the research I compiled during the 20 seconds of scouring the Texas Senate website, let me know.

OK, we get it. You don't like Dickey. Complain, complain, complain. Of course, when you're predicting an upset win over the defending national champions & it doesn't happen I guess the season is all downhill from there. Some of the people on this board are realists & don't expect a 10-2 or 11-1 season every time. That being said, that's not to say we want 4-8 either. In any case these rants are tiresome...why do I read them all the time? What's wrong w/me? Must ... stop .... myself .. from reading ... GG's posts ... can't ... hang ..on .....

Most of you probably know what I'm talking about but for those who don't, the NCAA instituted 2 significant rule changes designed to speed up the game (I guess the TV networks were getting tired of 3 hour 45 minute games). Obviously, since asking them to shorten their TV timeouts would be sacreligious, the new rules are as follows: (1) the clock starts when the ball is kicked off, not when it is received. (2) after changes of possession, once the ball is spotted by the refs on 1st and 10 the clock starts. I have no problem with the first one, but the second one, what the hell?? Listening to the post game show down in Austin, OC Greg Davis said the 'Horns ran approx 10-15 plays less because of the rule changes. I believe it! I was counting off the seconds while sitting in the stands & sure enough, every change of possession approx 20 seconds ran off the clock before the 1st down ball was snapped. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is a great motto. Well, they changed it & I think to the detriment of the overall game. But that's just me. I'm interesting in hearing what YOU think ...

JohnDenver -- trust me, that thing is NOT rigged! Why?? Because I'm not only a client, I'm also a winner. (OK, maybe not the best riff off the Hair Club for Men commercial but I tried my best). Anyway, before last year and the "high dollar Denton lawyer" winning it, little ol' me won the initial Regal Eagle raffle & I wouldn't classify me as a high-dollar anything. When they called me to annouce I had won I was floored. (Y'know the usual "I've never won anything in my life. This is so COOL" kind of speech). Long story short, it was a BLAST!! Sure, I think UNT was initially apprenhensive about turning over their million-dollar bus to a bunch of fraternity guys in their late 20's & early 30's that loved to drink quite a few cold totties but everything couldn't have gone smoother!! (and we did behave ourselves ). It's a first class bus & I encourage everyone to buy tickets because, win or lose, it goes to a WORTHY cause. If there's any rigging going on, it would be THIS year, if my name gets pulled out of the hat. They'd probably throw it back because if I won it again people would really start thinking it's rigged & they need to avoid that!!

Umm, I don't know about the historic victory, but I do have 3 rooms reserved at the hotel. For those of you going to the game, this is an excellent location to stay at. (Right next to Disch-Falk Field & within easy walking distance of the stadium) -- no need to jack w/the parking if you stay at the hotel.

Boy, I don't know about the rest of you but I sure miss the ol' "200 acres of rolling prarie between 2 interstates / life is great in Mean Green Country" Plumm. He's been replaced by the "Grassy Knoll / Bobby Ray is in cahoots with the state of Kansas / Area 51 / Marfa Lights / we couldn't beat CalTech" Plumm. Y'know, we learned in UNT Government Class the definition of a "filibuster" and how that plays out in the Senate. Plumm's giving us his version of a filibuster in almost every thread on the board. Ok, we get it. You're not happy w/the current admin.

Hey, I swear KingDL1 & I had no collusion in those exact same attendance figures. We were just thinking the same things & hit enter back to back. Guess great minds think alike!

19,000 at the game?! I know that was the announced attendance but that seems pretty inflated to me (and I was the one starting a thread last week complimenting North Texas for NOT padding the attendance figures). Looked more like 15K to 16K to me!