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Link: http://conferenceusa.com/news/2018/7/16/football-fb-2018-preseason-awards.aspx FB: 2018 Preseason Awards July 16, 2018 A trio of standouts headline the list of 2018 preseason Conference USA Football award winners, as chosen by the league’s 14 head coaches. Florida Atlantic junior RB Devin Singletary was selected as the C-USA Offensive Player of the Year, Florida Atlantic senior LB Azeez Al-Shaair was tabbed the Defensive Player of the Year, while Southern Miss senior K Parker Shaunfield earned Special Teams Player of the Year honors. 2018_Preseason_Awards "Motor" Singletary was named C-USA Most Valuable Player last season after scoring a nation-leading 32 rushing touchdowns last season (nine more than any other player) and 33 total TDs (five more than any other player). He scored more rushing touchdowns last year (32) than previous school career record-holder Alfred Morris had in four years from 2008-11 (27). Singletary also topped 100 yards in each of the final 11 games of the season for the Owls. Both the rushing TD’s and total TD’s are new C-USA records in those categories, breaking records held by UCF RB Kevin Smith, now his running backs coach. Singletary finished fifth nationally with 1,920 rushing yards and FAU was sixth nationally in rushing at 285.9 yards per game. Al-Shaair was a first team All-Conference USA selection in 2017 after he set a new Florida Atlantic single-season record with 147 tackles. He posted nine games with double-digit stops and also helped the defense with 11 tackles for loss, 2.5 sacks, four passes defended and one forced fumble. Al-Shaair already holds the schools’ career tackles mark with 354. Shaunfield converted the first 89 extra-point attempts to start his career (a school record) and is now 104-for-106 all-time as a Golden Eagle. The first team All-C-USA performer converted 17-of-20 field goals last season, including 15 in a row at one point. Shaunfield was a semifinalist for the Lou Groza Award in 2017. Defending conference champion Florida Atlantic had the most overall preseason selections with six, while Marshall produced five and Louisiana Tech and Middle Tennessee each had players comprising four spots. Eight schools had multiple players named to the squad. The league’s 23rd football season begins on Thursday, August 30. The 14th annual Conference USA Football Championship Game, pitting the champions of the East and West Divisions, will be held Saturday, Dec. 1. The C-USA Media Poll (Predicted Order of Finish) will be released on Tuesday. 2018 C-USA FOOTBALL COACHES PRESEASON AWARDS OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR Devin Singletary, Jr., RB, Florida Atlantic DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR Azeez Al-Shaair, Sr., LB, Florida Atlantic SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE YEAR Parker Shaunfield, Sr., K, Southern Miss OFFENSE QB Mason Fine, Jr., North Texas QB Brent Stockstill, Sr., Middle Tennessee RB Spencer Brown, So., UAB RB Devin Singletary, Jr., Florida Atlantic OL Reggie Bain, Sr., Florida Atlantic OL Chandler Brewer, Sr., Middle Tennessee OL Jordan Budwig, Sr., FIU OL Levi Brown, Jr., Marshall OL O’Shea Dugas, Sr., Louisiana Tech TE Harrison Bryant, Jr., Florida Atlantic WR Tyre Brady, Sr., Marshall WR Jalen Guyton, Sr., North Texas WR Ty Lee, Jr., Middle Tennessee WR Teddy Veal, Sr., Louisiana Tech DEFENSE DL Jaylon Ferguson, So., Louisiana Tech DL Fermin Silva, Sr., FIU DL Kevin Strong, Jr., Sr., UTSA DL Oshane Ximines, Jr., Old Dominion LB Azeez Al-Shaair, Sr., Florida Atlantic LB Khalil Brooks, Jr., Middle Tennessee LB Chase Hancock, Sr., Marshall LB Josiah Tauaefa, Jr., UTSA DB Ben DeLuca, Jr., Charlotte DB Malik Gant, Jr., Marshall DB Shelton Lewis, Sr., Florida Atlantic DB Amik Robertson, So., Louisiana Tech DB Jalen Young, Sr., Florida Atlantic SPECIAL TEAMS K Parker Shaunfield, Sr., Southern Miss P Jack Fox, Sr., Rice KR Isaiah Harper, Sr., Old Dominion PR Darrell Brown, Jr., Old Dominion LS Matt Beardall, Jr., Marshall

HUNTINGTON - On paper, it appears that Florida Atlantic should run through Conference USA in 2018. It isn't an unfounded thought, considering the Owls' tightest football game the last three months of the season was a 30-25 home win over Marshall in which the Owls used their defense to force turnovers and keep the Thundering Herd at arm's length, leading for two scores for much of the contest with the Herd battling to get back in it. For all intents, THAT was a young Florida Atlantic team. Young talent, new coaching staff, new schemes. Now, head coach Lane Kiffin has expectations in his second year, and many of those are on the national level, not just Conference USA. There are reasons for that. FAU returns third-team All-American Devin Singletary at running back and 10 defensive starters from a unit that gave up yardage but forced many turnovers to negate the yards allowed. However, the supposed walk through Conference USA will not be an easy trek for the Owls, given some of the things they will have to endure in the 2018 campaign. read more: http://www.williamsondailynews.com/sports/loaded-fau-will-be-aiming-for-a-repeat/article_809cdb96-a9b9-592d-9e9f-4226d923f17b.html

As North Texas prepared for its CBI opener at South Dakota, Grant McCasland had a problem. The Mean Green were limping when they accepted the tournament invite, having lost seven of their last eight games. McCasland had a dynamic, slashing playmaker in sophomore point guard Ryan Woolridge but the court had shrunk around him. UNT had shot just 28.3 percent from three in the previous four games, and McCasland needed to create space for his lead guard. As the morning shoot around unfolded, junior guard Michael Miller missed shot after shot. McCasland couldn’t take his eyes off of him. “I saw him staring at me and I was thinking, ‘what’s going on?’” Miller said. What was going on was that McCasland had come up with an idea to fix his team’s sagging offense. The first-year UNT coach called over Jon Trilli, his Director of Basketball Operations, and bounced the idea of him. It was out there. Miller, who had made just three of his 23 three-point attempts, would be given the green light from deep against a tough Coyotes’ defense. And he’d have to shoot them with his right hand, which for most players would go unsaid. Except Miller was a left-handed shooter. Miller was told to switch to his normally non-dominant hand the rest of the shootaround. He immediately made six shots in a row, missed one and then made four more in succession. That’s when McCasland called him over. “I told Mike, ‘here’s the deal: I’m going to start you tonight and I want you to shoot eight three pointers and I don’t care if you make them,’” McCasland said. Miller didn’t hit the quota, but it paid off. That night, he scored 19 points and went 4-5 from three, more than doubling his season output from distance. It helped the Mean Green knock off a 26-win South Dakota team, and started them on the path to a CBI championship. read more: https://www.midmajormadness.com/2018/7/13/17551840/michael-miller-switch-hands-shooting-north-texas-unt-basketball-mean-green-mccasland-cbi-champions

Put any coach in front of a microphone and ask him if stars matter and he’ll probably say one or all of the following: “We don’t look at that stuff.” “We trust our own evaluations.” “Give me a 5-star heart any day.” College football coaches are a pathologically competitive lot and recruiting is the lifeblood of the sport, but they don’t care about recruiting rankings? Look at it this way: You could build a pretty solid roster of NFL players taken in the fifth round or beyond, but you’d be nuts to take that roster over a roster of first-round picks. Being a 5-star recruit in and of itself guarantees you nothing, but in the aggregate, a 5-star is much more likely to succeed at the college level than a 2-star. Don’t ask me, ask the data. read more: http://footballscoop.com/news/stars-matter-recruiting-data-says/

Broken Arrow coach David Alexander said during spring practice about Roland, "I’ve never had a player come so far as Demeco has. When he was a sophomore when he first got over here after wrestling I didn’t think that he was going to stick it out, sometime after wrestling in April he just decided he wanted to be a good football player. Demeco has transformed his body, he weighs 290, looks like 265. ... He's going to be a breakout guy, there's no doubt about it. He had a great winter, he looks great." Read more: https://www.tulsaworld.com/communities/brokenarrow/high-schools-broken-arrow-s-demeco-roland-commits-to-north/article_5a7842f5-c94b-5754-94b7-16a086736bd7.html

"What sold me on UNT was not only the fact that it’s a Division I school and in an amazing conference, but the love that I felt from both the track and the basketball coaches right away," said Henderson, who recently graduated from Martin. "My trainer told me to go where I was most wanted and I definitely feel like I belong at UNT. The coaches and teammates from both programs will look out and support me." She received an offer from UNT track first to run and compete in the triple jump, but she waited because she always loved basketball. The coaches finally reached out to the UNT girls basketball team. She'll be one of eight on the roster from Dallas-Fort Worth. The others include Mansfield Timberview's Terriell Bradley and Arlington Bowie's Jasmyne Robinson. "I didn’t have any doubts of getting a scholarship because I had plenty of great offers," Henderson said. "It took awhile, but once everything fell into place for me to be able to play both sports, I knew UNT was where I had to be." Read more here: https://www.star-telegram.com/sports/dfwvarsity/girls-prep-basketball/article214176869.html#storylink=cpy read more: https://www.star-telegram.com/sports/dfwvarsity/girls-prep-basketball/article214176869.html Read more here: https://www.star-telegram.com/sports/dfwvarsity/girls-prep-basketball/article214176869.html#storylink=cpy

Joe Greene met his wife Agnes at the University of North Texas over 50 years ago. This summer, Joe Greene was back near campus to announce the start of the Agnes Lucille Craft Greene Memorial Scholarship named in his late wife's honor. Agnes Greene passed away after battling breast cancer in 2015. The scholarships will be presented annually to students at North Texas whose parents have battled cancer, with breast cancer "being a particular focus since that tragically took her life." “Not only the scholarship, but my kids, Major, Delon and JoQuel, they wanted to honor their mother in that way, to put a scholarship in her name at her school that she loved so much, to provide assistance to young people whose parents also had issues with cancer,” Greene said, via Steelers.com's Teresa Varley. “It’s a doubly important angle. It’s honoring her, and helping others. It’s important for me that Agnes, her name will be serving a wonderful purpose at North Texas and students will have an opportunity to extend their education. read more: https://247sports.com/nfl/pittsburgh-steelers/Article/Pittsburgh-Steelers-Joe-Greene-honors-late-wife-with-scholarship-fund-119551445/

Moore is a Hall of Fame football coach who won 215 games at App State from 1989-2012. He led the Mountaineers to three straight national championships from 2005-07, directed the historic 34-32 road upset of Michigan to begin the 2007 season and helped Appalachian capture 10 conference championships in 24 seasons. “The thing that happens to you when you stay some place for as long as we have, it becomes dear to you in a lot of ways — a lot more than wins and losses,” Moore said. “There’s so many things that happen in your life, so many things you have memories of that are everlasting, more and more so with 34-32 in front of 109,218 people. “My family and I can’t thank you enough for an honor like this. It truly is an honor.” Long-time Yosef Club member Robert Fox presented the award to Moore, who was greeted by hugs from family members and friends as the sold-out crowd stood to applaud. Moore first arrived in Boone following stints as a coach at five colleges, including time as the head coach at both North Texas and Texas Tech in the 1980s. He has been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, the Southern Conference Hall of Fame and the Appalachian State Athletics Hall of Fame. read more: https://www.hcpress.com/news/former-app-state-football-head-coach-jerry-moore-awarded-the-order-of-the-long-leaf-pine.html

read more: https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/for-kansas-football-to-succeed-its-next-coach-must-be-able-to-afford-to-fail/

21. Mason Fine, Jr. North Texas A smallish, fun baller, he'll be at the helm of one of college football's most dangerous offenses, coming off a 4,052-yard, 31-score season. Get ready for him to bomb away and push for a 40-touchdown pass campaign for the electrifying attack. read more: https://a.msn.com/r/2/AAzvFfC?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare

Date North Texas Opponent Location Time/Network Official/Fan Website 09/01/18 vs. SMU Denton, Texas 6:30PM CST Stadium SMU Official Football Site Ponyfans.com Football Fan Site 09/08/18 vs. Incarnate Word Denton, Texas 6:30PM CST ESPN+ Incarnate Word Official Football Site 09/15/18 @Arkansas Fayetteville, Arkansas 3PM CST SEC Network Alt Arkansas Official Football Site Hogville Fan Site 09/22/18 @Liberty Lynchburg, Virginia 5PM CST Liberty Official Football Site A Sea of Red Fan Site 09/29/18 vs. Louisiana Tech Denton, Texas 6:30PM CST beIN La. Tech Official Football Site Bulldawg Bark and Bytes Fan Site 10/06/18 @UTEP El Paso, Texas 6:30PM CST beIN UTEP Official Football Site MinerDigs Fan Site 10/13/18 vs. Southern Miss Denton, Texas 1PM CST ESPN3 USM Official Football Site The Perch Fan Site 10/20/18 @UAB Birmingham, Alabama 6:30PM CST beIN UAB Official Football Site Blazer Talk Fan Site 10/27/18 vs. Rice Denton, Texas 3PM CST ESPN+ Rice Official Football Site The Parliament Fan Site 11/10/18 @Old Dominion Norfolk, Virginia 2:30PM CST ESPN3 ODU Official Football Site Lion's Den Fan Site 11/15/2018 vs. Florida Atlantic Denton, Texas 8:30PM CST CBSSN FAU Official Football Site FAU Owl's Nest Fan Site 11/24/2018 @Texas San Antonio San Antonio, Texas 6PM CST ESPN+ UTSA Official Football Site Rowdy Talk Fan Site * Home games denoted in bold

read more: https://247sports.com/college/southern-methodist/Article/College-football-SMUs-2018-opponents-at-a-glance-North-Texas-118765762

Thoughts?

May 23, 2018 NASHVILLE – Junior quarterback Mason Fineheadlines a group of eight North Texas players named to Athlon Sports’ preseason all Conference USA teams. Fine was selected as the first team quarterback following his breakout season a year ago. The Peggs, Oklahoma, native set single-season program records in passing yards (4,052), passing touchdowns (31), completions (324) and pass attempts (511) on his way to C-USA Offensive Player of the Year honors. He had 17 touchdowns of 20-yards or more, six of which went for 50-plus yards. Four Mean Green players were selected to the second team, with wide receiver Jalen Guyton, tight end Kelvin Smith and Elex Woodworth doing so offensively and defensive lineman Roderick Youngrepresenting the defense. Guyton, last season’s C-USA co-Newcomer of the Year, hauled in 49 catches for 775 yards and a team-high nine touchdowns in 13 appearances in 2017. He averaged 15.8 yards per catch during his first season in Denton. Smith was versatile for North Texas in 2017, factoring heavily in both the passing and running games, while also featuring on several special teams units. He caught 27 passes for 264 yards last season. Woodworth started all 14 games for North Texas and appeared at guard and tackle at different points throughout the season. Young was a key disruptor along the defensive line, finishing with 48 total stops, 6.5 tackles for loss with a pair of sacks and eight quarterback hurries. Three more North Texas players were selected to the third team, with running back Nic Smith and center Sosaia Mose representing the offense and linebacker E.J. Ejiya doing so defensively. Smith carried 138 times for 684 yards and added eight total touchdowns in a backup role last year. Mose appeared in 13 games, making 11 starts for the Mean Green and was instrumental in paving the way for the Mean Green’s potent rushing attack. Ejiya was the team’s leading tackler with 109 total tackles, 12.0 tackles for loss and a team-best 7.0 sacks with a forced fumble. Athlon also projected the Mean Green to repeat as C-USA Western division champions in 2018. North Texas kicks off the 2018 season against Metroplex rival SMU on Saturday, Sept. 1, on the new surface at Apogee Stadium. Season tickets for 2018 are on sale and fans can purchase tickets through the Mean Green athletics ticket office. For more information, visit MeanGreenSports.com or call the ticket office at 940-565-2527 or 800-868-2366. Link: http://www.meangreensports.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/052318aaa.html

MEAN GREEN FOOTBALL Apogee Turf Project Underway UNT Athletics Installing Cool Play Turf In Apogee Stadium DENTON – Apogee Stadium will receive a new, innovative playing surface for the 2018 football season, North Texas Vice President and Director of Athletics Wren Baker announced Monday. “We are very excited to be updating Apogee Stadium with new turf,” Baker said. “This new surface, featuring cutting-edge technology, will be safer for our student-athletes. The dynamic design elements will also help elevate the UNT brand for both fans inside the stadium and watching worldwide. I can’t wait to see the finished product on September 1 as we open the season at home against SMU.” Phase One of the facility upgrade is expected to be completed by June 1, with the end zone portion of the project concluding in early August after the custom color for the end zones is manufactured. Apogee Stadium will be equipped with the FieldTurf Cool Play surface, which features an extruded composite-top dressing that keeps the surface 35 degrees cooler than traditional sand/rubber infill systems, according to independent laboratory results. The extruded composite top layer is durable, shock absorbing and takes on far less heat than other alternatives, helping provide a safer surface. Other FBS institutions utilizing this technology include Notre Dame, Georgia, Maryland, Nebraska, Arizona and Tulsa. Another new design element features recognition of the department’s mission statement, “Building Champions and Preparing Leaders,” which will appear on the visitor sideline. “We have established our mission is to Build Champions and Prepare Leaders,” Baker said. “Our supporters, coaches and athletes have embraced this mission and we want all visitors to Apogee to know what our focus is.” The iconic diving-eagle logo will remain at midfield, but will now be atop a shaded outline of Texas. “The diving eagle is our signature logo and is both regionally and nationally recognized with the University of North Texas,” Baker said. “The shaded Texas outline shows our commitment to recruit Texas as well as our commitment to defend and promote our home state.” For the first time, the end zones at Apogee will be Kelly green with North Texas and Mean Green prominently displayed on each end of the field. The UNT logo will be displayed twice, on the 25-yard lines opposite from the Conference USA logo, to provide national branding to the university. This is the first time UNT has been featured on the turf. The conference logo is green, white and gray, while the UNT logo is white. The average artificial field surface is replaced every six to eight years, and the 2017 season was the seventh for Apogee’s original turf. The athletic department’s commitment to player safety coupled with the condition of the existing turf has led North Texas athletics to make this change ahead of the 2018 season. North Texas kicks off the 2018 season against Metroplex rival SMU on Saturday, Sept. 1, on the new surface at Apogee Stadium. Season tickets for 2018 are on sale and fans can purchase tickets through the Mean Green athletics ticket office. For more information, visit MeanGreenSports.com or call the ticket office at 940-565-2527 or 800-868-2366.

Frisco and University of North Texas officials on Tuesday unveiled a plan for a 5,000-student branch. But the plan to add one more university campus to a North Texas region already served by almost 40 traditional colleges and universities has some lawmakers and education officials vowing to look closely at the plan before giving it their support. In a series of unanimous votes Tuesday, Frisco, two city entities and the UNT System board of regents paved the way for UNT to open the branch campus on Preston Road near the Dallas North Tollway. The votes call for UNT to begin construction by March 31, 2022, on land owned by Frisco entities at the southwest corner of Panther Creek Parkway and Preston Road. The branch would serve at least 5,000 students. Bringing a four-year university to Frisco has long been a goal of city leaders. "We couldn't be any more excited about what this partnership means for our community, for our businesses, for our residents and for our children here in Frisco to have these kinds of opportunities right here in their own backyard," Mayor Jeff Cheney said. The new branch would need approval from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board or the Legislature. read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/higher-education/2018/05/01/unt-frisco-city-leaders-approve-plan-build-new-branch

Lesa Benton Roe’s mother discouraged her from going to college. No one in the Benton family — not even Lesa’s older brother and sister — had made it past high school. And her mother, a switchboard operator in Gainesville, Fla., feared that her youngest couldn’t cut it, even though Lesa was a straight-A student. “She was trying to brace me for failure,” Roe says. “But I had an internal drive to be something more.” Fortunately, Roe listened to her father, a groundskeeper for the Veterans Administration who had always regretted not having a college degree and expected her get one. She got two — an undergraduate degree and a master’s of science in electrical engineering. She didn’t really know what engineers did until she got a co-op job at NASA while studying at the University of Florida. During Roe’s 33-year meteoric career at NASA, she broke gender barriers and reshaped the way things got done at the $19.6 billion agency — making operations run smoother and more efficiently. She rose to second in command as acting deputy administrator when she retired in October and headed to Dallas. Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2018/04/27/lesa-benton-roe-nasa-superstar-first-woman-unt-chancellor

The Denton Record-Chronicle has been honored for producing one of the best sports special sections for newspapers of its size nationally in the annual Associated Press Sports Editors contest for work produced in 2017. http://www.dentonrc.com/sports/mean-green/2018/04/16/denton-record-chronicle-vito-gamel-honored-apse http://www.dentonrc.com/news/denton/2018/04/15/record-chronicle-earns-16-awards-2017-coverage Congrats to Brett and the DRC!

Hello mates, Mean Green fan and graduate of '79 reaching out to you from across the pond. Does any one think that UNT to the Big 12 is even a remote possibility within the next decade? Granted, the conference might not exist by then but I've heard that a potential membership would require our athletic department to net over $25 million annually to even be considered. Surely with the development efforts we've seen in the last two years (both on the court/field/etc. and in the business side), it is not THAT crazy to believe we can be competing in a power five conference. Why not UNT and UH? Adding two state schools with more than 38,000 students and a demonstrable upward trajectory in multiple sports seems like a win-win in a few years. Not to mention, adding UH to the Big 12 could possibly hurt TAMUS recruiting which I am sure more than a few current Big 12 member schools would like.