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The 88 Robbery

Cooley

By Cooley
in Mean Green Football

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drex Experienced

drex

Posted
Posted

The significance of this game cannot be belittled. Had we beaten Texas, it would have had a profound influence of how the North Texas program was perceived by the general sports public in Texas and beyond. Another robbery that would have had the same positive affect for NT was the Arkansas robbery of 1968. These wins that were taken from us could have profoundly impacted recruiting.

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Mean Green Matt Veteran

Mean Green Matt

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Posted

The significance of this game cannot be belittled. Had we beaten Texas, it would have had a profound influence of how the North Texas program was perceived by the general sports public in Texas and beyond. Another robbery that would have had the same positive affect for NT was the Arkansas robbery of 1968. These wins that were taken from us could have profoundly impacted recruiting.

I've heard this argument made by a few different people on and off this board, but I have to disagree. NT has been it's own worst enemy for many decades now. While those two wins could've had a short term impact, I'm not entirely convinced it would've changed the way athletics were treated at NT over the long term.

Programs are rarely defined by a single win. ULM beat alabama a years ago and has not found any material increase in relevance over the decade since.

It's been 26 years since the loss at Texas. 26 years. There have been plenty of opportunities over that period for the program to build some momentum. Instead, we have not beaten a ranked team in a major sport since the mid 1970's. I put more blame on decades of apathy from our administration than a few boneheaded referees decisions 2-5 decades ago.

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HoustonEagle Enthusiast

HoustonEagle

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I've heard this argument made by a few different people on and off this board, but I have to disagree. NT has been it's own worst enemy for many decades now. While those two wins could've had a short term impact, I'm not entirely convinced it would've changed the way athletics were treated at NT over the long term.

Programs are rarely defined by a single win. ULM beat alabama a years ago and has not found any material increase in relevance over the decade since.

It's been 26 years since the loss at Texas. 26 years. There have been plenty of opportunities over that period for the program to build some momentum. Instead, we have not beaten a ranked team in a major sport since the mid 1970's. I put more blame on decades of apathy from our administration than a few boneheaded referees decisions 2-5 decades ago.

Hear, hear!

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SilverEagle Mentor

SilverEagle

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The significance of this game cannot be belittled. Had we beaten Texas, it would have had a profound influence of how the North Texas program was perceived by the general sports public in Texas and beyond. Another robbery that would have had the same positive affect for NT was the Arkansas robbery of 1968. These wins that were taken from us could have profoundly impacted recruiting.

Well since we had better promotional people working for the athletic department during that time, a win in this game would have made a profound difference.

Keep in mind that during this era (late 80's) we had the first sell-out ever (1989 vs SFA) in Fouts field history. And that was when BOTH teams were

1-AA. Our next sell-out was a 2000+ over official capacity (20K) SRO game against SMU in 1990.

BUT also keep in mind we would have had to find a OCC replacement for Texas fo our future schedules. Because even Corky Nelson publicly commented that if we had won that game, Texas would have never played us again.

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GreenTexan13 Rookie

GreenTexan13

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I for one cannot relate to this game to the older generations since I wasn't able to follow UNT football (born 2 years after this game).I agree that this is way in the past to be still holding a big grudge about. I for one, would love to see our current team work as hard as our guys did out on the field in Austin '88. If we lose to teams like Texas, Tennessee, or Iowa, I would still be dang proud if we kept it close like the '88 robbery. I was proud of what UNT did in the Georgia game in 2013. It's just the constant P5 steam rolling and terrible playing like last years Texas game that sucks... That was hard to watch.... It may not change a whole lot of perspective to the nation about mean green football. But we as fans would definitely have that pride in our team!

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rws69 Rising Star

rws69

Posted
Posted (edited)

The significance of this game cannot be belittled. Had we beaten Texas, it would have had a profound influence of how the North Texas program was perceived by the general sports public in Texas and beyond. Another robbery that would have had the same positive affect for NT was the Arkansas robbery of 1968. These wins that were taken from us could have profoundly impacted recruiting.

I attended that 1968 game in Little Rock against Arkansas. NT had a winning touchdown pass called back when the official ruled that Ron Shanklin trapped the ball on the ground. My seat was low enough that I knew that was a bad call.

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CMJ Grand Master

CMJ

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We got robbed at Arizona as I recall. What year was that, '03?

It was 2002...I was there. We had a bad call on the goal line, but we weren't robbed there. We gave that one away by not capitalizing on numerous chances. Not to mention giving up a FG returned for a TD.

We outplayed AZ though.

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Cougar King Experienced

Cougar King

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I for one cannot relate to this game to the older generations since I wasn't able to follow UNT football (born 2 years after this game).I agree that this is way in the past to be still holding a big grudge about. I for one, would love to see our current team work as hard as our guys did out on the field in Austin '88. If we lose to teams like Texas, Tennessee, or Iowa, I would still be dang proud if we kept it close like the '88 robbery. I was proud of what UNT did in the Georgia game in 2013. It's just the constant P5 steam rolling and terrible playing like last years Texas game that sucks... That was hard to watch.... It may not change a whole lot of perspective to the nation about mean green football. But we as fans would definitely have that pride in our team!

So you're proud of losing as long as it's close? Wow, this says a lot about this program which is unfortunate.

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