MANIFESTO #17 (A great number for a QB)!
Well, Kurt, I guess this means Armaggedon and Gabriel's trumpet call can't be far behind with your announcement here on PonyFans.com! I commend you for your gutsy call (or announcement) since a few of your fellow alums still think UNT has some kind of Biblical disease of huge proportions or whatever!
I have in no post of mine in recent times advocated UNT and SMU should be in a league together. I have said it would just make $en$e to tee it up every once in a while if either school can arrange their OOC schedules since we all plan those non conference games so far in advance. I would never expect SMU to give up a future game with Nebraska in other words to replace it with UNT or for UNT to give up a series of games with UT just to work SMU into a schedule.
One of your posters seems to be most unfamiliar with the attendance history of the SMU/UNT football series. None of our games (in modern times) have ever drawn less than 22,000 real butts in seats and one was well over 50,000 as I recall. Both of our school's promotion's departments have to work well into the night to try to find a way to get 22K real fans out for either of our school's home conference games, now dont' they?
With the aforementioned in mind, I will agree to disagree with that SMU poster who says that a SMU/UNT game (as he suggests) would only draw about 3,000 more fans (max) than any WAC conference game you would have in Ford Stadium.
I simply defer that Mustang poster to the UNT/TCU game last year when a 1 & 2 Mean Green (without any momentum or our All Star QB who was injured); anyway, our team limped into Amon Carter Stadium, still with about 5,200 Mean Green fans and all this gave the Frogs their biggest home crowd of their 2002 season, even a larger crowd than their last crucial home conference game at ACS which would determine if they would become a CUSA football co-champ and go bowling in Memphis.
Another of your posters suggests we recruit the same players? My only response to that is there are an awful lot of Texas HS football players, I do mean an awful lot (I was even one of them years ago for heaven's sake, though heavily unrecruited).
Now I have noticed SMU has discovered what we thought was UNT's well kept secret recruiting grounds of recent years and that is in the state of Oklahoma. That discovery and tapping of Oklahoma high school talent seems to have begun for SMU since Phil Bennett arrived; BUT you know what I have to say about that? I have to say: GREAT GOING, PHIL! We are (after all) talking about competition of which I think the foundation and fabric of our very country was built.
<>*<> But to answer your question of "what do you think" of your own league configuration? I think that league is do-able at some point in time but I think mostly I like your statement when you say the 3 Metroplex D1-A schools need to unite (in some form or fashion) which would literally force the Metroplex TV, radio and print media (because of all our combined constituencies) to have to admit that the Metroplex is no longer just about Longhorns, Aggies and the Big 12 (and then do something about it)!
CLOSING NOTE: I will give some kudos to area media by saying that every SMU/UNT football game I've attended since the modern era continued back in 1974 (our 1'st game was in 1922)when I was a sophmore at NTSU, anyway, none of our match-ups have really ever lacked for media coverage. In fact, I was more than impressed with the "front page" SportsPage Dallas Morning News coverage for all our games with usually a nice quarter page color action photo of the game.
Kurt, you are making $en$e for both schools with the call you have made (upon further review) on this matter. Now, go down to Lamar Hunt's office and have a nice pow wow with that great SMU alum and icon. (Don't forget to remind him what college town he had to go up to to find his lovely wife, also)!
Turn the thing around in '03, Stangs!
MeanGreenGem
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">
Originally posted by MustangKurt20:
<B>I know your out there reading this board and maybe the other almost dormant SMU Mustang Maniacs board so I wanted to take this opportunity to state that I am not opposed to joining a conference that has UNT in it. Like many SMU faithful, I was a bit reluctant at first to align w/ a school that hasn't accomplished a lot outside of their recent success the past two seasons. But I do feel like UNT has a good chance to be competitive over a sustained period of time. Something SMU hasn't been able to do for the past fifteen seasons. The simple fact of the matter is that what the UNT posters have said makes sense. A game against North Texas would draw more interest than our current lot of Boise St. , San Jose St. , Nevada, etc. The three DFW D1A schools MUST align for survival. That's the simple fact of the matter. So here is my proposal...
SMU
TCU
Houston
North Texas
Rice
Tulane
New Mexico
UTEP
Lousiana Tech
Tulsa
What do you think?
Kurt</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
[This message has been edited by MeanGreenGem (edited 06-28-2003).]