Mean Green

Just a quick recruiting note: Round Rock Stony Point safety Desmond Martin has committed to Texas Tech. UNT offered Martin a while back before he landed an offer from the Red Raiders.

The Jayhawk League in Kansas is one of the top sources of talent for Bowl Subdivision football programs across the country every year. The Sun Belt has been tapping into the league's talent pool for years.

Former UNT All-Sun Belt safety Aaron Weathers played for Coffeyville, while Troy quarterback Omar Haugabook played for Dodge City before leaving the Trojans to a New Orleans Bowl win.

This year wasn't any different. Several teams raided the league, especially for defensive linemen.

Here's a look at the defensive linemen who signed with Sun Belt teams:

North Texas
Shavod Atkinson
Honorable mention all-conference at tackle

Troy
Eugene Kinlaw
Jayhawk League Defensive MVP and first team all-conference pick at tackle
Jonathan Massaquoi
First-team all-conference pick at defensive end

Florida International
Thatcher Starling
Honorable mention all-conference pick at defensive end

How those players pan out could go a long way toward deciding how each team fares this season. UNT was terrible defensively last year and needs help up front, Troy is looking to reload for a run at winning at least a share of a fourth straight Sun Belt title, while FIU has a chance to build on a breakthrough season in which it finished 5-7.

I will have a couple of stories in tomorrow's paper on UNT football recruiting and women's basketball.

The new news is women's hoops recruit Brittany Thompson, a forward from Texas Christian Academy, didn't make it into school and is headed to Kilgore College for a couple of years. Thompson was one of UNT's top recruits. Fortunately for the Mean Green, Shanice Stephens has added a bunch of front court players who will join the team in the fall.

I also have a story on the Copperas Cove pair that committed to play for the UNT football team. Both sound like good gets. Neither had another Division I offer, but a lot of schools were interested.

UNT now has four recruits committed for its 2010 class.

Post your thoughts on the pair on the blog.

They have an interesting back story. Be sure to check out tomorrow's paper.

I got a call from a UNT official, who confirmed that Ann Clinkscales has left the UNT athletic department. She had family issues to attend to that will prevent her from staying on at UNT.

UNT will begin looking for a replacement in a few days.

I was working on a summer project today that will run late this summer and gave Ann Clinkscales a call. It appears as if UNT's senior associate athletic director for advancement has left the school.

I am not the only one who noticed she is gone. Word spreads pretty quickly.

Her phone is off the hook and her name is no longer on UNT's Web site.

The timing doesn't seem to be the best, considering UNT is about to make it's big push to raise money for a new football stadium. Clinkscales was a key official helping organize the push.

I mentioned a few days ago that it was all but a done deal that Charr Gahagan would replace Aaron Ausmus as the UNT football team's strength and conditioning coach.

Head coach Todd Dodge was able to go on record with the move today.

Check tomorrow's paper for the story.

I got a chance to run down the coaches from Copperas Cove this morning and UNT landed two players off their roster.

We already knew about running back Brandon Byrd. It turns out Byrd's teammate Brelan Chancellor also committed to UNT as well. Chancellor is an athlete who can play just about anywhere, but might project as a slot receiver and return man.

Byrd rushed for 752 yards, while Chancellor had 621 last season, according to the stats on the Austin American Statesman's Web site.

Both are supposed to be calling me back a little later. I will put more up on both players when I have it.

I got back from Colorado today after taking a week to go see my dad, who is still in a coma, and help my mom out a bit.

Since I didn't get back until late, I didn't get a chance to chase this down, but it looks like UNT picked up its third player for its 2010 class. Running back Brandin Byrd of Copperas Cove committed to the Mean Green today.

It doesn't look like Byrd had any other offers, but some big-time programs from the Big 12 and SEC were sniffing around. Byrd rushed for a little better than 1,000 yards last season.

Copperas Cove has a solid high school program.

Byrd looks like a good pickup for UNT, which now has commitments from three high school players for 2010.

Byrd no doubt attended one of UNT's camps last week.

I am still out in Colorado, but I did run across an interesting blog on the possibility of conference realignment.

Yea, a blog on a blog is a stretch, but here it is:

Realignment talk

The point of the blog is the BCS has set out parameters for a seventh conference to earn an automatic BCS bowl bid based on a set criteria. You can follow the link to the standards.

The point is that window of opportunity might cause leagues to look at realignment to strengthen their position.

The conference in the best position to break into the BCS would be the Mountain West, which would help its cause by taking Boise State from the WAC.

If one domino falls, it could cause a series of changes that could eventually affect UNT, although no one is going to grab the Mean Green based on its recent history in football.

If nothing else, it's interesting to think about.

There were a couple of really good questions posted on the blog today.

Ryan Hector took issue with Phil Steele's preseason all-conference selections at wide receiver. Ryan said that based on the UNT spring game, Tyler Stradford and Sam Roberson should have been at least second team.

I agree that both have a ton of potential and that they have a chance to put up good numbers considering it seems like UNT throws it every down. There is no way I would put those players among the top six receivers in the conference, though. Here's who Phil Steele had on his top two teams along with last year's stats:

First team
Cortez Gent, FAU, 60 catches 935 yards and nine touchdowns
Jerrel Jernigan, Troy, 77 catches for 867 yards and five touchdowns
TY Hilton, FIU, 41 catches for 1,013 yards and seven touchdowns

Second team
Malcolm Beyah, MTSU, 33 catches for 550 yards and six touchdowns
Chris Bonner, FAU, 22 catches for 422 yards and three touchdowns
Josh Jarboe, Troy, sat out after transferring from Oklahoma

Stardford is in his first season at UNT. Roberson caught 12 passes for 76 yards last season.

Don't forget that the guys at Troy and FAU are going to be catching passes from Levi Brown and Rusty Smith, a pair of really good, veteran quarterbacks. UNT is going to run Riley Dodge out there. He has a lot of potential, but you know what they say about potential. I am also not convinced he is any taller than 5-9, which is going to make it interesting to see if he can be successful as a Bowl Subdivision quarterback.

And I would not put a lot of stock in spring game performances. UNT has had a lot of guys look good in spring games who never did anything in the fall when the lights were on. The game will be a whole lot different in the fall, unless UNT can convince the Sun Belt Conference to extend the nobody-gets-to-hit-Riley rule into conference play.

The other good question that came up today was posted by Skip, who wanted to know if UNT can break into the top 100 nationally this year after being picked by most people to rank somewhere near the bottom of the pile at 120. Rivals.com actually picked UNT as the worst team in the country at 120 in its rankings.

When it comes to projecting a team, I always look at what you are asking your players to do in comparison to what they have done. That's why I see UNT running into problems.

UNT can expect Cam Montgomery to rush for nearly 1,000 yards because that is what he did last year. I don't think it's too much to expect for linebackers Craig Robertson and Tobe Nwigwe to make some big plays this year. They have done it before.

Outside of those guys, I don't see a lot of players with proven track records. UNT has a new quarterback who hasn't done it on the college level, a bunch of wide receivers who have never produced at the Bowl Subdivision level, an offensive line with potential that left Giovanni Vizza running for his life far too often last year and a defense that has been the worst in the country two years running.

Could UNT's wide receivers be all they are advertised to be? Sure. Could UNT's defense make a big jump? It's possible. Is Riley ready to go and can be stay healthy? Maybe. Can UNT's offensive line be an elite unit in the Sun Belt? That might be the best bet of all.

I just wouldn't bank on all those stars aligning for UNT out of the blue. That's why I am on record as seeing UNT going 3-9 and tripling its win total from last season but not having the big year some are hoping for.

I am back home in Colorado to see my parents, which can make it tough to get any blog material, but there are a few tidbits out there to report.

UNT offered Stephen Bryant, a player classified as an athlete from New Deal, only to see him commit to TCU. I have no idea where UNT saw him fiting in, but at 6-4, 215, he could grow into a defensive end or middle linebacker.

TCU tends to do well in small-town Texas.

UNT never offered Adrian James, who committed to UTEP recently, but I wondered if it might not have been a good idea. James is a teammate of quarterback Javia Hall, who UNT is trying to hand on to until signing day. Taking James might have helped and he is a pretty good player, or at least it looks that way if UTEP was interested.

Hall is a soft commit to UNT who is going to look around before making a final decision.

And thanks for the thoughts and prayers about my father. He is still in a coma, but seems to be doing a little better.

UNT is back off the road following its tour of the state with a series of one-day camps for juniors and seniors. We should start to see how they worked out for the Mean Green this week.

If UNT landed any players as a result of the camps -- and you would assume they did -- those commitments should start to leak in the next few days.

UNT is trying to keep its recruiting efforts quiet due to ammunition it has given other teams over the last few years while struggling at the end of the Darrell Dickey era and the beginning of the Todd Dodge regime.

If another team wants a player who is thinking about committing to UNT, it is going to talk to that player about UNT's record, the uncertain future of the staff and what their school has to offer in comparison to UNT.

By the way, the Rivals.com top 120 countdown is now complete for Sun Belt teams. Here's how they see the league stacking up. The numbers are the national overall ranking:

66. Troy
79. Arkansas State
82. Florida Atlantic
92. Florida International
101. Middle Tennessee
106. Louisiana-Lafayette
112. Louisiana-Monroe
118. Western Kentucky
120. UNT

It seems pretty reasonable to me. Rivals likes Arkansas State more than most, which I can understand with Corey Leonard, Reggie Arnold and Alex Carrington back.

And in a final note, I am headed back to Colorado to see my parents this week, so I don't know how much stuff I will have for the blog. There is pretty much nothing going on this time of year anyway.

Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers. My father has had a rough time lately. He is back on a ventilator at nights, has had a blood infection and is still in a coma. I planned to go back this week anyway to help my mother out, but the timing seems to have worked out well with him having a rough go of it at the moment.

I didn't get a chance to put something up on the blog today until now since I had to put the Sunday paper together.

Any way, here is an interesting point I picked up from UNT head coach Todd Dodge this week when he called to talk with me a little about Brad Ausmus leaving for Tennessee. Dodge had conducted three of his summer camps across the state at that point.

Here are the attendance figures:

Abilene -- 45
San Antonio --55
Houston -- 70

That's a pretty good turnout in all three towns, and it really only takes one or two good players showing up, becoming interested in UNT and committing to make them work the time and effort to conduct them. UNT has landed several players out of its camps in Denton in previous years. It would stand to reason that these camps will pay off in a similar fashion.

The Learfield Sports Directors' Cup standings were released today with only the College World Series left to be calculated. The standings are essentially the national version of the Bubas Cup, the Sun Belt's all-sports standings (Ok, I just wanted to say Bubas Cup). The award used to be known as the Sears Cup.

Any way, the NCAA calculates Learfield Cup national standings on the Division I, Division II, Division III and NAIA levels based on the member institutions' performance on a national level in all of their sports programs. A total of 273 Division I schools ended up scoring points and making the list.

UNT didn't score this year, but several Sun Belt and Texas teams did.

This is how the Sun Belt's teams ended up finishing:

52. Denver, 396.5
78. Middle Tennessee, 234
109. Western Kentucky, 157.5
168. Florida International, 75
197. Louisiana-Lafayette, 50
215. Florida Atlantic, 45
233. Troy, 25
233. Arkansas State, 25
Failed to score -- North Texas, New Orleans, South Alabama, Louisiana-Monroe, Arkansas-Little Rock

The following are UNT's area rivals:
44. TCU, 464
84. SMU, 206.5

This is a list of Texas schools that scored:
7. Texas, 1,015.5
11. Texas A&M, 951
33. Baylor, 536.75
44. TCU, 464
55. Texas Tech, 387.75
71. Rice, 262
84. SMU, 206.5
123. Houston, 131.5
163. UTEP, 78
167. Lamar, 75.13
168. Texas State, 75
186. Stephen F. Austin, 61.5
195. UT-Arlington, 52.5
213. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 45.6
226. UT-San Antonio, 35.63
233. Prairie View A&M, 25

I wanted to put this up because the standings will be completed and released in a week. It won't look good for UNT, but the standings probably are not the best measure of success for a Sun Belt level school.

UNT finished third in the Bubas Cup, a race against its peers in the Sun Belt. If a school has one team that makes a bowl game or advances to the NCAA regionals in golf, it scores a ton of points in the Learfield Cup. UNT's best programs, men's basketball and women's soccer, didn't get out of the Sun Belt tournament this year. Tennis came close to making it to the finals of the conference tournament, but came up short.

Those near misses left UNT without any points in the standings.

That looks terrible on paper when Northwestern State, Stony Brook and Stetson scored in the Learfield Cup, but it really isn't the end of the world.

Just make sure you hide the copy of USA Today in the office next week if you are one of those loud and proud UNT fans. There is a lot going right for UNT at the moment. But none of it will be reflected in the Learfield Cup standings.

After I finally got confirmation that UNT football strength and conditioning coach Aaron Ausmus is headed to Tennessee, I spent a good part of the day trying to figure out who his replacement is going to be.

No one is going to go on record with this yet, but the guy appears to be Washington assistant strength and conditioning coach Charr Gahagan. Todd Dodge said he wanted to look in the USC strength and conditioning family tree. Ausmus and Gahagan worked together at USC.

No one at Washington would talk, but his name has been removed from portions of their Web site.

I would be surprised if Gahagan is not the guy.

Landing Gahagan would help smooth the transition process, but there is little doubt UNT took a hit with the departure of Ausmus. UNT's players had just gotten comfortable with him and will have to adjust to a new person. The good news is head strength and conditioning coach Chris Seroka and Ricky Lefebvre are still around to run the show while Dodge picks his next coach.

It might not seem great right now, but this is exactly the type of situation UNT should be in. Back when UNT was good, the Mean Green lost assistant coaches all the time because they were lured away by big-time programs. Freddie Kitchens ended up in the NFL. Gary DeLoach left for a better job before returning to UNT due to family issues.

UNT went after the best strength and conditioning guy out there and had him for long enough for him to make an impact before he left. UNT has lost some coaches over the last couple of years, but it wasn't because NFL and major college teams came calling.

This is the price UNT is going to pay, and should pay, for hiring good, qualified people.

I just got off the phone with head coach Todd Dodge, who confirmed that today is the last day strength and conditioning coach Aaron Ausmus will be at North Texas.

He has accepted a job at Tennessee and will start on Monday.

Check back for more later.

I did some digging today after UNT posted an opening for a strength and conditioning coach for its football program.

It is pretty obvious where this is all headed, but here is the situation as of tonight.

Aaron Aumus has not turned in his resignation to the athletic department or Todd Dodge, according to a UNT official. The school has posted the job to protect itself in the event that Ausmus leaves.

That way UNT can cut down on the time it takes to get a new coach in with the season rapidly approaching.

It has long been rumored that Ausmus is on his way to Tennessee, which today announced that it has bought out the contract of former strength and conditioning coach Mark Smith. Ausmus worked with Tennessee head coach Lane Kiffin at USC and also worked with Tennessee assistant coach Ed Orgeron at Ole Miss.

Tennessee officials would not go on record as saying that Ausmus' hiring is a done deal, but one did say that the process was in the human resources stage. The school would not have announced it had let Smith go unless it had its next coach in place.

Indications are an announcement would be made on Thursday.

Ausmus graduated from Tennessee and was a member of the school's track team. He would work with the football and track teams in addition to other men's sports at Tennessee in the SEC where he has spent part of his athletic and coaching career.

Losing Ausmus would be another blow for a struggling UNT football program that has won just three games the last two seasons. Ausmus filled a new position at UNT dedicated to the football program.

Ausmus was popular among UNT's players and was seen as someone who could help improve the Mean Green's performance along its offensive and defensive lines.

I was saved from having to talk recruiting on the blog again today when Caleb Troup, the Ohio sideline reporter for WXJQ-FM Power 105, called to talk a little football.

The guys there are trying to fill the dull summer months as well and were checking in to see what they could say about UNT. You already know what my take is on the Mean Green. If not, pick up Dave Campbell's and remember I am on record at this point with UNT going 3-9, not 4-8 like the magazine projects.

Any way, the interesting question with Ohio is how a two-quarterback system with Theo Scott and Boo Jackson will work. Scott started at the beginning of last year, got hurt and was replaced by Jackson.

Caleb thought Scott would likely start again, but Jackson will also play. Jackson is a great athlete who just makes plays, kind of like Woody Wilson for UNT a few years ago. He threw for 2,355 yards and rushed for another 333.

Ohio plays a 4-3 and has all of its linebackers back. The Bobcats did lose safety Michael Mitchell, who the Oakland Raiders took in the second round of the draft.

Ohio led Ohio State in the second half last season.

The one place Caleb thought the Bobcats might have trouble is on their defensive line, which couldn't stop the run a year ago. Ohio didn't land a bunch of impact defensive linemen, so that is where UNT could make some yards offensively -- if the Mean Green will run the ball with Cam Montgomery behind an experienced offensive line.

This is where Dave Campbell's and I went a different way on projecting UNT's record. I know UNT is at Fouts for its home-opener, but Ohio won its last two games of last season and returns its leading wide receiver in Price Taylor (51 catches for 694 yards), its leading rusher in Chris Garrett (594 yards), two productive quarterbacks and several good defensive players.

I have a hard time seeing UNT winning this one.

Caleb didn't predict who would win, but he had this to say about Ohio:

"It's tough to tell how good Ohio will be. UConn will be a good test in the season-opener. They lost four guys to the NFL from last season's team. We should be able to tell how good Ohio will be after that game."

And just for the record, here is one recruiting note: Arlington Oakridge offensive lineman Tayo Fabuluje Jr., who had an offer from UNT, committed to BYU.

Tight end Eric Tomlinson has been on UNT's radar throughout the summer recruiting period. That's not a big surprise considering his brother Matt is an offensive lineman for the Mean Green.

UNT is supposed to be using tight ends more often in the future as head coach Todd Dodge adjusts his offense. It would stand to reason that UNT would have a good chance of landing the younger Tomlinson brother.

It looks like if UNT can seal the deal, it will get a good player. I read the Web sites to see what was going on in the college football world on a dead day and it looks like Tomlinson is making an impression on the camp tour after stopping by Oklahoma State. Here's the story for those of you that subscribe to Rivals.com: Story

The dead of the summer is here and one of the big topics of conversation among UNT fans is how big an impact the incoming recruiting class will make. About all we have to go on at this point are the opinions of the experts.

The only one I haven't mentioned yet is Dave Campbell's, which gulped down a big glass of the green Kool-Aid and picked UNT to win four games. It's interesting considering what the magazine has to say about UNT's incoming recruiting class.

UNT is ranked in a tie for ninth with UTEP among the 10 Bowl Subdivision teams in the state.

That ranking pretty much rounds out the list of experts on the recruiting front.

Rivals.com has UNT ranked in a tie for No. 114 nationally, last in Texas and a tie for fifth in the nine-team Sun Belt.

Scout.com has UNT ranked in a tie for No. 116 nationally, last in Texas and ahead of only Louisiana-Lafayette in the Sun Belt (Scout didn't include Western Kentucky in its rankings).

UNT will depend on its incoming class to make a big impact, and it could very well exceed expectations. It had better because the expectations are not very high this year.