(04-15-2014 06:52 PM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(04-15-2014 10:29 AM)NTTHOR Wrote:  before CUSA invited north texas to join, what was your perception of north texas? has it changed?

i know this can turn into a school bashing, not totally looking for that, but would like honest thoughts...please don't include stupid hatred like some schools may. i'm generally curious as to the perception before we were announced as joining this conference.

When you went I-A, my reaction was "ugh... here we go, diluting the top classification." I saw the whole AQ split coming and I still blame all the schools that moved up after 1990. (Tech was either the last legit move up or the first bogus one... I tend towards the second option).

That said, I've read so much UNT propaganda lately that it's probably starting to work on me. I'll never be impressed by the fact that you're near Dallas, though (you're barking up the wrong tree with that crap), and you don't do more research than Southern Miss (despite the fact that some of your posters just assume that).

Much to your dismay, Tech was the last legit move up. Right after we busted our tails to meet the criteria to move up to D-IA, the NCAA changed the rules and pretty much let anyone that wanted to move to DI-A do it.

(04-16-2014 07:29 PM)BRtransplant Wrote:  

(04-15-2014 06:52 PM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(04-15-2014 10:29 AM)NTTHOR Wrote:  before CUSA invited north texas to join, what was your perception of north texas? has it changed?

i know this can turn into a school bashing, not totally looking for that, but would like honest thoughts...please don't include stupid hatred like some schools may. i'm generally curious as to the perception before we were announced as joining this conference.

When you went I-A, my reaction was "ugh... here we go, diluting the top classification." I saw the whole AQ split coming and I still blame all the schools that moved up after 1990. (Tech was either the last legit move up or the first bogus one... I tend towards the second option).

That said, I've read so much UNT propaganda lately that it's probably starting to work on me. I'll never be impressed by the fact that you're near Dallas, though (you're barking up the wrong tree with that crap), and you don't do more research than Southern Miss (despite the fact that some of your posters just assume that).

Much to your dismay, Tech was the last legit move up. Right after we busted our tails to meet the criteria to move up to D-IA, the NCAA changed the rules and pretty much let anyone that wanted to move to DI-A do it.

That doesn't cause me any dismay whatsoever. Back then, there were maybe 95-100 teams in the top tier, and Tech, USM, and USL were all included in that number. I have no problem with these institutions being in FBS or CUSA.

NTSU, NLU, USA, Troy State, UTSA, ODU, FIU, FAU (etc. ad nauseam) were not in the top classification back then. And because (I would argue) there was enough pie for everyone to have a piece back then, no one was talking about AQ, or paying players, or unionizing, or "Division IV", or any of the other bull**** that's put USM where USM is right now.

It really was so much better back then. Each conference had its bowl tie in, and the best independents in any given year scrambled for bids. Auto-bids were set up by prosperity. The SEC had the Sugar Bowl, the WAC had the Holiday Bowl, and so on. There weren't these hard lines drawn between BCS and non-BCS that there are now. SEC fans didn't talk down to us as much back then because their superiority was much more subjective. There were years when USM went to the Sun Bowl, the Independence Bowl, the Citrus Bowl, and all sorts of other bowls that won't give us the time of day now.

What happened? Well, first, ESPN manufactured a bunch of drama about how I-A football didn't have a real champion. That was always horse ****... I can remember one or two years where there was a split national championship, but it's not like anyone dropped dead as a result. There was some relatively good-natured back-and-forth.

Second, the foundation of the Sun Belt really killed any notion of I-A as a cohesive top tier. Southern Miss was tolerable to an extent that Troy State et al. were not. The pie's big... but it ain't that big.

If I could turn back time to 1990, right after Tech moved up, I would erase a whole lot of things that seemed good for USM at the time, but on balance what's happened since 1990 has really been awful for us.

(04-16-2014 07:53 PM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 07:29 PM)BRtransplant Wrote:  

(04-15-2014 06:52 PM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(04-15-2014 10:29 AM)NTTHOR Wrote:  before CUSA invited north texas to join, what was your perception of north texas? has it changed?

i know this can turn into a school bashing, not totally looking for that, but would like honest thoughts...please don't include stupid hatred like some schools may. i'm generally curious as to the perception before we were announced as joining this conference.

When you went I-A, my reaction was "ugh... here we go, diluting the top classification." I saw the whole AQ split coming and I still blame all the schools that moved up after 1990. (Tech was either the last legit move up or the first bogus one... I tend towards the second option).

That said, I've read so much UNT propaganda lately that it's probably starting to work on me. I'll never be impressed by the fact that you're near Dallas, though (you're barking up the wrong tree with that crap), and you don't do more research than Southern Miss (despite the fact that some of your posters just assume that).

Much to your dismay, Tech was the last legit move up. Right after we busted our tails to meet the criteria to move up to D-IA, the NCAA changed the rules and pretty much let anyone that wanted to move to DI-A do it.

That doesn't cause me any dismay whatsoever. Back then, there were maybe 95-100 teams in the top tier, and Tech, USM, and USL were all included in that number. I have no problem with these institutions being in FBS or CUSA.

NTSU, NLU, USA, Troy State, UTSA, ODU, FIU, FAU (etc. ad nauseam) were not in the top classification back then. And because (I would argue) there was enough pie for everyone to have a piece back then, no one was talking about AQ, or paying players, or unionizing, or "Division IV", or any of the other bull**** that's put USM where USM is right now.

It really was so much better back then. Each conference had its bowl tie in, and the best independents in any given year scrambled for bids. Auto-bids were set up by prosperity. The SEC had the Sugar Bowl, the WAC had the Holiday Bowl, and so on. There weren't these hard lines drawn between BCS and non-BCS that there are now. SEC fans didn't talk down to us as much back then because their superiority was much more subjective. There were years when USM went to the Sun Bowl, the Independence Bowl, the Citrus Bowl, and all sorts of other bowls that won't give us the time of day now.

What happened? Well, first, ESPN manufactured a bunch of drama about how I-A football didn't have a real champion. That was always horse ****... I can remember one or two years where there was a split national championship, but it's not like anyone dropped dead as a result. There was some relatively good-natured back-and-forth.

Second, the foundation of the Sun Belt really killed any notion of I-A as a cohesive top tier. Southern Miss was tolerable to an extent that Troy State et al. were not. The pie's big... but it ain't that big.

If I could turn back time to 1990, right after Tech moved up, I would erase a whole lot of things that seemed good for USM at the time, but on balance what's happened since 1990 has really been awful for us.

As much as I hate admit it, since UNT was not part of D1A at that time(we moved to that classification in 1994 after a 10 year absence), but you are absolutely correct. The NCAA allowed too many teams to move up to D1A and now it's diluted, and the big programs control it all.

The ncaa should have stuck to its 15,000 average attendance guideline. Most of the MAC and Belt would be gone by now. No offense to our low average brethren, but if you can't get an average of 15,000 to come to your home games you shouldn't be playing FBS ball.

(04-16-2014 08:53 PM)Green Menace Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 07:53 PM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 07:29 PM)BRtransplant Wrote:  

(04-15-2014 06:52 PM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(04-15-2014 10:29 AM)NTTHOR Wrote:  before CUSA invited north texas to join, what was your perception of north texas? has it changed?

i know this can turn into a school bashing, not totally looking for that, but would like honest thoughts...please don't include stupid hatred like some schools may. i'm generally curious as to the perception before we were announced as joining this conference.

When you went I-A, my reaction was "ugh... here we go, diluting the top classification." I saw the whole AQ split coming and I still blame all the schools that moved up after 1990. (Tech was either the last legit move up or the first bogus one... I tend towards the second option).

That said, I've read so much UNT propaganda lately that it's probably starting to work on me. I'll never be impressed by the fact that you're near Dallas, though (you're barking up the wrong tree with that crap), and you don't do more research than Southern Miss (despite the fact that some of your posters just assume that).

Much to your dismay, Tech was the last legit move up. Right after we busted our tails to meet the criteria to move up to D-IA, the NCAA changed the rules and pretty much let anyone that wanted to move to DI-A do it.

That doesn't cause me any dismay whatsoever. Back then, there were maybe 95-100 teams in the top tier, and Tech, USM, and USL were all included in that number. I have no problem with these institutions being in FBS or CUSA.

NTSU, NLU, USA, Troy State, UTSA, ODU, FIU, FAU (etc. ad nauseam) were not in the top classification back then. And because (I would argue) there was enough pie for everyone to have a piece back then, no one was talking about AQ, or paying players, or unionizing, or "Division IV", or any of the other bull**** that's put USM where USM is right now.

It really was so much better back then. Each conference had its bowl tie in, and the best independents in any given year scrambled for bids. Auto-bids were set up by prosperity. The SEC had the Sugar Bowl, the WAC had the Holiday Bowl, and so on. There weren't these hard lines drawn between BCS and non-BCS that there are now. SEC fans didn't talk down to us as much back then because their superiority was much more subjective. There were years when USM went to the Sun Bowl, the Independence Bowl, the Citrus Bowl, and all sorts of other bowls that won't give us the time of day now.

What happened? Well, first, ESPN manufactured a bunch of drama about how I-A football didn't have a real champion. That was always horse ****... I can remember one or two years where there was a split national championship, but it's not like anyone dropped dead as a result. There was some relatively good-natured back-and-forth.

Second, the foundation of the Sun Belt really killed any notion of I-A as a cohesive top tier. Southern Miss was tolerable to an extent that Troy State et al. were not. The pie's big... but it ain't that big.

If I could turn back time to 1990, right after Tech moved up, I would erase a whole lot of things that seemed good for USM at the time, but on balance what's happened since 1990 has really been awful for us.

As much as I hate admit it, since UNT was not part of D1A at that time(we moved to that classification in 1994 after a 10 year absence), but you are absolutely correct. The NCAA allowed too many teams to move up to D1A and now it's diluted, and the big programs control it all.

If the NCAA would just lop off the Sun Belt and MAC, and require certain things of everyone else within 10 years (40,000 seat stadium, set stipend to players...), I think that would be an OK solution. Even during the "golden era" I talked about, the MAC and Big West / PCAC weren't really major in any legitimate way. CUSA was significantly better the day it was formed.

But what am I talking about? It's craziness to think that the NCAA would ever do anything meaningful on its own. If it isn't yielding to the ULMs of the world in their desire to play pretend I-A ball, it's yielding to the Bamas of the world in their desire to play pretend NFL ball.

(04-16-2014 09:34 PM)banker Wrote:  The ncaa should have stuck to its 15,000 average attendance guideline. Most of the MAC and Belt would be gone by now. No offense to our low average brethren, but if you can't get an average of 15,000 to come to your home games you shouldn't be playing FBS ball.

I agree with you 100%.

I really think we could use a system of relegation / promotion like soccer has. The top 3 or 4 mid-majors should get moved up to their regional power conference every other year, or something like that. Similarly, the bottom 3 or 4 P5 schools should get moved down. This could be done fairly.

The obstacles are the Black Bears, Leg Humpers, and Yacht Club Commodores of the world. They know they're winners by association even if they go 0-12.

UNT was pretty irrelevant to me (and most people in Texas) prior to last season.

Now: The back and forth between our teams/fanbases is growing on me. It's fun to have an in-state conference team you don't like losing to. I do think the whole "the giant in Denton has awoken" stuff is premature though. It's a good start but it takes more than one good season to turn a losing culture around. Yall think MWC teams are worried about the "giant in Las Vegas waking up" because they had their first winning season in like a decade? UNT loses a lot of key guys to graduation so I'm interested to see how they respond.

(04-16-2014 07:53 PM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 07:29 PM)BRtransplant Wrote:  

(04-15-2014 06:52 PM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(04-15-2014 10:29 AM)NTTHOR Wrote:  before CUSA invited north texas to join, what was your perception of north texas? has it changed?

i know this can turn into a school bashing, not totally looking for that, but would like honest thoughts...please don't include stupid hatred like some schools may. i'm generally curious as to the perception before we were announced as joining this conference.

When you went I-A, my reaction was "ugh... here we go, diluting the top classification." I saw the whole AQ split coming and I still blame all the schools that moved up after 1990. (Tech was either the last legit move up or the first bogus one... I tend towards the second option).

That said, I've read so much UNT propaganda lately that it's probably starting to work on me. I'll never be impressed by the fact that you're near Dallas, though (you're barking up the wrong tree with that crap), and you don't do more research than Southern Miss (despite the fact that some of your posters just assume that).

Much to your dismay, Tech was the last legit move up. Right after we busted our tails to meet the criteria to move up to D-IA, the NCAA changed the rules and pretty much let anyone that wanted to move to DI-A do it.

That doesn't cause me any dismay whatsoever. Back then, there were maybe 95-100 teams in the top tier, and Tech, USM, and USL were all included in that number. I have no problem with these institutions being in FBS or CUSA.

NTSU, NLU, USA, Troy State, UTSA, ODU, FIU, FAU (etc. ad nauseam) were not in the top classification back then. And because (I would argue) there was enough pie for everyone to have a piece back then, no one was talking about AQ, or paying players, or unionizing, or "Division IV", or any of the other bull**** that's put USM where USM is right now.

It really was so much better back then. Each conference had its bowl tie in, and the best independents in any given year scrambled for bids. Auto-bids were set up by prosperity. The SEC had the Sugar Bowl, the WAC had the Holiday Bowl, and so on. There weren't these hard lines drawn between BCS and non-BCS that there are now. SEC fans didn't talk down to us as much back then because their superiority was much more subjective. There were years when USM went to the Sun Bowl, the Independence Bowl, the Citrus Bowl, and all sorts of other bowls that won't give us the time of day now.

What happened? Well, first, ESPN manufactured a bunch of drama about how I-A football didn't have a real champion. That was always horse ****... I can remember one or two years where there was a split national championship, but it's not like anyone dropped dead as a result. There was some relatively good-natured back-and-forth.

Second, the foundation of the Sun Belt really killed any notion of I-A as a cohesive top tier. Southern Miss was tolerable to an extent that Troy State et al. were not. The pie's big... but it ain't that big.

If I could turn back time to 1990, right after Tech moved up, I would erase a whole lot of things that seemed good for USM at the time, but on balance what's happened since 1990 has really been awful for us.

Good post and I agree AW

(04-16-2014 02:17 PM)MUsince96 Wrote:  I've found fans of power programs to not be very knowledgeable about college football as a whole.

For the most part......this is ABSOLUTELY true.

(04-16-2014 09:42 PM)AndreWhere Wrote:  I really think we could use a system of relegation / promotion like soccer has. The top 3 or 4 mid-majors should get moved up to their regional power conference every other year, or something like that. Similarly, the bottom 3 or 4 P5 schools should get moved down. This could be done fairly.

The obstacles are the Black Bears, Leg Humpers, and Yacht Club Commodores of the world. They know they're winners by association even if they go 0-12.

this would be impossible to do for a multitude of reasons and attendance would plummet across college football

1. college teams draw fan support from across the state while pro teams with the exception of a few like the Dallas Cowboys draw pretty much 100% locally or 90% locally

fans book hotel rooms months and sometimes a year or more in advance and this is impossible to do if you have no clue what teams you are even going to play not to mention that teams book rooms many months in advance along with TV crews

2. there is the issue of scholarship limits between D1-AA and D1-A so dropping teams up and down makes that an issue

3. what happens if 5 teams east of The Mississippi are the ones to "move up" and 5 teams west of The Rockies are the teams to move down......that is just stupid and no conference or group of teams is going to agree to travel like that

4. conferences get paid for being a conference not just for being some group of teams mashed together so when one team drops down who gets the revenues and who loses out on the revenues and networks are not just going to toss money into a pool for random teams to split up

and the idea that well the team leaving gives up their share and the team moving up gets that share is again ridiculous and the networks will answer that by signing individual teams to contracts and then having those teams play each other.......it split D1-A faster than you can blink because there will be no money available for teams moving up because "conferences" will no longer sign TV contracts teams will and then the networks will dictate scheduling for the most part and even if a team "moves up" they will find themselves getting zero revenue for doing so and playing a hodge podge of teams spread out all over the place that are left over from who the networks did not care about scheduling

college is not pros pros have 30-32 teams and that is why different things are possible while D1-A has 124 teams and growing (sadly) which is the entire issue and doing anything to give some teams that don't belong a leg up or hope that they do belong is counter productive even if they manage to have 2-3 good seasons in a row before their coach leaves or it all falls apart

(04-16-2014 09:47 PM)correcamino Wrote:  UNT was pretty irrelevant to me (and most people in Texas) prior to last season.

Now: The back and forth between our teams/fanbases is growing on me. It's fun to have an in-state conference team you don't like losing to. I do think the whole "the giant in Denton has awoken" stuff is premature though. It's a good start but it takes more than one good season to turn a losing culture around. Yall think MWC teams are worried about the "giant in Las Vegas waking up" because they had their first winning season in like a decade? UNT loses a lot of key guys to graduation so I'm interested to see how they respond.

Typical response from a utsa fan who didn't even have football until a few years ago. utsa is 100% irrelevant to me now as it was before you started a FB program.

(04-16-2014 10:57 PM)Green Menace Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 09:47 PM)correcamino Wrote:  UNT was pretty irrelevant to me (and most people in Texas) prior to last season.

Now: The back and forth between our teams/fanbases is growing on me. It's fun to have an in-state conference team you don't like losing to. I do think the whole "the giant in Denton has awoken" stuff is premature though. It's a good start but it takes more than one good season to turn a losing culture around. Yall think MWC teams are worried about the "giant in Las Vegas waking up" because they had their first winning season in like a decade? UNT loses a lot of key guys to graduation so I'm interested to see how they respond.

Typical response from a utsa fan who didn't even have football until a few years ago. utsa is 100% irrelevant to me now as it was before you started a FB program.

really?

(04-16-2014 10:57 PM)Green Menace Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 09:47 PM)correcamino Wrote:  UNT was pretty irrelevant to me (and most people in Texas) prior to last season.

Now: The back and forth between our teams/fanbases is growing on me. It's fun to have an in-state conference team you don't like losing to. I do think the whole "the giant in Denton has awoken" stuff is premature though. It's a good start but it takes more than one good season to turn a losing culture around. Yall think MWC teams are worried about the "giant in Las Vegas waking up" because they had their first winning season in like a decade? UNT loses a lot of key guys to graduation so I'm interested to see how they respond.

Typical response from a utsa fan who didn't even have football until a few years ago. utsa is 100% irrelevant to me now as it was before you started a FB program.

Yeah, because it's clearly my fault that for the past couple of decades UNT has been irrelevant in Texas. Guess you feel the need to blame it on someone.

I am old enough to remember that Memphis, Louisville, and North Texas were all member of the MVC up through the early 70s, and that Memphis regularly played NT in both basketball and football.

(04-17-2014 12:20 AM)cotton1991 Wrote:  I am old enough to remember that Memphis, Louisville, and North Texas were all member of the MVC up through the early 70s, and that Memphis regularly played NT in both basketball and football.

You can add Cincinnati, St. Louis, Bradley, and Wichita State to that list as well.

(04-16-2014 11:45 PM)correcamino Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 10:57 PM)Green Menace Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 09:47 PM)correcamino Wrote:  UNT was pretty irrelevant to me (and most people in Texas) prior to last season.

Now: The back and forth between our teams/fanbases is growing on me. It's fun to have an in-state conference team you don't like losing to. I do think the whole "the giant in Denton has awoken" stuff is premature though. It's a good start but it takes more than one good season to turn a losing culture around. Yall think MWC teams are worried about the "giant in Las Vegas waking up" because they had their first winning season in like a decade? UNT loses a lot of key guys to graduation so I'm interested to see how they respond.

Typical response from a utsa fan who didn't even have football until a few years ago. utsa is 100% irrelevant to me now as it was before you started a FB program.

Yeah, because it's clearly my fault that for the past couple of decades UNT has been irrelevant in Texas. Guess you feel the need to blame it on someone.

Really? Four straight conference championships in football and four appearances in the New Orleans Bowl. What was utsa doing back then? Playing water polo at a rented Seaworld swimming hole?

(04-16-2014 09:37 PM)Irish Rowdy Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 09:34 PM)banker Wrote:  The ncaa should have stuck to its 15,000 average attendance guideline. Most of the MAC and Belt would be gone by now. No offense to our low average brethren, but if you can't get an average of 15,000 to come to your home games you shouldn't be playing FBS ball.

I agree with you 100%.

Are you also into big government? A big, all-powerful NCAA (the people that only care about the big boys) is the solution? If anything, it should be market-driven. A school that can't pay or properly fund its athletics should have to decide if athletics are worth it. Besides what do you care which schools play football? What's it to you? The beauty of a market-driven society is that you don't have to watch another team if you don't want to, and you don't have to support it either. Your justifications for who gets to play football are biased and self-serving.

(04-16-2014 07:53 PM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 07:29 PM)BRtransplant Wrote:  

(04-15-2014 06:52 PM)AndreWhere Wrote:  

(04-15-2014 10:29 AM)NTTHOR Wrote:  before CUSA invited north texas to join, what was your perception of north texas? has it changed?

i know this can turn into a school bashing, not totally looking for that, but would like honest thoughts...please don't include stupid hatred like some schools may. i'm generally curious as to the perception before we were announced as joining this conference.

When you went I-A, my reaction was "ugh... here we go, diluting the top classification." I saw the whole AQ split coming and I still blame all the schools that moved up after 1990. (Tech was either the last legit move up or the first bogus one... I tend towards the second option).

That said, I've read so much UNT propaganda lately that it's probably starting to work on me. I'll never be impressed by the fact that you're near Dallas, though (you're barking up the wrong tree with that crap), and you don't do more research than Southern Miss (despite the fact that some of your posters just assume that).

Much to your dismay, Tech was the last legit move up. Right after we busted our tails to meet the criteria to move up to D-IA, the NCAA changed the rules and pretty much let anyone that wanted to move to DI-A do it.

That doesn't cause me any dismay whatsoever. Back then, there were maybe 95-100 teams in the top tier, and Tech, USM, and USL were all included in that number. I have no problem with these institutions being in FBS or CUSA.

NTSU, NLU, USA, Troy State, UTSA, ODU, FIU, FAU (etc. ad nauseam) were not in the top classification back then. And because (I would argue) there was enough pie for everyone to have a piece back then, no one was talking about AQ, or paying players, or unionizing, or "Division IV", or any of the other bull**** that's put USM where USM is right now.

It really was so much better back then. Each conference had its bowl tie in, and the best independents in any given year scrambled for bids. Auto-bids were set up by prosperity. The SEC had the Sugar Bowl, the WAC had the Holiday Bowl, and so on. There weren't these hard lines drawn between BCS and non-BCS that there are now. SEC fans didn't talk down to us as much back then because their superiority was much more subjective. There were years when USM went to the Sun Bowl, the Independence Bowl, the Citrus Bowl, and all sorts of other bowls that won't give us the time of day now.

What happened? Well, first, ESPN manufactured a bunch of drama about how I-A football didn't have a real champion. That was always horse ****... I can remember one or two years where there was a split national championship, but it's not like anyone dropped dead as a result. There was some relatively good-natured back-and-forth.

Second, the foundation of the Sun Belt really killed any notion of I-A as a cohesive top tier. Southern Miss was tolerable to an extent that Troy State et al. were not. The pie's big... but it ain't that big.

If I could turn back time to 1990, right after Tech moved up, I would erase a whole lot of things that seemed good for USM at the time, but on balance what's happened since 1990 has really been awful for us.

The good old days aren't always so good. Sorry about progress and all it has done to your program but your justifications are selfish and unwarranted. If USM is the big loser in all this then so be it. I would like to see a true market-driven football system or a fair-to-all system (non-greed based). Unfortunately, the big players (SEC, B1G, ACC, PAC, etc.) have formed a cartel that is anti-capitalist and doesn't let many break through. But personally I don't give a hoot about your sentimental old days when Army was a football power or when USM had a shot. USM should EARN success and not have it given to it.

(04-17-2014 09:47 AM)Green Menace Wrote:  Really? Four straight conference championships in football and four appearances in the New Orleans Bowl. What was utsa doing back then? Playing water polo at a rented Seaworld swimming hole?

What does UTSA have to do with the perception of UNT prior to joining C-USA? I've lived in Texas all my life and while I didn't have a team to call my own until recently I've always watched college football. The Sunbelt titles were a blip on the radar for cfb fans in Texas. I never cared or knew much about UNT football and judging by your attendance over the years neither did many people outside of Denton.

That's just the truth. No need to get angry about it. Turning it around is always a possibility--last year was a good start.