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This week marks the beginning of the 2008 season for TCU, SMU and UNT.  Earlier today, TCU Head Coach Gary Patterson met with the media as a part of the Horned Frogs’ Reporting Day.  Among the things that Patterson talked about was the last minute addition of Atoine Hicks and the Texas heat.  The high temperature at DFW Airport on Sunday, August 3rd, was 107 degrees.  The Frogs will have their first practice on Monday, August 4th at 4 PM.  TCU will also host their annual “Meet the Frogs” on August 23rd beginning with Inflatable Games at 10 AM.  There will be an opportunity to meet players, coaches, cheerleaders and showgirls along with free posters and player trading cards.  To find out more about “Meet the Frogs,” visit GoFrogs.com.

In Denton, TX, UNT players report for the first practice of 2008 also on Monday, August 4th.  One of the interesting things in which the Mean Green website is doing is blogging the two-a-days workouts.  If you really want to know what is going at each practice during the next couple of weeks, you can log on to MeanGreenSports.com and follow the live blog.  That’s right, I said live.  Blogging begins at 7 PM Monday.  Check it out.

The Mustangs begin practice on Monday too.  SMU will begin practices for the 2008 season beginning at 9:30 AM.  Players report on Sunday, and the June Jones era will begin.  Fans are welcome to watch practices, but they are asked to watch from behind the “fence for practices on Pettus and from the stands for workouts held in the stadium.”  Jones will usher in a new era of “Pony Express”–by air.

In a metropolitan area which is home to two of the largest airlines in the country, three NCAA Bowl Subdivision football teams will take the field in 2008 logging as many air miles as any team in the country. It’s an exciting brand of football for the fans to be sure, and with signing of June Jones to be the new head coach at Southern Methodist University, the tickets just might sell. Texas Christian University, Southern Methodist University and the University of North Texas are neighbors in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex.

If anyone throws the ball as much as Jones did at the University of Hawaii, it would be Todd Dodge out of his no huddle Spread Offense at UNT (University of North Texas) known as “Dodge Ball.” Last year Dodge’s team averaged 46 passes per game for 3476 total yards on the season.

Jones’ Hawaii team averaged 51 passes a game for a total of 5713 yards on the season. In case you are wondering, that’s about 476 yards per game (12 games). Jones uses the old “Run and Shoot” offense that was used so well at the University of Houston in the 80’s. Jones has the services of two year starter Justin Willis, if he can pull it together and get himself back on the team.

UNT, of course, is located in Denton, TX, just north of Dallas, and SMU is located in Dallas. In Fort Worth, Gary Patterson is the head coach of TCU (Texas Christian University), where the passing game has always helped balanced the usually stellar running game. In the past, TCU has used dual threat Quarterbacks to complement such running backs as LaDainian Tomlinson, Lonta Hobbs, and Robert Merrill. However, in QB Andy Dalton, TCU is starting to benefit from a strong, accurate arm. TCU averaged 34 passes per game for a total of 2881 yards on the season, up from 27 passes per game in 2006 and 29 passes per game in 2005. With a more confident Dalton, will the Frogs throw the ball more? The Frogs have never been afraid to throw the ball when it needed to. In recent years the TCU QB has had big passing games. TCU is not a one dimensional team.

DFW college football may be exciting in the 2008 season. While watching a game, you might look to the skies. However, it may not be just to see the airplanes.