WAC West Rules

[Sam I Am]

Idaho State and Fresno State have proven that a mid-level conferecne can play with some of the BCS crowd. No wonder the West disrespects the East even after La TEch beat them last year. SMU will have to get a lot better to beat the WEst.

[Charleston Pony]

You meant Boise State (Idaho State is a I-AA member of the Big Sky) and I agree. The WAC's only winning teams were the 3 bowl teams and all out west. Rice, at 4-7, had the best record of the eastern teams.

An even bigger problem is the WAC's inability to draw fans. Boise State, playing on their home field in nasty weather, had a very respectable near sellout 30,000 turnout yesterday. Hawaii, playing on it's home field on Christmas Day, drew a decent crowd of about 35,000. Fresno, playing in the Silicon Valley Bowl (the bowl in closest proximity to Fresno) drew only 10,000 fans. Can you imagine the attendance in those games if SMU, La Tech or any of the eastern teams had been the host team? It would not have been pretty.

While most of the 24 bowl games draw pretty well, I think we've gone beyond the saturation point. It's time for a playoff where only conference champions (and a few wild card teams who undoubtedly would be very deserving) are rewarded with post season play. Meanwhile, until that day comes, I agree SMU and the WAC east teams need to start contributing. maybe we can someday play a bowl game 1,000 miles or more from Dallas in front of 10,000 fans.

[Sam I Am]

Oops, too much egg nog on New Year's Eve when I typed Idaho State and meant Boise State. I agree completely that the Div.1 football needs a playoff system to replace the bowls. As for attendance, SMU solves that problem they will be invited to move into a better conference.

[No Cal Pony]

CP, I think we can play far and draw a big crowd, but it will take a lot of commitment, and getting the greater Dallas community involved. We have a natural disadvantage in being a small, private university. Even as I went to SMU from Los Angeles, many kids I grew up with thought SMU was as big as usc.

Fresno st. is a mid-size school, but has the advantage of being the only game in town. They also dominate the whole of the San Joaquin Valley. In Dallas, we compete with the other Texas school alums, and of course, the Cowboys. When we win, and put some excitement on the field, a la miami, then SMU can too gain in fans and crowds.

What got boise and fresno going are solid coaching staffs, and good recruiting. They may not get all top athletes, but they pick up some good ones. My area has turned out some good kids lately, and fresno and boise have swooped in on the kids as they have often been overlooked. (See Ryan Dinwiddie and Bobby Hammer at boise. Pinegar at fresno.)

I feel good about Bennett. I hope he can bring along the program as Hawkins and Hill have done at their schools.

Go Ponies!

[FloridaMustang]

A lot of people don't realize that half of the student body at SMU are graduate students (and not exactly as "involved" as undergrads). Typically wherever a student gets their undergraduate degree is the team they support. There are only approx. 5,000 undergrads at SMU, and that's considerably smaller than other WAC schools. Most of the fans in Ford Stadium on gamedays are alums...so thank god we have plenty of those

[EastStang]

Actually the Mid Majors had a bad bowl season against BCS schools. The WAC was 2-0. The MAC was 0-1. Sun Belt 0-0. MWC was 0-3. C-USA was 0-1. In games between Mid Majors. MAC 1-0. SBC 1-0. CUSA 2-2. MWC 0-1. WAC 0-1.
In the glass half full category, SMU's bowl bound opponants this year were 4-1. I haven't check but I think that TT and TCU beat their opponants worse than they beat us. I'm not sure on Fresno. OSU beat us worse than they beat USM. I think that Chang played against us for Hawaii and left the game at halftime against Tulane. So, we showed that we could play with some good teams. The WAC was better this year at the top than the other mid-majors. On the other hand we see all those teams again, plus Boise State(less Hawaii). We'd better be ready.