5/29/03

[Nacho]

You might want to mark down 5/29/03 on your calendar. That's when Tulane will decide the future of its football program. The athletic dept there is losing $7 million/yr. There is real talk about dropping football or going to d-3. Houston as many of you will recall is in a similar financial bind. Not only is the BE going to hit C-USA pretty hard but monetary woes may hit Houston, Tulane and UAB first. I'm not sure what all this means for SMU but we will definitely be looking at a differnt d-1 in the very near future. For the complete Tulane story go to <A HREF="http://www.neworleans.net/tulane/" TARGET=_blank>www.neworleans.net.tulane/</A> and click on the green wave/red ink story.

[This message has been edited by Nacho (edited 05-12-2003).]

[This message has been edited by Nacho (edited 05-12-2003).]

[Dubbya]

"The BE"? What's that?
Maybe I missed the explanation...

[Nacho]

Big East.

[Mustangs35SMU]

I hope this is good for SMU football! we need something to kick off the season right!

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The Red And Blue Is Back! Let the Pony Pride Ride On The Hilltop!

[SoCal_Pony]

Nacho,

That was an interesting article and a must-read for SMU fans.

My thoughts:

Our graduation rates seem to be on par with their 78% rate.

Tulane’s Athletic fund raises $1.1 million per year; I believe the Mustang Club raises $2M per year.

I think the likelihood of Tulane dropping D1 football May 29th is about the same as them digging themselves out of this $7M hole. Much like the University of Houston, the day of reckoning will occur later, not today.

Before ANY school drops D1 football, I suspect there will be a legal challenge to Title IX.

Interesting assertion that “it takes a lot of money” to run the athletic department “the right way”, thus guaranteeing that Tulane’s athletes graduate. Wonder how much this costs SMU?

Like Tulane, it appears that SMU refuses to run its program the wrong way, thus accelerating their demise. I guess the old 'self-inflicted wound' is the right way.

A 1-0 Houston team played Tulane last September in Houston. Less than 17,000 fans showed up. Houston and Tulane might be better than Nevada and San Jose St., but they are not a cure-all.

[Charleston Pony]

It all sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it? Tulane and SMU are actually in very similar situations, along with TCU, Rice, Tulsa and all the other small private schools that can't sell 50,000 tickets to home football games. I've read that the Alabama public system is looking hard at UAB and might eliminate football there, as well. Most of the "2nd tier" state schools (like UNT & Houston) are dealing with similar budget issues.

There's no question the BCS has expanded the gap between the "haves" and "have nots" in Division I. The question is whether they will ultimately create a situation where only 64 schools (or somewhere near that number) will elect to compete at the highest level. I've always felt this will come down to having schools compete on the basis of comparable ahletic budgets and there are still a lot of pretenders among the current BCS group.

[Diehard Pony]

Point of clarification on So_CalPony's post. The Mustang Club does raise approximately $2 million, but I believe Copeland took on the job of matching that through his own efforts. If everyone is successful that should mean $4 million total.

[SoCal_Pony]

Diehard,

I thought about Copeland's matching contribution on my original post. But since there has been no self-declaration on the part of either Copeland or the Mustang Club about its success, I can only assume that Copeland did not meet his commitment.

That of course is pure speculation and I would like to be proven wrong.

Does anybody have any idea how well Copeland has done?

[FloridaMustang]

What I want to know is, how in the hell did TCU get their own bowl?? Amon Carter is a terrible choice...it's a terrible, ugly stadium. Ford Stadium seemed to be a logical choice for a new bowl.. what happened?

[FloridaMustang]

What I want to know is, how in the hell did TCU get their own bowl?? Amon Carter is a terrible choice...it's a terrible, ugly stadium. Ford Stadium seemed to be a logical choice for a new bowl.. what happened?

[OldPony]

One of the things that jumped out of that article re Tulane's predicament was the lack of student attendance. It sounded very much like SMU. Has there ever been a study or poll to determine whether the students care if SMU keeps D-I sports? At some point, the students have to care or SMU sports will die. The rest of you are getting old and won't be there to support the teams for ever (or at least in dwindling numbers). Luckily, OP plans to live forever.