Will we ever have the success that TCU...

[PonySnob]

has enjoyed? Will we ever go to 5 bowl games in a row? Be ranked in the top 25 in the country? Compete for our conference championship? Draw more than 10,000 to our home games?
SMU fans should be embarassed at how far TCU's football program has progressed while ours has wallowed below mediocrity! What will everybody be saying if we start the year 1-3 or 0-4? The game on October 4 against UTEP has great potential for an 0-4 SMU team to battle a 0-5 UTEP team. That will certainly fill the stands.
When will SMU fans be able to be proud of their teams performance not only in the classroom, but on the field?

[True Colors]

As a non-SMU alum, I'd love to see the ponies climb back to respectability.

I live in Dallas, and would start going to some SMU games if they were going to be reasonably entertaining. Last year I went to the Tech game in Dallas, and it was quite enjoyable. Good crowd, tight contest until late in the game against a recognizable in state rival.

I honestly hope that PB can be successful, but if for any reason he is not, it will be long past time for SMU to make a big time hire, and will probably have to overpay someone an absurd degree just to jump start the program.

A couple of examples(though admittedly not perfect) were the near dead programs of South Carolina, Mississippi State, Purdue, and Hawaii which were all were forced to bring in someone of a much higher stature than they had normally hired, just so they could pull themselves out of the doldrums.

Hiring assistant coaches from big time programs almost always look great on paper, but there is a reason that a lot of those people were #2's instead of #1's.

Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet, get off of the wallet, and lay out some major cashola just to show people that you actually take football seriously.

TC

[ponyman]

SMU will start having the same success as TCU when we start admitting academic non-qualifiers and students who score less than their age on the SAT. I'm proud of the fact that we haven't forgotten that college football players are STUDENT-Athletes and our first priority is to make sure that they get an education. I' sure most TCU graduates have a very easy life only having to remember to ask "You want fries with that?"

[PonySnob]

While I do think it is great that we have nothing but "smart" players on our team who all graduate, unfortunately, it has not enabled us to have much success on playing field. ESPN doesn't have a show every Saturday talking about which teams have the smartest players, but rather which teams are winning! I haven't seen a football magazine that has any sort of ranking of smart players. All of these "smart" players don't seem to be getting us on TV very much. People don't talk around the office on Monday morning about how "my team is smarter than yours" but rather, "how about that [deleted] kicking my team gave yours". It is great that we all think it is so noble having all of these players on our team, but how many 4,3,2 or 1 win seasons can we continue to endure?

[PonyFan]

Yes, we will match and even exceed the success they've had at TCU. Have faith in Coach Bennett. Will we play in a BCS bowl anytime soon? Maybe not - certainly not, given the current conference realignment - but there's much more to offer here.

And True Colors, you should get season tickets. Come to every home game, and bring a friend, co-worker, neighbor .... whatever. That's the way we'll grow our fan base. Share with people how enjoyable SMU football is.

[EastStang]

Bennett is growing a program and the Administration is giving him what he needs to do that. Hiring a proven 1-A assistant with deep ties to DFW will pay dividends. Darrell Royal was a great recruiter, but had Emory Ballard to run the offense. Bennett has shown he can recruit. Although our schedule will be more difficult this year than last, I look for modest improvement in wins and losses.