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a quick glance at the TCU website shows they offer the following "athlete-friendly majors", several even talk about sports explicitly in the descriptions: Psychosocial Kinesiology, Movement Science, Nutritional Sciences, Physical Education, Social Work and Education. I don't think SMU even has a formal Education dept yet. This is laughable, no wonder they are cleaning our clocks.

You just nailed it!!! This is the single biggest difference. Add to that that TCU is in general an easier place to get a degree - and you get most of the problem. We need to create some majors where these guys can park themselves or we will never be better then mediocre - Miami, USC and Notre Dame all have Phys Ed. type sluff-off academic areas - Turner - are you listening? Gerald Ford - your investment will be squandered unless you insist this happens!!!.

The BIGGEST difference is that 9 years ago TCU decided to allow anyone and everyone that could play into school that met the NCAA minumums.

Their majors only help keep them IN school.

ONLY help keep them in school - what do you think is the biggest issue with recruiting - its not who you recruit, but who can make it through a Freshman and Redshirt freshman year to actually play for you - no phys ed major - no giant dumb awesome lineman - no giant dumb awesome lineman, no Div 1 success.

It's called a Communications degree fellas. I can personally attest that half of the people who major in Communications are serious about the degree, and half of them take it b/c it's EASY.Our troubles aren't because of such trivial issues. Maybe these issues have collectively been a burden in the past. But NOT anymore. Our last recruiting class was named the best in the nation for a non-BCS school by Rivals.com. That pretty much craps on any "we can't recruit" nonsense, at least for this year. And the same guy who did that recruiting is around for at least two more years. The fact is we can recruit, and we are. That an SMU degree is generally more highly regarded than one from TCU is becoming the asset it should be again. Kids have been going to Frogland lately b/c they're beating everyone and playing in bowl games. Who can blame them? Good for TCU. At least now SMU is becoming a desireable choice for recruits. And if that continues, we'll start winning. And winning solves a lot of problems. Like finding easy majors for recruits to take.

"The fact is we can recruit, and we are."

True and accurate facts from AdGrad.

Communications and Education majors (and variations thereof) are bull**** majors for most people in college.

I don't believe that an Education Department is necessary. You can major in something like English and then go get your teaching certificate. I know a number of SMU grads who have done just that. Someone posted a while back that what we need to add is a Sports Management degree path. Within that degree path can be classes in Phys. Ed., Kinesiology, communications, etc. When I was at SMU, they had courses like that. I can't imagine that adding a very streamlined degree program like that would add much cost to the budget - unlike a full blown Education Department.

On another note, I advocated many months ago that the enrollment be pushed upwards for the very reasons that are stated above. I have yet to see a plausible argument why this can't, and shouldn't, be done. Adding more students will NOT have any impact on our overall academic reputation. What we need at SMU is more exposure, people, and money.

Communications and Education are m-r-s degrees, not jock majors. If you don't think programs like Psychosocial Kinesiology (my favorite) and Nutritional Sciences are designed for the athletic department, some of you guys are crazy. Basically what that means is the professors (if you could call them that) are 'very friendly' with the coaches. In others words, Gary Patterson doesn't have to ask for favors from the chair of the Comm dept to keep LT eligible, its never even an issue.

<small>[ 11-14-2003, 06:42 AM: Message edited by: Hoop Fan ]</small>

Hoop Fan,

Exactly. It doesn't take much to put this in place.

thats correct - and the point is not that we are recruiting well lately - we are, no doubt - the point is that many of these guys will not play for us on the field if we can't , like TCU, figure out a way to keep them in school advancing towards some sort of degree. We will have more trouble with this as we improve our talent - because to continue to improve talent we will have to "broaden" our admissions history concerning athletes.

to all of you guys who think Bennett is the greatest recruiter to come down the pick since Bear Bryant-just remember one thing Mike Cavan's 2nd recruiting year was almost as good as Bennett's 2nd year and UNDER MUCH MORE DIFFICULT STANDARDS. Back then we heard the exact same people talk about how swell Mikey was. Well what happened? I tell you what-his message ran stale after about 3 years especially after the TCU program showed its dominance. A lot of you Recruiting Gurus talk like Bennett's going to pull a golden rabbitt out of a 0-12 Hat this year too. Well I don't think you really want me posting the names of the top 15 or so recruits who have dropped consideration of SMU since this season has dragged on. Bennett's program is struggling for its life right now-the difference between me and you is you want to see if he can sink or swim on his own while I want to throw him a lifeline that should have been thrown two years ago so that he can get some more mature kids in here to show immediate progress or at least bail water until help can arrive. If Bennett doesn't get that help from the administration immediately don't be surprised if some other victim is coaching here in 2-3 years talking about how Bennett's last 3 classes "never showed up" and the fans talk about how Bennett couldn't recruit. A coach has only a short window of opportunity to sell his program when he is trying to rebuild. The Honeymoon may already be over while you guys are sitting on the sidelines debating our Sears Cup ranking in Country Club sports.

<small>[ 11-14-2003, 07:25 AM: Message edited by: Stallion ]</small>

Bennett has openly talked about getting a juco transfer to QB this team. I have to surmise that some changes on juco transfers have already been made. In the past he has stated that he wouldn't recruit jucos at SMU.

So that we may be more informed - exactly which admission policies need to be trashed - and what should they be replaced with? how should it be put in a letter or e-mail? I know part of the equation is transferrable hours for a JUCO, - but I do not pretend ot know exactly what is the hang up with admitting Jucos at SMU - if we could be enlighted ot this then we could actually lobby for something specific, rather then get our letters "round filed" as just another disgruntled alum [deleted] instead of investing in therapy.

Bennett wouldn't because he couldn't-he was singing the company tune-the man has a lifetime track record that clearly demonstrates his preferences-the DMN confirmed it.