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Given the ineptitude of our football program in the post death penalty era and our relatively brief time as a member of the AAC, I wanted to check into SMU's history against this season's AAC opponents. I suppose I was inspired to look into this after yet another loss to Houston.

4-0 vs UConn
11-21-1 vs Houston
0-2 vs Cincinnati
13-10 vs Tulsa
1-6 vs UCF
7-11 vs Navy
3-6 vs Memphis
10-13 vs Tulane

Disappointed by how poorly we've fared against the larger public schools but these results are similar to what they were during our SWC days (Houston a reflection of that).

Numbers don't lie and it should probably not surprise anyone that we are most competitive with the other small private schools that are closest to us geographically. Bottom line is that we need to start beating the larger public schools so let's start by beating Cincinnati 10/21

Surprised matchup with Tulsa is so close, especially because SMU beat Tulsa seven years in a row.

Conversely, Navy is on a seven-game winning streak vs. SMU.

Three losses in the 1940's accounts for the difference in the Tulane series. http://www.winsipedia.com/tulane/vs/smu

easy to forget (or have never known) that Tulane was once a part of the SEC

So was Georgia Tech and The University of the South (Sewanee)

we suck.

Those numbers are completely skewed by our DP.

Prior to that, we were arguably the 3rd most successful SWC program behind UT & Arky.

Over the past 30 years, SMU ranks 113 out of total 119 D1-A schools.

You really expect us to have a winning % against anyone?????

I like Congrove rankings as a means to judge how we're doing season over season.

As a quick data point, the current team is ranked 57 in Congrove (of 130 teams). Which puts us quality-wise somewhere in between the 2010 team that lost to Army in the Armed Forces Bowl and the 2011 squad that spanked Pitt in Birmingham.

7-11 should belong to Houston

SoCal_Pony wrote:Those numbers are completely skewed by our DP.

Prior to that, we were arguably the 3rd most successful SWC program behind UT & Arky.

somewhat skewed by post death penalty era, no question...but the fact remains we haven't fared well historically against our larger public school conference mates. We've actually done as well against Arkansas as anyone going 31-37-5. By comparison, we are 22-47-4 vs Texas, 16-33 vs Tex Tech and 29-45-7 vs Tex A&M. We were at least ahead of Rice, but not significantly as that series is 48-41-1 in our favor. Baylor and TCU have been our closest competitors as we are 36-39-7 all time against them but had the advantage before the death penalty. We are now 40-50-7 against TCU because they have gone 21-6 against us in the post death penalty era.

CP,

Here are schools listed by winning % from 1920 until our DP, ~70 years of data.

Our ranking is skewed against us because of D1-A schools such as Tulsa & North Texas that are ranked higher but played in much weaker conferences.

#8 - Texas
#20 - Arkansas
#49 - SMU
#57 - Tech (achieved in an inferior conference)
#58 - A&M
#64 - Baylor
#75 - TCU
#104 - Rice

We were arguably the 3rd most successful SWC program pre-DP.

This is also the same order within SWC play:

Texas
Arkansas
SMU
A&M
Baylor
TCU
Rice

~70 years of data

SoCal_Pony wrote:This is also the same order within SWC play:

Texas
Arkansas
SMU
A&M
Baylor
TCU
Rice

~70 years of data

I will grant you those "all time" rankings but just as the death penalty skews our post DP numbers, the "pre-cable TV" stats are very favorable to SMU. With the exception of our Pony Express era, much of our real success came in a different generation of football but since TV took over, the larger schools with larger fan bases have pretty enjoyed a significant advantage. Our administration was very short sighted in not recognizing the importance of football and in hindsight, we should have worked hard to rebuild after the death penalty because there aren't many small private schools performing well in today's college football world. SMU had an opportunity to build on the Pony Express brand it enjoyed during the Ron Meyer/Bobby Collins era, but my fear is that our failure to do so may have cost us the opportunity to ever compete at the highest level of college football again.