RGTurner & MexMustang

[SoCal_Pony]

thank you tristate, my niece actually turned down a full-ride to Rice.

I brought up Stanford as a retort to the poster who tried to pooh-pooh the importance of sports at a university. Stanford, arguably one of the 2 best universities in the world and with a rich history in FB (much like SMU), endowed every scholarship in its football program because they understand this. Cal-Tech or MIT are ridiculous comparisons. Stanford is not. They are a power school that was determined to continue to compete at the highest levels. They just have deeper pockets than us. I agree that Turner gets high marks for the past 10 years, but I judge him over his 23 year stay here, not 10.

Which brings me to MexMustang. His point is that no college president should hang around more than 12 years, certainly not 23 and absolutely not 30. It leads to potential problems that he described in good detail. I completely agree with him on this point and IMO is the main reason we have become stagnant on the academic side, which to me is much more important than the athletic side. The response by most on this thread is to attack Mex personally while not addressing the concerns he brings up. I think that is revealing of the posters, not Mex.

[Stallion]

Because he's attacking a straw-man in Turner who he blames on multiple SMU boards for every single problem that has ever existed in SMU athletics. Turner really isn't responsible for the W-L record of either the Bowl bound Football team or the NCAA Tournament Basketball team. Turner deserves plenty of blame for taking too long to clear academic barriers that remained until 2008 admittedly but that required changing school administrative regulations, appointing new faculty and leadership and building a brand new College of Education at substantial expenses to the university. He did successfully destroy the last remaining remnants of a long list of academic restraints in the SMU Academic Model which made it impossible for SMU to compete with its natural and traditional rivals.

Turner is responsible for 3 straight great hires in Larry Brown, Chad Morris and Jankovich and now one that quite frankly is rather yawn inducing. I think its fair to say many thought he pulled a coup in signing June Jones-although I personally think they were looking at all the wrong criteria for a successful coach at a private school in Dallas. June Jones is responsible for being a lazy, incompetent recruiter which literally set this program back for half a decade. Now at least SMU seems to be more properly focused on the proper traits that are required to be a successful program in Dallas, Texas.

Turner is responsible for fund raising for school and athletic improvements. Despite the [deleted] he has been quite successful in raising oh I dunno lets throw out $275,000,000 (unadjusted for annual inflation-so much much more in 2017 dollars) for athletic facility improvements since 2000-which is 1/4 of our school endowment. Athletic improvements 1954-2000 essentially nothing worthwhile or worth mentioning.

Turner isn't responsible when only 8,000 fans want to attend our games, he's not responsible for the fact it took 3 years rather than a few months to obtain funding for the IPF. The real problem since 2008 has not been Turner--its been SMU's alumni, family and friends don't care too damn terribly much about College Football. SMU fans are tying our Coaches' hands behind their back in recruiting by their apathetic support of the football team on game day which chases off more top football prospects than you can imagine. The Pony Express never would have existed without Mustang Mania which filled the stands prior to the date they signed their Letters of Intent.

[GoMustAAngs2007]

Turner isn't responsible when only 8,000 fans want to attend our games, he's not responsible for the fact it took 3 years rather than a few months to obtain funding for the IPF. The real problem since 2008 has not been Turner--its been SMU's alumni, family and friends don't care too damn terribly much about College Football. SMU fans are tying our Coaches' hands behind their back in recruiting by their apathetic support of the football team on game day which chases off more top football prospects than you can imagine. The Pony Express never would have existed without Mustang Mania which filled the stands prior to the date they signed their Letters of Intent.

Stallion, help me understand your argument here. You've made the point over and over again that we don't have very many fans who attend football games. That much is clear to everyone on this board. It's sad and frustrating for those of us who are good, loyal fans.

That said, you haven't addressed the reasons WHY. For two decades the program and the university accomplished absolutely nothing that would warrant engaged, loyal fan support. For anyone who attended SMU during this time, football was a non-factor in their undergraduate experience (with the exception of social life on the boulevard). In the JJ and Chad Morris eras, every time we got some momentum it cratered to the ground just as fast. 2010 - big home game against TCU coming off the 2009 Hawaii Bowl win, packed crowd of mostly SMU fans at Ford for that game and they lose. 2011 - team falls apart after a 5-1 start losing badly to Tulsa and Southern Miss. Salvaged the season somewhat with the bowl win over Pitt. 2016 - fantastic win over Houston followed by a disaster against Memphis on Homecoming. 2017 - close but no cigar against Memphis, Navy, and UCF.

A number of alumni from my generation (graduated in 2007) are good alumni - they give money to the university in some form, speak highly of their time at SMU, and stay engaged. They just don't care for SMU football because they have no memories of SMU football doing anything meaningful like a conference championship, Top 25 ranking, or a win over a big time opponent. You may think this makes them bad alumni but I respectfully disagree. I go to games but I don't talk down to people who don't go - I want the program at some point to give them a reason to engage, buy season tickets, and make SMU football, not just the boulevard, a priority on fall Saturdays. The blame lies with an administration that did not have its house in order after the death penalty.

To the point of this thread - I respect what RGT has accomplished but agree it's time for him to move on. The facility upgrades and athletic investment just didn't happen soon enough.

With all of this, SMU basketball in the LB/Jank era has been a gift from the heavens to this university and its fan base. The investment in facilities and coaches has paid off in spades and our fan base proved that they will show up in droves for a winning, nationally relevant program. The same alumni I mentioned above that aren't engaged with football are highly engaged with basketball.

[mtrout]

People love basketball because they haven’t seen smu lose a home game in 2 years.

[skyscraper]

It boils down to this: getting rid of Turner isn't going to miraculously flip the football team into 10-2 and 11-1.
I don't disagree with the fact that fresh blood would be good. But RGT is a strawman for too many people.
And Mex gets reamed because his arguments are rehashed psuedo-insider claims that are easily picked apart when facts are introduced.

[Stallion]

Do you feel better now that you've excused the failure of our alumni, family and friends to bother to show up--because that's all it is an excuse

Excuses aren't going to mean a damn when the next conference realignment occurs. There is no SMU Exception for small, private schools or schools whose fans don't show up and support the program because its been tooouugghhh. We are very probably the Centre College or Chicago U. of the future if we don't understand that our College Football future window might be closing. You guys want some validations for your fewlings and I'm trying to say WAKE UP--we are about to get left behind again. See Rice. We will be judged against our AAC competitors (UCF, UH, USF, Cincinnati, Memphis, UCONN, BYU, Boise, Colorado St. and SDSU and we don't measure up. College Football is 75% recruiting-75% of games are basically decided on signing date, No recruit ever gave a damn about a university president but they damn sure want to play in front of a great college atmosphere. "We" meaning the fanbase are a much bigger problem in building the football program than the President of the University

BOTTOM LINE: Stop [deleted] about your feelings about SMU's distant past and start focusing on the specific factors and deficiencies than need to be addressed to move past our competitors in the next expansion. Turner has checked off most of the Facility upgrades. Our fanbase hasn't even put a dent in our attendance problem even when we are bowl eligible.

Now back to your regularly scheduled parade of excuse-makers for why a competitive AAC football team has 8,000 real fans

[GoMustAAngs2007]

So the failure of the football program since 1989 to finish a regular season better than 7-5, crack the top 25, or win a conference championship is entirely attributable to the fact that we don't have enough fans? Got it.

Maybe this is more of an emotional investment for those of you who actually saw SMU ranked, playing meaningful games in a meaningful conference, and beating the Longhorns/Aggies/Red Raiders on a semi-regular basis. No one who graduated from SMU in the past 30 years has seen that.

I would argue that we have already been left behind. If/when there is another round of realignment, maybe one or two of the schools you mentioned get to move up. I've grown to like the AAC despite its numerous flaws in terms of geography and commonality among schools.

[mtrout]

Smu fans showed up with guests to the frisco bowl and got humiliated...again. Fans showed up, team didn’t.

[AusTxPony]

I'll jump in here. I so agree the problem is the fans attending the games. Lazy or disinterested alumni and students. But how do we fix it? We have a beautiful campus and sufficient facilities and a respected University. What we don't have is casual Dallas fans and a winning football program. HOW DO WE FIX IT? Start with the students somehow. Winning would do wonders, so spend more money on Coaches. More publicity campaigns. Any other ideas? Complaining adds little to the progress.

[Pony_Law]

Redpony is right, those are ridiculous comparisons. SMU never has and never will aspire to be Cal-Tech, MIT or UofChicago.

I remember reading an article over 20 years ago, most likely from the LA Times. It spoke of the 'crossroads' Stanford University was at regarding athletics. We are talking STANFORD, another school SMU will never become. Some at Stanford wanted to markedly reduce its athletic footprint. In the end, the decision was made to INCREASE its athletic comittment. The article was written after Stanford had some on-the-field success and noted how they had made the right decision. I also know plenty of USC grads here in SoCal. You know, the successful ones who live in nice houses and do well in business and contribute back to their school. USC is a great university with many similarities to SMU. Tell those grads their sports programs don't matter; they would consider you ill-informed at best, an idiot at worse.

On the personal note, I can tell you that I could have been accepted to any school within 500 miles of Dallas. I narrowed it to two, UT and SMU. Athletics was not the driving factor, but it absolutely played a role in deciding which school I wanted to attend (I watched plenty of SMU FB and BB games as a child).

That is the reality of 20th and most likely 21st century America. Sports, for better or worse, matter.

And for those criticizing Mex for his Pye association, I don't get it. He is stating that no President should serve more than ~12 years. I agree. I suspect most would as well. Even if you don't, anyone here think its healthy to have the same President for 20 years?, 30 years?

That is actually my point, Athletics are basically marketing and a fundraising vehicle. They don't actually mater in terms of good school vs not good school (neither do the rankings) and they also are not necessarily relevant to evaluating the "job" of the president (which is fundraising and keeping the powers that be happy). Why does the sports program matter to USC fans? They would probably tell you something falling into things like a) school spirit/pride (alumni engagement/marketing) 2) Fun for the community (great that translates to making it more attractive to potential students ie marketing) 3) national exposure to the wider population (marketing). That helps them fund-raise and encourages students to come. There are more than 1 way to skin that cat however and the examples I gave do it a different way. Universities like Northwestern, Davidson, or Rice also primarily do it a different way as well (if you want other examples of great private D1 universities with generally terrible sports). Why do you need to market at all as a university? To get people to come and ultimately donate money and to perhaps give people a reason to think positively about a university (does anyone believe Alabama is a "good" school?)

[SoCal_Pony]

Back in 1996, when the SWC disbanded, an alumni relative of mine and I wrote several letters back and forth discussing the impact on SMU. We concluded that having UT leave us was our death warrant. Not at that time, not within a decade, but at some point in our lifetimes. I wonder we are closing in on that time. Stallion does not have an answer to our attendance problems because nobody does, although I do like the idea of Mustang Mania II.

The best we can hope for:

the P5 contracts, leaving Baylor and TCU with us.
Football will lose some of its appeal over time (changing ethnicity of America, concussion issue,WiFi generation) which will give the Power schools less of a financial advantage over us than they have today.
Our BB program can survive and flourish against the P5 schools with their deep pockets. (BB is an international sport that translates well to TV, its future is brighter IMO).

It's funny, but my main issue with RGT relates to our lack of academic progression, not athletics, which I now think is on about as good a course as one can reasonably expect. But the easiest place to voice these academic concerns with fellow SMU alum is on a sports blog.

[StallionsModelT]

I'll put this is concise words:

The Board of Trustees is set up to prevent alumni that think like you from burning the university to the ground-again. Thank god-good riddance to all of them

Wrong. Our sins in the 80's were really just being ahead of the curve on paying players. I'd kill to have 1,000 boosters willing to bankroll us back into national relevance. The fact we were given a DP for paying players is laughably absurd in the wake of what the NCAA has allowed to transpire in the past 30 years. If it were up to me Sherwood Blount would head of the Mustang Club and we'd have the best team money could buy again.

[StallionsModelT]

Do you feel better now that you've excused the failure of our alumni, family and friends to bother to show up--because that's all it is an excuse

Excuses aren't going to mean a damn when the next conference realignment occurs. There is no SMU Exception for small, private schools or schools whose fans don't show up and support the program because its been tooouugghhh. We are very probably the Centre College or Chicago U. of the future if we don't understand that our College Football future window might be closing. You guys want some validations for your fewlings and I'm trying to say WAKE UP--we are about to get left behind again. See Rice. We will be judged against our AAC competitors (UCF, UH, USF, Cincinnati, Memphis, UCONN, BYU, Boise, Colorado St. and SDSU and we don't measure up. College Football is 75% recruiting-75% of games are basically decided on signing date, No recruit ever gave a damn about a university president but they damn sure want to play in front of a great college atmosphere. "We" meaning the fanbase are a much bigger problem in building the football program than the President of the University

BOTTOM LINE: Stop [deleted] about your feelings about SMU's distant past and start focusing on the specific factors and deficiencies than need to be addressed to move past our competitors in the next expansion. Turner has checked off most of the Facility upgrades. Our fanbase hasn't even put a dent in our attendance problem even when we are bowl eligible.

Now back to your regularly scheduled parade of excuse-makers for why a competitive AAC football team has 8,000 real fans

You do realize that none of the current AAC schools have a snowball's chance in any kind of realignment right? TV money will be dwindling for all but the SEC. We are well positioned in the AAC and should be thankful for it. None of our conference mates are going to be called up to the big time. Deep down you know this but far be it from me from stopping you taking every opportunity to verbally defecate on SMU fans.

[1017 Mustang]

http://web.archive.org/web/20070906214010/http://chronicle.com:80/stats/usnews/index.php?category=Universities&orgs=&sort=1996

The ones that showed significant upward moves from 1996 to 2018 were:
USC -- 44 to 21
Vandy -- 22 to 14
GT -- 42 to 34
BC -- 37 to 32
Brandeis -- NR to 34
Boston U -- NR to 37
Northeastern -- (Deeply) NR to 40
Pepperdine -- NR to 46...cracked top 50 in 2001, rose to 47 in '03, fell to 55 in '06 and now back in top 50.
Miami -- NR to 46
Georgia is improved (#54)

The largest reason for the increase in these schools is their growth as NATIONALLY renowned research institutions with significant INTERNATIONAL footprints. All of these schools have Medical schools and significant grants from National Institutions for their Health and Engineering research.

SMU's decision to sell of the medical school continues to pay negative dividends to this day. Making concerted efforts to improve the Science and Engineering programs in undergrad and grad school would improve our standing more quickly than anything football related.

And we should probably make a long-term goal of adding a public health/medical school or even rebuying back UT Southwestern. I don't know of any nationally recognized school that is only known for it's business school.

[Stallion]

Actually no I think there is going to be further realignment before the next TV renegotiation of the P5 happens --specifically the Big 12 in 2025. That's when we have to be in a position to get added to what might be a left-over Big 12 but with schools like Baylor, TCU, Tech, Kansas St, West Virginia, Houston--maybe Oklahoma St-maybe Kansas and likely UCF, USF, Cincy, Colorado St

https://www.sbnation.com/college-footba ... r-contract