Revised Scheduling Strategy

[GHammond]

We need to move on from the Houston Baptist, ACU, La Tech, Texas State, SFA, Arkie St, and James Madison schedule padding strategy that leads straight to third tier bowls and watered down rewards for going 9-3, 8-4...looking back, in the 60's, we scheduled Mizzou, MN, Ohio St, Purdue, Auburn, NC St...70's, OU, TN, UF, Wake, WVU, Bama..1978 - UF (W), followed by Penn St (close L), and Ohio St = 35-35 tie...we need to go back to that. Elevate fan interest, elevate national interest and relevancy, and put us in a position to go to better bowl games...PonyUP! BEAT UCF! #DBacksTurnAround

[BUS]

Ditto: play harder teams builds a better team. I'm old and so I'll share a story.

I am an old wrestler. Started in Jr. High and then High school. Beat one of the Heavies on scholarship at OK in the Oklahoma Open when I was a High school senior. 37 second pin. He underestimated me.

Anyway, went to JR. College at Richland. You may not know this but Richland under Coach Neal was Texas Colligate Champions 9 out of 10 years in the 70's. Richland produced two Olympians.

So, how is the pertinent to this thread... Coach Neal was never a yeller but a talker, reasoner, questioner. He took us PRE Season to wrestle in the ALL MILITARY tournaments. All branches showed up with guys in the military to wrestle.

When we got to season and A&M, Texas, TTech , TCU & many others.... These guys were not even trying to hurt you like the military guys.

I agree with the first writer. Play tough to get tough.

God's Peace
G

[Charleston Pony]

While it's great to say "bring on a murderer's row schedule", you are not going to get the big boys to give you home/home deals so that makes it tough...unless you want to play only 5 home games which I believe is a requirement to play at D-I FBS. Assuming we keep the TCU series going, in years we get TCU at Ford we could try to make the kind of schedule Ron Meyer/Russ Potts put together for Mike Ford (at FL, at Ohio State & at Penn State). Remember that in those years Meyer's plan was to recruit nationally utilizing our "bag men" so in addition to Texas, he wanted SMU known to kids in FL, OH & PA which were also fertile recruiting grounds.

I like the approach of trying to get home/home deals with other Big XII schools (former SWC mates Baylor, Tech & Houston would be high on my list) and taking one road trip to places like the horseshoe in Columbus, OH or Death Valley in Clemson every year. Remember that North Carolina gave us a home/home deal back when we were considered a cupcake but P4 schools might be more cautious today about coming to Ford. I agree that home games with FCS schools should not be necessary, especially considering how much more "local" our future AAC schedule will be with UNT, UTSA, Rice, Tulsa presumably on the schedule every year but we might still need to do home/home deals with La Tech or Arky State or UTEP if we want to have 6 home games every year.

[JasonB]

I completely disagree.

10 win seasons and starting the year off undefeated brings attention. Attention brings recruits.

Play the hardest possible schedule where you still get to 10 wins. Baylor did it with Briles for years, and yes they got made fun of because of it, but There was a hell of a lot of Baylor conversation when they started the year 5-0, and there would have been none if they were 3-2.

The only thing a difficult non-conference schedule gets you is a better national ranking and into the CFP conversation. Let's focus on doing what we can to win conference championships, and then let's worry about the CFP. Right now, one P5 opponent non-conference is exactly where we should be.

Next year, for example, we will have a very, very inexperienced offensive line. No JT, no Ali, no Howerton. New WR, DL, MLB as well. We need pre-season games to give the team time to gel and get some experience. If you take a green team like that against P5 opponents, you are going to have a really long season with an uphill climb from the start. I'd rather get them settled in ahead of conference play.

[Insane_Pony_Posse]

It's a catch-22 for sure. If instead of Houston Baptist, ACU, La Tech, Texas State, SFA, Arkie St, and James Madison....we play Texas A&M, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss, ND, etc.....those would most likely all be losses at this point....and the natives on Pony Fans would be sulking about how terrible we are. As we improve with better recruiting maybe add a team like that, but every one you add for now will most likely be a loss, unless you catch a TCU with a coach on a downward spiral about to get fired. So the natives are now restless wanting us to play much harder teams when we can barely beat LaTech, and lose to Houston and Memphis. I get it, play tough competition and hopefully get better....and after these games what will our Ford crowds look like if our schedule makes us below 500...it won't be pretty for awhile if we add very many big schools.

[White Helmet]

I dont think the 60s and 70s were as great as you remember. From 1960-1979 SMU went to 3 bowl games losing 2 of 3. They had a winning record in only 5 years between 1960 and 1979. In 2 of those winning seasons they were still 500 in conference.

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

It would be interesting to try playing one of those tough schedules.

A few years ago it could have been disastrous, but now I think we could hang with those teams and some of them might not even get out of hand.

[Charleston Pony]

It would be interesting to try playing one of those tough schedules.

A few years ago it could have been disastrous, but now I think we could hang with those teams and some of them might not even get out of hand.

Especially if they would come to Ford

[mrydel]

I dont think the 60s and 70s were as great as you remember. From 1960-1979 SMU went to 3 bowl games losing 2 of 3. They had a winning record in only 5 years between 1960 and 1979. In 2 of those winning seasons they were still 500 in conference.

Being there at that time period, I kind of agree with you. However, the number of bowl games available was considerably less. We would have gone to a bowl game many of those seasons if the same number today had been available then and a 12 game season.


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[Charleston Pony]

I dont think the 60s and 70s were as great as you remember. From 1960-1979 SMU went to 3 bowl games losing 2 of 3. They had a winning record in only 5 years between 1960 and 1979. In 2 of those winning seasons they were still 500 in conference.

Being there at that time period, I kind of agree with you. However, the number of bowl games available was considerably less. We would have gone to a bowl game many of those seasons if the same number today had been available then and a 12 game season.


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Agreed. While we had plenty of years with losing records, we would have been bowl eligible in '72. '73 & '74 when we had 3 consecutive winning seasons but there just weren't many bowl games back then. Could have showcased "The M & M Boys" as they were known (Alvin Maxon and Wayne Morris)

[EastStang]

Back then, if you weren't in the Top 20, no bowl for you. Also, in '75 and '76, I think we were on probation again, and not eligible for bowls. This was from the Hayden Fry probation, followed by the Dave Smith probation, followed by the death penalty.

[BUS]

It takes time to get there. One tcu. In two years tcu and ttech...in four years tcu, ttech and vandy or syracuse.

It is time to develop.
Sign Sonny sign.

[Charleston Pony]

It takes time to get there. One tcu. In two years tcu and ttech...in four years tcu, ttech and vandy or syracuse.

It is time to develop.
Sign Sonny sign.

I remember TCU scheduling Northwestern as they were building the program in Ft Worth. We have a history with Vandy and should get home/home deals with them. I seem to recall we had a home/home deal with Duke that fell through. We should be able to get deals with P5 privates even if the larger public schools won't do those deals

[Mustangs35SMU]

We have Maryland next year..

We have Vanderbilt in 2024, 2028 & 2029.

Colorado in 2030 & 20231.

There will be openings in 2023 and 2024 now that UNT is a conference mate.

Just a matter of winning.

[mtrout]

Like this?

https://fbschedules.com/ncaa-2010/team/smu [Texas Tech, UAB, Washington State, TCU]

Round and round we go.