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I am no expert so I am genuinely curious about this. Moving forward is there no way to schedule better non conference opponents to help raise our profile? Just looking forward the only Power5 opponents on our schedule other than TCU are Maryland and Vanderbilt. In my mind if we keep scheduling Abilene Christian/SFA/Arkansas State we will continually go through this cycle where we start 5-0 or 4-1 and then collapse when we face any real competition. Tulsa and Tulane both had very impressive non conference games this year (Tulsa against Oklahoma state and Ohio State, Tulane against Ole Miss and Oklahoma). Surely these types of games would help position us better for future expansion.

DallasMustang11 wrote:I am no expert so I am genuinely curious about this. Moving forward is there no way to schedule better non conference opponents to help raise our profile? Just looking forward the only Power5 opponents on our schedule other than TCU are Maryland and Vanderbilt. In my mind if we keep scheduling Abilene Christian/SFA/Arkansas State we will continually go through this cycle where we start 5-0 or 4-1 and then collapse when we face any real competition. Tulsa and Tulane both had very impressive non conference games this year (Tulsa against Oklahoma state and Ohio State, Tulane against Ole Miss and Oklahoma). Surely these types of games would help position us better for future expansion.

The challenge SMU has (assuming we want to balance 6 home games vs 6 road games) is scheduling "name brand" programs that will give us a home/home deal. With the exception of TCU, any P5 teams we are able to schedule typically want us to play at their place without any promise of a game at Ford, or maybe a 2 for 1 deal that ultimately results in an unbalanced schedule. We can only do those same deals with FCS schools. If SMU gets to a point where we are capable of earning national respect by playing a "murderer's road" non-conference schedule, we have to play 5 home and 7 road games. There's a down side to not being able to fill a 32,000 seat stadium for every game no matter who the opponent

Cinci has gone to OSU twice and ND this year without a home game. It can be done,

We schedule a money game vs Michigan a few years back only problem is that Little Ricky took like 850,000 when the going rate is like 1.1 or so for a FBS school.

Also Little Ricky scheduled a 2-1 vs Vandy with the 1st to games at Vandy. Which i am guessing after we play twice in Nashville they will buy out of the game in dallas.

we should add Boston college,Illini, etc

Couldn't agree more with this post! I'm sure many schools wouldn't come to Ford, but when I look at OU's future schedules they go to both Tulsa and Temple as part of home/home series. This year they were scheduled to go to Tulane but moved to Norman due to the hurricane. Texas has done home/home with Rice....and those are just 2 examples. Surely schools that recruit here would consider coming here. Even scheduling MWC teams would be an upgrade. I have no idea how scheduling works, how far in advance schools set these match-ups etc (I'm sure big P5 schools schedule well in advance) but if we keep scheduling ACU-type opponents then we shouldn't be complaining about 15000 fans in the stands.

We use to schedule Big XII schools - Baylor, Texas Tech, even A&M before they went SEC. There is a large enough Alumni bases in Dallas that a "road" game is appealing. Will never get Texas or Oklahoma due to the annual game at Fair Park. Once Jerry World was built, we started to see some of those other teams play there. We should look to keep Houston on our schedule at a minimum. And any BIG XII opponents that don't have a regular trip to DFW that season.

indianmustang wrote:we should add Boston college,Illini, etc

See this is more of what I was talking about. I do not think we need to go to the trouble of scheduling Bama, OU, Mich, etc. (we could try and sprinkle these in). I'm talking more mid-level power5 programs like a Boston College or Illinois. Surely some of these schools would want to play here in Dallas in front of some of the best recruits in the country.

IIRC most of our OOC schedule is planned years in advance. However I suspect that if lil rickey wanted to change some of those games and improve our OOC it could be done.

Don't forget about the series with Colorado in '30 & '31!

The challenge is not many mid to lower tier P5 schools are interested in H&H with G5 schools outside their region. When those schools look to build out their schedules, top 25 P5 schools start blowing up their phones.

Someone mentioned OOC games with UH. I don't see why they would be interested, but if so it would be a good series to continue.

Arizona & Arizona St.

Flight Time ~2 hours

Airfare ~$200

I wonder why we don't play Texas Tech anymore. Power 5 school, but not one of the major programs, so it's a winnable game. Plus, would be a good opportunity for TT alums in DFW to come to a local game.

Same with Okie State. They usually brought a decent crowd.

it seems like our AD are complacent with current schedules, but doesn't look like our ad poached