PonyFans.com

smitty329 wrote:Continuing doom and gloom on PonyFans.com by having a post including a survey of the worst decisions Post DP.

No kidding

I agree with those who said it was the hiring of Kenneth Pye. I was living in Durham at that time and a friend who was tennis coach at Duke told me the day it was announced that this was the biggest mistake SMU could ever make...unless we wanted to drop down to Division III (no scholarships) because Pye hated the fact that Duke was giving scholarships to athletes

I’ve come to agree about Pye. And more specifically, while the academic admission restrictions were horrible, playing at Ownby was worse. Pretty sure I’ve read that the SWC really ended when UT first saw the visiting locker room at Ownby.

actually visiting locker room was across the street in Moody

http://articles.latimes.com/1989-08-13/ ... -program/3

Dukie wrote:I’ve come to agree about Pye. And more specifically, while the academic admission restrictions were horrible, playing at Ownby was worse. Pretty sure I’ve read that the SWC really ended when UT first saw the visiting locker room at Ownby.

As I recall, Ownby did not have a visitors locker room. They had to hike over to Moody.

We can [deleted] about the breakup of the SWC all we want but TCU, SMU, UH and Rice all got what they deserved since none had spent anything on athletic facilities since the 1950s. Kenneth Pye's decision to play "small-ball" in rebuilding the SMU program did most certainly play a large role in the big schools looking around.

The football program was banned for the 1987 season and sat out the entire 1988 season. He was credited with leading the rebuilding (SERIOUSLY? - WTF?) of the university's athletic program.

LMAO

Some people jumped on me for saying that SMU should appeal when it all went down. Still think SMU should have done that to at least try to delay the sanctions and give that team a chance to make a run in the tournament. But anyway, can’t look back too much. Just have to recruit better now.

We wouldn't have been eligible for the post-season last year so it really did not matter. If it had been between last year and this year then of course you delay it and take the sanctions this season but that was not a possibility. Still it was the right thing to do for recruiting and the health of the program going forward.

mustangxc wrote:We wouldn't have been eligible for the post-season last year so it really did not matter. If it had been between last year and this year then of course you delay it and take the sanctions this season but that was not a possibility. Still it was the right thing to do for recruiting and the health of the program going forward.

For recruiting? We lost the entire class and were one and done the following year. As far as health of the program the team does not look too healthy now but let’s hope that changes over the next few games.