What a long strange trip it's been...

[ThadFilms]

This season has been, well, more than odd. I can't really say what this season means, if anything. What will I call it? "The year that we were coming out of mediocrity but our record didn't show it." or "A bad year in the midst of indestinguishible bad years."

I don't know folks, but I have to say that the first might be closer to the truth. I have no idea. But what is so unbelievably odd is how we have looked this season, and how we have looked winning. If you were to say to me, at the outset of this season, "Thaddeus, I know the results of the entire season, and I'm gonna' let you know the outcome of three games of your choosing," and by manner of a dart board, I came up with TCU, UAB, and Rice... well, knowing that we won those games, and more than that just how we won them, I would have had to imagine that we would be doing fantastic this year.

Look at this way, we dominated TCU... and that's there only loss in a season that began with them shocking Oklahoma. We go on the road to UAB, a team many consider to be vastly supperior, and beat them on a brilliantly executed "37 second drill". And lastly, Rice, a team we're supposed to beat. And we handled them. It was almost boring. In fact it was boring. When was the last time SMU won, and you actually thought to yourself, "wow, I'm bored"?

So you take those three and extrapolate them over a season... well, it's all moot now isn't it? But every time one of those announcers from another team says, "They don't look like a [insert well below .500 record here] team on that field today," they're right. But that's why this season has been so confounding.

Interesting that a season saw two of the most exciting wins post death-penalty also saw the most boring win in years... boring might not be correct, but we killed them, and we were supposed to kill them, and it was never in doubt. Dull, I guess is the word.

Odd. Yes, the season is odd.

Seeing the dominance in this game allowed me one thing, one glimmer, there won't be another boring win this year, because one more win and we've improved on last year, and two... well that's 5-6, and 5-6 is something to build on, something to say, "hey man, we're almost there"... and, of course, 5-6 means we win Stallion's mythical Division II 1A Texas State Championship (which, by the way, was one of Stallion's all-time best threads. Bravo). And 5-6 is better than 3-8 or 0-12 any day.

5-6 this year with DeMyron returning, and Phillips back in the lineup next year? Good things, right? (Of course the Coogs and then Carson Palmer's kid brother and Mr. Price might have something to say about it...)

Go Ponies... Beat the hell out of Houston!

[PK]

The Tulane game was hard to figure...we came out with no fire and played the whole game that way. ECU...turnovers killed us. Tulsa...same thing...turnovers were our downfall. Both the offense and the defense looked great against Rice. Was it because it was Rice or not is the question. The next two games will tell us just how far we might have come since last year. Yes, yes I know we played a really good game against TCU and won it, but what I want to see is for the team to consistently play those really good games and win them too.

[BUS]

The second half of the RICE game would not have been boring if Phillips would have played as well as some of the other non-starters.'

Heck we could have worked on some different plays and expanded the playbook.

[LakeHighlandsPony]

I am still sore over the Baylor game. We kept trying to give the game away and they finally took it. Coaches did not seem truly prepared to play this game. It was the outrage of this game they led to the ambush of TCU.

[jtstang]

I am still sore over the Baylor game. We kept trying to give the game away and they finally took it. Coaches did not seem truly prepared to play this game. It was the outrage of this game they led to the ambush of TCU.

What a strategy!! Lull TCU into a false sense of security by folding against Baylor!! Bennett is a genius!!

Theoretically, if he could pull that off every other opponent, he could be .500, which would make him the most successful SMU coach in a very long time.

[The PonyGrad]

Interesting Thad but what about the flip side that you set up.

If you only saw aTm, Tulane, and ECU then what? A blow-out, being handled in a game we should have been competitive in, and losing to a team we were supposet to beat? In context, these were the exceptions in a season where SMU competed, including ECU. Compare this to recent seasons. Certainly these three were no worse.

But these were the worst three games. The rest were competitive games or wins. That speaks well.

Now lets show improvement in the W/L column and beat one or both of our next two!

[ThadFilms]

I know, Ponygrad... that's what makes this so hard to figure... but I can honestly say, if we can win these last two... I would be greatly encouraged. And be able to look at this season and see real progress. So let's hope.

[EastStang]

And then there's the Marshall game that I witnessed. A game that we pretty much won, except that the referees really kicked us in the nuts with that phantom forward pass. You could see the gas tank hit empty for our defense right after that play. This was a game that we weren't supposed to even be close. Yet we got hosed. (BTW, some Marshall fans came up to me after the game and said, man, you guys got shafted). I think we have risen (if that is the right adverb) to mediocrity. I think we're better this year than last year. Just still way to inconsistent.