Rick Hart on "Division Four"

[East Coast Mustang]

I am sorry but dropping Baylor for an FCS school was the right call. I was pissed off about it at the beginning until I realized that we probably don't want to be 0-4 OOC before starting play in a new conference. B--- all you want about JJ and his recruiting, but Baylor is a good team in the Big XII that might have one of the best RBs in all of college football this season: they're better than us right now, and why would a recruit sign with us in the American when they can go to Baylor and play Texas, Oklahoma, etc? I have issues with JJ and his recruiting but there's some things that are out of his control.

Please go back and look at Boise and TCU's schedules when they were building up their programs in the MWC/WAC/CUSA 5-10 years ago. Yes, they played big name opponents but they didn't schedule four OOC games every year that they would be underdogs in. There were FCS and weak FBS opponents on their OOC slates as well. We probably couldn't buy our way out of the A&M game so dropping BU made the most sense. We still get to open up their new stadium next season which will be really cool. Can everyone please stop complaining about this now?

Pony Up.

[mrydel]

No,No, No. You drop the A&M game if it means paying them $5,000,000. You do not drop a crowd drawing home game. Although I want us to be able to compete with anyone, I can buy into the OCC easy game reasoning. But it was not the right game to drop. Yes, A&M said no. so you find out what it would take to make them say yes. I would believe we could have found a way out of the game with a little imagination.

Even if the cost of dropping A&M would not be offset the gain from the Baylor dollars, the exposure and packed house are more important right now and we have kicked that to the curb.

[mustangxc]

No,No, No. You drop the A&M game if it means paying them $5,000,000. You do not drop a crowd drawing home game. Although I want us to be able to compete with anyone, I can buy into the OCC easy game reasoning. But it was not the right game to drop. Yes, A&M said no. so you find out what it would take to make them say yes. I would believe we could have found a way out of the game with a little imagination.

Even if the cost of dropping A&M would not be offset the gain from the Baylor dollars, the exposure and packed house are more important right now and we have kicked that to the curb.

That, and you do not replace the game with one of the best FCS opponents that is located far away from SMU and whose fans will not travel to the game.

[sbsmith]

I am sorry but dropping Baylor for an FCS school was the right call. I was [deleted] off about it at the beginning until I realized that we probably don't want to be 0-4 OOC before starting play in a new conference. B--- all you want about JJ and his recruiting, but Baylor is a good team in the Big XII that might have one of the best RBs in all of college football this season: they're better than us right now, and why would a recruit sign with us in the American when they can go to Baylor and play Texas, Oklahoma, etc? I have issues with JJ and his recruiting but there's some things that are out of his control.

Please go back and look at Boise and TCU's schedules when they were building up their programs in the MWC/WAC/CUSA 5-10 years ago. Yes, they played big name opponents but they didn't schedule four OOC games every year that they would be underdogs in. There were FCS and weak FBS opponents on their OOC slates as well. We probably couldn't buy our way out of the A&M game so dropping BU made the most sense. We still get to open up their new stadium next season which will be really cool. Can everyone please stop complaining about this now?

Pony Up.

No, dropping Baylor absolutely was not the right call. We gave up a sellout that would have garnered serious regional interest (something we rarely get) for some team from 1000 miles away that no one in this town gives a [deleted] about. And the kicker is that team is good enough to beat us and we could start 0-4 anyway. We have serious attendance issues and those won't be fixed by running away from relevant opponents that want to play us at Ford. As for recruiting, there may be things out of June's control but the composition of his coaching staff and his attitude towards recruiting aren't among them. Those get fixed and we'll start getting a lot more recruits with P5 offers. If we had spent the last 6 recruiting classes actually recruiting like a program that wants to be relevant then we wouldn't have so many fans afraid of playing legit teams.

[East Coast Mustang]

Yeah, it's easy to say throw A&M $5 million when you're not the one stroking that check. We have no idea what it would've cost to buy that game out, we tried everything possible but it just wasn't feasible. I think Rick Hart knows better than any of us here what we can afford to buy out of and what we can't.

[gostangs]

our big name alumni already write checks to fill in a 4M hole every year, plus they pitch in for extra dough for JJ, his staff, the crisis of the moment and now basketball. I think it is easy to say pay whatever to get out of A&M unless you are writing the check, on top of a bunch of other checks.

they wanted to keep baylor. 0-4 would have killed the rest of our yrs attendance. Now it is hopefully just a game. we are desperately in need of better scheduling. everyone else does a mix within their four. tough, easy and two hopeful wins.

[Mustangsabu]

I think it's fair to say that the board is split on the Baylor/Montana St. Switcheroo but the "attendance argument" is a weak one.

Selling out SMU/Baylor, while financially desirable, does not improve our attendance in any real way. We all know, and history appears to have shown, that we get big crowds when the opposition brings the fans. It does little if anything for the issue that is at the core of SMU attendance. People do not care about coming to see SMU play.

Sure, some people might decide to come back, having come to see a "big" team, but realistically they will do what they have always done, not care.

If we beat Baylor on the other hand, yes, more people would come back. But that is not likely and the staff know that. 0-4 and we have no one in the stands the rest of the year.

We need to be 2-2 going into the Rutgers game to sell real momentum to the locals.

I'd love to be hosting Baylor but I think it's the right call.

[sbsmith]

our big name alumni already write checks to fill in a 4M hole every year, plus they pitch in for extra dough for JJ, his staff, the crisis of the moment and now basketball. I think it is easy to say pay whatever to get out of A&M unless you are writing the check, on top of a bunch of other checks.

they wanted to keep baylor. 0-4 would have killed the rest of our yrs attendance. Now it is hopefully just a game. we are desperately in need of better scheduling. everyone else does a mix within their four. tough, easy and two hopeful wins.

1-3 as opposed to 0-4 isn't going to make one bit of difference in the attendance for our last 4 home games. We've always drawn horribly for conference home games against out of state teams.

[East Coast Mustang]

Here's what no one should dispute- we shouldn't be playing FOUR teams from power conferences OOC each year. Going forward, we've got TCU, Baylor, UNT locked in. I'd like to see us alternate the 4th OOC game between a pansy we can beat some years (Texas State, UTSA, etc) and a third team from a P5 conference that's not a juggernaut but still respectable opponent that will generate interest in the area (Tech, Vandy, Ole Miss, Mizzou). I think that would be our best approach short term

[SMU2007]

Stop complaining about the team. If we say enough nice things on here and support them online, we will magically be good and our recruiting will skyrocket! The football team reviews all ponyfan posts before taking the field each Saturday and most recruits base their decision on how vocally the 50 people on here support June. Do you think Alabama got to where they are with negative posts on message boards?? GO TEAM!

I guess if you can go to the game and bring friends...but really online support is where it's at nowadays. So remember next time you post, YOU are responsible for all of SMUs success and or failure. When you complain about dropping Baylor for Montana State, you are causing the 2 star recruits with no other offers to play poorly and for the city of Dallas to not come out in droves to see a .500 team play a directional school from Florida.

Love,
a TRUE pony fan

[blackoutpony]

see a .500 team play a directional school from Florida.

Directional school