Blame for poor season

[BigT3x]

The schedule was made 5 or 6 years ago. Jones was supposed to have us competitive. You cannot just grab cupcakes out of the air spur of the moment. Especially when you are a cupcake yourself.

Exactly. People forget that the OOC negotiations are for years out. This year was supposed to be:

Baylor: Hadn't been to a bowl since the SWC when we scheduled the series, looked beatable at the time
TCU: Was in the MWC, June was supposed to have us as a top non-BCS school by now
Tech: Good BCS team, should have had a decent chance of victory if June had reached expectations
A&M: Bodybag game, but come on they agreed to come to Ford

Basically, this was supposed to be our year of packing the house and showing off June's BCS-buster team.

[Mustangsabu]

Very well put and I think it shows how we have fallen short.

[East Coast Mustang]

We have to schedule P5 teams from the Big 12 to get butts in seats. Playing Purdue or Cal is going to draw 20K max. Playing Baylor and TCU will get 30K +. If we could get a school like Ole Miss or Mississippi State or Mizzou that might be attractive too, but I think our current OOC schedule going forward is alright

Baylor and TCU are good OOC P5 programs for us to be playing in the future.

[SoCal_Pony]

The idiocy on this board can at times be quite numbing.

Let me get this straight:

SMU is currently 0-48-1 against Big 12 South opponents, with the 'average' loss being over 30 points. (ref - an excellent newshound post earlier this season).

Everyone here posts about our hopes to go 'Big Time', we all want this for SMU.

For the 1st time in almost 30 years, we have a legitimate chance not to simply be competitive, but actually DEFEAT 2 Big South opponents, Texas Tech & TCU. The stars are aligned perfectly for us, as Tech has a new coach/walk-on QB and a down year on talent / TCU is simply bad this year.

So for the 1st time in 30 years we have a legitimate chance to defeat not 1 but 2 Big 12 South opponents and what do PF posters say.....'Schedule too tough!!!!'.....there is something very wrong with those of you who say this.

This was our perfect storm year. We should be a 1 loss team right now, with BCS aspirations. We would be Top 15. Resume would look good with 2 Big 12 victories. This should have been our big coming out party on the national stage, coincided perfectly with what LB is accomplishing on the BB front.

One slight problem with all this....JJ didn't bring the talent to compete. He has failed us on this front post ASU.

But some of you knuckleheads want to blame the schedule?, unreal.

[feelthehorsepower]

I am going to blame no one for what is happening this season.
Texas Tech and TCU were going to be really tough games.
No one expected us to win against A&M...really.
Rutgers, UCF and Houston were tough matchups.
The Cincy game was a tossup.
Everything else we should win.

So the range would be 5-7 in the worst case scenario or 8-4 in the best case scenario.

[feelthehorsepower]

The idiocy on this board can at times be quite numbing.

Let me get this straight:

SMU is currently 0-48-1 against Big 12 South opponents, with the 'average' loss being over 30 points. (ref - an excellent newshound post earlier this season).

Everyone here posts about our hopes to go 'Big Time', we all want this for SMU.

For the 1st time in almost 30 years, we have a legitimate chance not to simply be competitive, but actually DEFEAT 2 Big South opponents, Texas Tech & TCU. The stars are aligned perfectly for us, as Tech has a new coach/walk-on QB and a down year on talent / TCU is simply bad this year.

So for the 1st time in 30 years we have a legitimate chance to defeat not 1 but 2 Big 12 South opponents and what do PF posters say.....'Schedule too tough!!!!'.....there is something very wrong with those of you who say this.

This was our perfect storm year. We should be a 1 loss team right now, with BCS aspirations. We would be Top 15. Resume would look good with 2 Big 12 victories. This should have been our big coming out party on the national stage, coincided perfectly with what LB is accomplishing on the BB front.

One slight problem with all this....JJ didn't bring the talent to compete. He has failed us on this front post ASU.

But some of you knuckleheads want to blame the schedule?, unreal.

I don't blame the man for looking at other jobs that pay more.

This was what the DMN predicted we would do this year (8-4...)
http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/colleg ... Top1078672

[feelthehorsepower]

We have to schedule P5 teams from the Big 12 to get butts in seats. Playing Purdue or Cal is going to draw 20K max. Playing Baylor and TCU will get 30K +. If we could get a school like Ole Miss or Mississippi State or Mizzou that might be attractive too, but I think our current OOC schedule going forward is alright

Baylor and TCU are good OOC P5 programs for us to be playing in the future.

Playing Purdue or Cal might bring 20k...beating them (which we could) will build our reputation nationally and we will start showing up on the radar that we "upset" P5 teams.

[PoconoPony]

When you are in year 6 of a coaching regime you dont get to use tough OOC schedule as an excuse for missing a bowl.

that is especially true considering Tech is average at best and TCU is just plain bad.

My exact feelings. Right on.

[MustangPride4]

I hear you, and don't take my tone personally. I'm just SO tired of watching us lose. It's been almost 3 decades. It's nuts.

So how do magically start beating Baylor, TT? All of a sudden, we're going to just start picking up tons of high 4 star recruits in every class? I think we need to build a perception of momentum. JJ got us out of purgatory, now we have graduated to mediocrity. Next step is to string together some 9, 10 win seasons and personally I could care less who we have to play to get there. Sorry, but the teams that these other programs play always suck OOC (sure an Appalachian St COULD happen anytime, but most likely Buffalo and Wofford and Southern are always going to suck ... or at least the likelihood of them sucking is much much higher than the likelihood of, say, Baylor or TT sucking in the next 3-4 years).

I say we play a cupcake OOC schedule and throw in ONE big local game a year with either TCU or Baylor or TT or aTm then leave the rest of the "tough" teams for those we play in conference.

I get that you're sick of losing but remember that we're in Dallas, no amount of fake wins is going to get this city behind us. The city is filled with alums of Texas P5 teams and they only way they're ever going to pay attention to us is if we step up and start beating their teams.

The way to accomplish this is to copy SMU basketball and put together a staff that can recruit this state (DFW especially). That will build plenty of momentum without us having to sully our schedules with a bunch of junk. Remember that time is of the essence and this next round of realignment is the ballgame. We are going to be on the losing side unless we build a brand associated with slaying relevant teams, landing quality recruits, winning championships, filling our stadium and attracting TV viewers. Do you want to build a real program or just the illusion of one?

I'll take the Northern Illinois schedule (#20) or Fresno St (#16). I'm sure their attendance is up, certainly national exposure and obviously recruiting is greatly improved. I'm good with the one big game being a major bowl against a major opponent. Once you get to that 10 win level, you can add a quality OOC game. When you try to build a program, the players need to buy in to a belief then gain confidence with wins and build momentum. Hart should do whatever possible to soften next year's OOC. I can only guess that the chest beaters that wanted to play Baylor also this year, have never played the game. And there are no Fake wins. Also football and basketball models are very different.

What if we would have only had a Tech or Tcu in week 3? After beating Cincy to go 7-1 or 8-0, I doubt anybody would be fussing that we beat UTSA and New Mexico early. Attendance? Recruits visiting? It can change fast - just need the wins.

[sbsmith]

I'll take the Northern Illinois schedule (#20) or Fresno St (#16). I'm sure their attendance is up, certainly national exposure and obviously recruiting is greatly improved. I'm good with the one big game being a major bowl against a major opponent. Once you get to that 10 win level, you can add a quality OOC game. When you try to build a program, the players need to buy in to a belief then gain confidence with wins and build momentum. Hart should do whatever possible to soften next year's OOC. I can only guess that the chest beaters that wanted to play Baylor also this year, have never played the game. And there are no Fake wins. Also football and basketball models are very different.

What if we would have only had a Tech or Tcu in week 3? After beating Cincy to go 7-1 or 8-0, I doubt anybody would be fussing that we beat UTSA and New Mexico early. Attendance? Recruits visiting? It can change fast - just need the wins.

Problem is our talent level is low, there aren't many teams we could schedule out of conference that could get us to 4-0/3-1. Also these games are scheduled in advance and the cupcakes you schedule today might not be so soft tomorrow. We swap schedules with NIU or Fresno State and at best we'd be an unranked team with 2 or 3 losses, no national exposure and lousy attendance. We lost to Cincy and Rutgers and TCU, not sure why you think we'd be 7-1 or 8-0 right now even if we had collected a couple of more OOC fake wins. This isn't Fresno or DeKalb, Ill, no amount of fake wins is going to get Ford filled (see 2011). The difference between our basketball and football recruiting models is that our basketball staff makes recruiting a priority and our football staff couldn't care less about recruiting. I'll ask you what I asked the other guy, do you want a real football program or just the illusion of one?

[ponyinNC]

I couldn't care less about the schedule - I want W's. UCF played South Carolina, PSU and Louisville and came away with 2 wins. NIU / Fresno's toughest games this year were Rutgers and Iowa. FSU, NIU and UCF are all competing for BCS spots - whether the W's came against cupcakes or tough teams.

Bottom line is there are no "fake wins"against FBS competition - they all count!

We knew what the schedule looked like for this year. More importantly, JUNE JONES knew what the schedule looked like for 2013 and didn't recruit well enough to compete with bottom-tier B12 team TCU and middling TTU.

The fact that he refers to those games as "PRESEASON" tells you everything you need to know about June Sheldon Jones. Period.