No more excuses, SMU should be competive with Baylor

[mrydel]

Let's assume Stallion s correct regarding admissions. I frankly don't follow it closely enough to present an argument one way or another... So I'll just sit that one out. But, while we are on the subject of academics and athletics - what is the story on the academic tutors and it's effect on recruits perceptions of SMU? The other topic that seems to come up is basket weaving majors (I believe the PC term is athlete friendly majors). I know JJ has been belly aching about some of these things. I've read other a whole ton of posts on this topic. Can anyone summarize this briefly?

The only answer I need is that our highly rated BB players all made it through the semester with no casualties. I have seen articles from all over the country about kids being ruled ineligible for bowl games and basketball games due to academics. Our BB team did ok. We do not know if the FB team did because we did not make it to a bowl game.

[Stallion]

SMU never promised basket-weaving blow-off courses. SMU promised to provide new areas of study that are of interest to student athletes that they could pursue and receive a meaningful degree. Like Applied Physiology which roughly equals Kinesiology which roughly is a glorified name for Physical Education. Also Sports Management. I'm sure with strong additional donations/funding especially from the Simmons family, brand new facilities under construction and a documented planned huge increase in the number of students and faculty in the College of Education additional areas of study will be added. We know the Basketball team is utilizing these new majors and I feel quite confident that the same is true in Football

Also, SMU has an obligation to assist marginal student-athletes with academic support and tutors to get a meaningful degree. 100% agree. We have posters who are intimately aware of these tutors either as players, family members of tutors and others who have stated that the help is there. . A few disagree. The fact is SMU has not had a significant number of academic casualties-need to provide whatever support is necessary to keep that up.

[SMUer]

What is something positive about SMU football that you'd like to discuss?

Who said anything about "positive" or "negative" discussions?

I read your response as saying you were tired of the same negative responses to June/recruiting in every thread. I was interested in what you'd rather talk about because, frankly, I'd love for something about SMU to be exciting. I'm sorry if I misinterpreted you comment.

[PonySnob]

We have Prescott Line and Traylon Shead is coming back. If shead can keep healthy we have a good running game, and Line should look more like Zach did in 2010.

Neither of those backs showed anything that would give reason to believe the running game will be improved in 2014...................

[feelthehorsepower]

Let's assume Stallion s correct regarding admissions. I frankly don't follow it closely enough to present an argument one way or another... So I'll just sit that one out. But, while we are on the subject of academics and athletics - what is the story on the academic tutors and it's effect on recruits perceptions of SMU? The other topic that seems to come up is basket weaving majors (I believe the PC term is athlete friendly majors). I know JJ has been belly aching about some of these things. I've read other a whole ton of posts on this topic. Can anyone summarize this briefly?

SMU doesn't have many athlete friendly courses, since most courses that are perceived as easy are actually pretty challenging.

They could start a sports medicine, phys ed or sports marketing/management degree program. Now that would be realistic and keep the guys in school.


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[feelthehorsepower]

We have Prescott Line and Traylon Shead is coming back. If shead can keep healthy we have a good running game, and Line should look more like Zach did in 2010.

Neither of those backs showed anything that would give reason to believe the running game will be improved in 2014...................

Our Oline was young this year, no running game is effective when your line collapses and everyone piles on the HB's


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[Stallion]

Let's assume Stallion s correct regarding admissions. I frankly don't follow it closely enough to present an argument one way or another... So I'll just sit that one out. But, while we are on the subject of academics and athletics - what is the story on the academic tutors and it's effect on recruits perceptions of SMU? The other topic that seems to come up is basket weaving majors (I believe the PC term is athlete friendly majors). I know JJ has been belly aching about some of these things. I've read other a whole ton of posts on this topic. Can anyone summarize this briefly?

SMU doesn't have many athlete friendly courses, since most courses that are perceived as easy are actually pretty challenging.

They could start a sports medicine, phys ed or sports marketing/management degree program. Now that would be realistic and keep the guys in school.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You are right on top of things as usual FTH
http://www.smu.edu/Simmons/AreasOfStudy ... Management

http://www.smu.edu/Simmons/AreasOfStudy/APW/APE

[feelthehorsepower]

Let's assume Stallion s correct regarding admissions. I frankly don't follow it closely enough to present an argument one way or another... So I'll just sit that one out. But, while we are on the subject of academics and athletics - what is the story on the academic tutors and it's effect on recruits perceptions of SMU? The other topic that seems to come up is basket weaving majors (I believe the PC term is athlete friendly majors). I know JJ has been belly aching about some of these things. I've read other a whole ton of posts on this topic. Can anyone summarize this briefly?

SMU doesn't have many athlete friendly courses, since most courses that are perceived as easy are actually pretty challenging.

They could start a sports medicine, phys ed or sports marketing/management degree program. Now that would be realistic and keep the guys in school.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You are right on top of things as usual FTH
http://www.smu.edu/Simmons/AreasOfStudy ... Management

Good to know! Thanks for the info!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[stc9]

SMU never promised basket-weaving blow-off courses. SMU promised to provide new areas of study that are of interest to student athletes that they could pursue and receive a meaningful degree. Like Applied Physiology which roughly equals Kinesiology which roughly is a glorified name for Physical Education. Also Sports Management. I'm sure with strong additional donations/funding especially from the Simmons family, brand new facilities under construction and a documented planned huge increase in the number of students and faculty in the College of Education additional areas of study will be added. We know the Basketball team is utilizing these new majors and I feel quite confident that the same is true in Football

Also, SMU has an obligation to assist marginal student-athletes with academic support and tutors to get a meaningful degree. 100% agree. We have posters who are intimately aware of these tutors either as players, family members of tutors and others who have stated that the help is there. . A few disagree. The fact is SMU has not had a significant number of academic casualties-need to provide whatever support is necessary to keep that up.

I totally agree that SMU has an obligation to help marginal students. I also think it is important for all schools to continually update their academic offerings. I think it helps the school to keep growing its intellectual capital and engage students.

There has been a lot of speculation on this board that most other FBS schools offer more academic support to their athletes. It is further speculated that this is one of JJ's big issues with SMU (along with admissions issues I stipulated to earlier). I was just curious if this was a legitimate concern or is it a smokescreen.

[PerunaPunch]

Stallion and FTHP are both right-ish on this. SMU has added a school of education that offers courses athletes are interested in. But they ARE NOT blow off classes; they are the real deal and students will get a real education in the fields offered. Complicating matters, our student-athletes have to compete with the general population for a LIMITED number of slots in these classes. And at the risk of being poleaxed by Stallion, having not personally read the requirements for various majors, my understanding from some of the folks who work at the LEC is that nowadays, in addition to passing CORE classes, you have to meet GPA and other prerequisites prior to declaring for certain majors. These additional hurdles make progress toward a major more challenging.

In general, I don't have an issue with this. Doesn't matter what you get your degree in, I want a degree from SMU to mean something. My issues with SMU's curriculum is 1) our student-athelets can't always get the classes they need because they have to compete with the general student population for them (IMHO, they should make an accommodation for student-athletes to schedule classes because general population students don't become ineligible if they can't take a certain class during a semester, and 2) the current curriculum is HIGHLY biased toward reading and writing due to the emphasis on core. I know we are technically a liberal arts school, but the emphasis on core makes it tougher on kids whose strengths are in math, sciences, art, whose primarily language is not English, and kids who don't come from a good educational background. From an educational perspective, this isn't a bad thing, but it does put us at a disadvantage against schools who offer a broader range of subjects and don't force high level language and writing requirements on architects, engineers and art students.

Lastly, the LEC is for the entire student body. It was designed to assist students with learning differences, however with whatever accommodations these kids have, they're on par educationally with SMU's general student population. SMU has addressed this deficiency and added (about 2-3 years ago) additional resources for student-athletes who either have learning differences or didn't benefit from the same (generally good or excellent) educational background most of our students enjoyed in high school. As Stallion pointed out yesterday, we're now able to admit kids with 600-something SATs. If the mean SAT for the whole student body is 1320, that means a lot of additional tutoring, work and additional classes have to happen to catch those kids up, keep them in class and allow them to graduate. I think providing these additional resources is a fair deal considering the additional work we require from our student-athletes and what they bring to the university.

I know a lot of you guys give me crap for being a sunshiner. At least in my own mind I'm nether solidly for or against Turner, Hart and Jones. Because many of these programs and accommodations are such recent developments, I see it as a work in progress, so I'm not ready to pull the plug on this mid-stream. Yes, there have been rumors of customized curriculum plans to keep some kids eligible. But even if that's true, this is year 1 for that.

So in summary, we are finally becoming competitive off the field as well as on the field, but it's a work in progress.

[PerunaPunch]

I totally agree that SMU has an obligation to help marginal students. I also think it is important for all schools to continually update their academic offerings. I think it helps the school to keep growing its intellectual capital and engage students.

There has been a lot of speculation on this board that most other FBS schools offer more academic support to their athletes. It is further speculated that this is one of JJ's big issues with SMU (along with admissions issues I stipulated to earlier). I was just curious if this was a legitimate concern or is it a smokescreen.

Absolutely it's an obligation. We ask a LOT from our student athletes. One of my friends who works on the 3rd floor at Ford says, "If you want to know who the freshmen are, just look for the kids walking around in a daze."

Other, larger schools benefit from a broader educational offering and an earlier commitment to support student-athletes. If you watched the Amon Carter walk-through video posted the other day, Patterson pointed out the 8,000 sq ft. facility they have just for tutoring their student-athletes.

So JJ probably has a legitimate beef, but I do think much of it has or is being addressed –– just not as quickly as JJ might have liked. But I imagine it's difficult for Turner and Hart to call JJ to task when JJ can turn around and say, "The results aren't what all we wanted, but I told you upfront we needed this, this, and this, and you didn't give it to me."

[Rebel10]

Stallion and FTHP are both right-ish on this. SMU has added a school of education that offers courses athletes are interested in. But they ARE NOT blow off classes; they are the real deal and students will get a real education in the fields offered. Complicating matters, our student-athletes have to compete with the general population for a LIMITED number of slots in these classes. And at the risk of being poleaxed by Stallion, having not personally read the requirements for various majors, my understanding from some of the folks who work at the LEC is that nowadays, in addition to passing CORE classes, you have to meet GPA and other prerequisites prior to declaring for certain majors. These additional hurdles make progress toward a major more challenging.

In general, I don't have an issue with this. Doesn't matter what you get your degree in, I want a degree from SMU to mean something. My issues with SMU's curriculum is 1) our student-athelets can't always get the classes they need because they have to compete with the general student population for them (IMHO, they should make an accommodation for student-athletes to schedule classes because general population students don't become ineligible if they can't take a certain class during a semester, and 2) the current curriculum is HIGHLY biased toward reading and writing due to the emphasis on core. I know we are technically a liberal arts school, but the emphasis on core makes it tougher on kids whose strengths are in math, sciences, art, whose primarily language is not English, and kids who don't come from a good educational background. From an educational perspective, this isn't a bad thing, but it does put us at a disadvantage against schools who offer a broader range of subjects and don't force high level language and writing requirements on architects, engineers and art students.

Lastly, the LEC is for the entire student body. It was designed to assist students with learning differences, however with whatever accommodations these kids have, they're on par educationally with SMU's general student population. SMU has addressed this deficiency and added (about 2-3 years ago) additional resources for student-athletes who either have learning differences or didn't benefit from the same (generally good or excellent) educational background most of our students enjoyed in high school. As Stallion pointed out yesterday, we're now able to admit kids with 600-something SATs. If the mean SAT for the whole student body is 1320, that means a lot of additional tutoring, work and additional classes have to happen to catch those kids up, keep them in class and allow them to graduate. I think providing these additional resources is a fair deal considering the additional work we require from our student-athletes and what they bring to the university.

I know a lot of you guys give me crap for being a sunshiner. At least in my own mind I'm nether solidly for or against Turner, Hart and Jones. Because many of these programs and accommodations are such recent developments, I see it as a work in progress, so I'm not ready to pull the plug on this mid-stream. Yes, there have been rumors of customized curriculum plans to keep some kids eligible. But even if that's true, this is year 1 for that.

So in summary, we are finally becoming competitive off the field as well as on the field, but it's a work in progress.

They aren't going to pull the plug on it with or without JJ. As Stallion pointed out that these things were in place before we hired JJ. Your pro JJ overtone is sickening. As pointed out by Coach Brown that the academic support has been really good. Also one of the football freshmen tweeted out that ALL the incoming freshmen passed their classes. And no we are not going to let in convicted criminals like JJ might want (not that I am opposed to that if that have done their time).

[Rebel10]

We have gotten two 5 star players in the program. Please tell me what players would JJ have gone for or even gotten that he has not already gotten? This is just an excuse for contract negotiations and to keep his job.

[Stallion]

The Simmons School of Education and Human Development does not have significant barriers to entry for its Applied Physiology or Sports Management undergraduate degree program. Basically similiar standards as required by NCAA Progress Toward Degree standards.

Simmons Standards to declare major:
2.0 GPA
completed 30 credit hours

NCAA Progress Toward Degree Requirements to be eligible to play:

ENTERING 3RD YEAR*:
-must declare major before entering 3rd year
-40% of degree credits required (48 hours)
-1.9 GPA required to play

*SMU Policy on Declaring Major-Students are expected to qualify for and to declare a major no later than upon completion of 75 term hours, including credits by examination and transfer credits, in order to continue their studies at SMU.

ENTERING 4th YEAR:
-60% of degree credits required (72 hours)
-2.0 GPA required to play

ENTERING 5th YEAR:
80% of degree credits required (96 hours)
-2.0 GPA

Remember you can't have different eligibility standards for academic programs that don't apply equally to ALL STUDENTS

http://catalogs.smu.edu/i/138270/542

I think half of these beefs we hear over and over and over are really with NCAA rules applied by SMU and not really valid criticism against SMU. As we see repeatedly, a lot of kids at a lot of schools are having problems with the NCAA requirements on Progress Toward Degrees. SMU is no different