SMU Partial Future Football Schedule

[PonySnob]

TCU not being able to bring in Tx or A&M each year hurts a lot. Having to replace those natural rivials with teams you have no history with and to play at high altitude hurts a lot too.

How can you say that when TCU averages well over 30K attendance per home game - without a Texas or Texas A$M on their schedule while we are lucky to average 15K per home game. How many years now since the demise of the SWC has TCU won 9 or 10+ games per year? Playing Rice and Houston hasn't really been a banner to SMU attendance yet. Outside of the Tech game (and possibly the NTSU game), we will be lucky to have another home game with 20K in attendance this upcoming season.

[bagice]

I will go out on a limb and say that I think the North Texas game will be near a sellout (if not a sellout). SMU fans will be out in force because of the "revenge" factor and UNT fans will be there in force due to the bragging rights they now currently hold. The difference maker will be all the UNT people here in the Dallas area that don't go to Denton for games but will come to Ford on that Saturday to see their first UNT game since their college days. Also the UNT students will definitely be here in force. This is a rare chance for them to all attend a road game together and party at some new places.

Mark me down for 30k+ at this game, I bet it draws about as well as TT.

This is why I don't mind playing UNT every year, it is a good fit. Take off Sam Houston and Arkansas St. but I think it would be good for both schools if we played UNT every year.

[PonyKai]

I just can't justify playing down even if it fills seats. To be the best, you beat the best. To continue being irrelevant, play the Sun Belt.

[SMUtrojanFAN]

I just can't justify playing down even if it fills seats. To be the best, you beat the best. To continue being irrelevant, play the Sun Belt.

Dude, you have to understand that when we were playing the "big name schools" (i.e. Texas Tech, Oklahoma St., Texas A&M, Baylor, Navy) we got raped every time. No one wanted to watch SMU get completely destroyed every time we played "the best" (and most of those teams were mediocre to decent in their conferences at the time we played them). You can call wins over Sun Belt teams irrelevant, but they're still wins and SMU hasn't had a lot of them in recent history. You think attendance is bad now, you should have seen Ford during the 2003 season...

[PonyKai]

I didn't say that wins are irrelevant. A win is a win is a win, and every year we need absolutely every one we can come across. What I said was to continue being irrelevant to the college football world, continue playing the dregs of 1A football.

Yes I agree that we play them, we win, we go to a bowl, etc. But playing AK State, NTSU, and SHSU aren't going to do much for the program. It's not going to wow anybody, won't bring any tv coverage, won't bring any publicity, and won't particularly wow potential recruits. No one wants to return to getting pounded, but you schedule games that matter that the team can win. In my humble opinion, I think that this team should be taking their shots at Baylor, Colorado, Texas Tech, Navy, and Illinois. Big name teams that draw well, good coverage, and legitimate goals for the program.

[mrydel]

We are not playing Alaska State. Not yet anyway.

[Stallion]

the first step is to create a competitive model which will allow you to compete against your natural and traditional rivals...What is SMU building? SMU is building a team that someday may have the potential to dominate the Sun Belt. It accomplishes nothing to talk about competing with competitive teams like TCU, Southern Miss or mid-level BCS schools like Tech, Oklahoma St. or Baylor if you haven't built the foundation to accomplish those goal. Still working on Step 1 twenty years later.

[George S. Patton]

the first step is to create a competitive model which will allow you to compete against your natural and traditional rivals...What is SMU building? SMU is building a team that someday may have the potential to dominate the Sun Belt. It accomplishes nothing to talk about competing with competitive teams like TCU, Southern Miss or mid-level BCS schools like Tech, Oklahoma St. or Baylor if you haven't built the foundation to accomplish those goal. Still working on Step 1 twenty years later.

Once again, this message is tiresome and completely unrealistic. And it is also an opinion shared by few except those who are still living in 1981.

[mrydel]

the first step is to create a competitive model which will allow you to compete against your natural and traditional rivals...What is SMU building? SMU is building a team that someday may have the potential to dominate the Sun Belt. It accomplishes nothing to talk about competing with competitive teams like TCU, Southern Miss or mid-level BCS schools like Tech, Oklahoma St. or Baylor if you haven't built the foundation to accomplish those goal. Still working on Step 1 twenty years later.

It is a cycle. We are trying to get to a point that we can play with and defeat BCS teams. First we need to dominate the Sunbelt. Then when teams get good (SEC) they go back to playing the Sunbelt. There is an article in the Arkansas DemGaz today about how the SEC teams are scheduling most of their OCC games against the Sunbelt teams. Of course the SEC Conference play is a little tougher than ours.

[Stallion]

Once again TCU has accomplished what you are labeling the IMPOSSIBLE. (9-10 bowl games, conference championships, bowls wins over BCS schools, multiple Top 20 rankings, a winning record against Big 12 teams). SMU needs to the reshuffle the jury pool on its fans who are perfectly happy to remain irrelevant. It may be a tiresome argument but it has proven to be a reliable argument-one that SMU can't prove wrong. In fact any success SMU has can be traced to embracing the argument. As for Arkansas they play in the SEC and are simply looking for 7-8 home games to fill their stadium. Scheduling 3 Sun Belt level teams will NEVER EVER make SMU relevant.

[MustangStealth]

You think attendance is bad now, you should have seen Ford during the 2003 season...

How many games did you see at the Cotton Bowl during the Cavan era? Trust me, it was far worse then. In 1999, our games against Fresno St. and Cal St. Northridge combined had under 16K total attendance. Plus the stadium was twice as big, which made it more pathetic.

[SMU Football Blog]

I love this issue and I hate it. Despite the fact that nearly every coach and AD that has ever publically stated their opinion on the subject agrees, some people on this board still don't care.

When you are rebuilding, you schedule soft. That applies to everybody from BCS to Non-BCS, to sunbelt, to I-AA, to Division III. I don't know if you have figured this out, but SMU ahs been in perpetual rebuilding mode for 20 years. Why not try for a few years and do it the way every other school that has rebuilt from the ground up has done it? With the exception of two teams, every non-BCS team that has gone to a bowl since 2002 has scheduled Sunbelt and Div. I-AA teams. One of the exceptions was Louisville, which had a longterm deal with Temple. The other was Rice this past season.

Everybody loves to point to Boise State, but nobody mentions they beat Sacramento State 45-0.

Sub out the Sam Houston State win for an Okie State loss and the 2006 season looks a lot different. I personally preferred watching SMU play Rice, Houston and Tulsa with something to play for, but that is just me.

Face the fact that SMU has been scheduling A&M and Tech and Oklahoma State, not because it wants it team to be better, but because it wants the money. If that is the side you want to be on, then bully for you.

[SMUtrojanFAN]

How many games did you see at the Cotton Bowl during the Cavan era?

I was in high school in 1999. At that time, I would've said "S. M. Whooo??"

[George S. Patton]

Once again TCU has accomplished what you are labeling the IMPOSSIBLE. (9-10 bowl games, conference championships, bowls wins over BCS schools, multiple Top 20 rankings, a winning record against Big 12 teams). SMU needs to the reshuffle the jury pool on its fans who are perfectly happy to remain irrelevant. It may be a tiresome argument but it has proven to be a reliable argument-one that SMU can't prove wrong. In fact any success SMU has can be traced to embracing the argument. As for Arkansas they play in the SEC and are simply looking for 7-8 home games to fill their stadium. Scheduling 3 Sun Belt level teams will NEVER EVER make SMU relevant.

Sir, I would differ. I'm happy for TCU. They did what it took.

Unrealistic -- not your word impossible -- implies that the era of being considered like Penn State, Alabama and USC will not return until the system of college football changes. That's what I mean. Schools like SMU, TCU, Toledo and Colorado State will never be considered national title contenders because of this system. As great as Boise St. did, they still weren't national title contenders.

I believe the path we are on to growth will get us there to compete -- 4-4 the last two years in CUSA isn't great but it doesn't stink either -- and we should be able to challenge for conference titles and beat mid-level BCS teams. I think we're getting there.

Because it would appear that administration gets it, and to roughly quote Steve Orsini at a coaches tour meeting,

"Dr. Turner told us if we can raise the money, we can build it or go do it.''

And I can't recall recently hearing that come out of the administration offices.

I would agree the the first seventeen years have been pretty horrendous because we were directionless. But that last two and the aspirations for this year would suggest times are changing.

Even the networks expect something with 5 games.

And if you don't see it, then you're a damn fool.

[PonyKai]

There is no reason that TCU cannot carry the same weight as Penn State, USC, or Notre Dame if they continue their growth and success over the next 5-10 years. They are a very good private school, in the Dallas-Forth Worth Metroplex, in the most fertile football state in the union, with a lot to offer potential players. They have reached double digit wins 4 out of the lasdt 5 years, just opened a new practice facility, and have instilled a map to success.

If TCU goes 11-1, 10-2, 12-0 this year and makes it to a BCS bowl, what stops them from doing it next year? Nothing. They are not a flash in the pan, and have built a model for winning. They improve upon their last 4 seasons, make it to 1, 2, 3 BCS bowls in the next 5 or 6 years and can make a run at the national title. Next time conferences re-align? A BCS invitation. Now you have a small, private school that has made it from the WAC (cough) all the way back to national prominence and a BCS conference. There is NO reason that cannot happen if they build on their success.