NYT: SMU #107...

[deepellumfrog]

What exactly is the death penalty effect? Is that you not being able to pay players?

So what about a team like South Florida? Started in 1-AA in 1997, a decade after your "death penalty" Moved to 1-A in 2001, and was ranked as high as #2 last year.

Maybe its a good time to retire that excuse.

The death penalty effect is mostly the result of a lack of school support for the football team in the wake of the scandal. I'd even argue that most of the effect is self induced. SMU didn't make winning football a priority until 2008 (or you could argue with the hiring of Orsini in 2005). Had they done so in, say 1997 (to mirror your example), We'd already be back.

Yet even with the bargain priced coaches, even with the additional academic requirements, even with the black cloud of the DP hovering over every stadium that SMU played in... The Frogs only managed to get up by two games. Again, good work.

-CoS

It's a long way back from the beatings we got from you in the 70's and 80's. Especially since we pretty much sucked until the late 90's too. Given all that, I'll take the 2 game lead, even though you only had us by 5 at the time of the death penalty. The 13-5 in the intervening years is not so bad, but that 21-18 win in 97 to give us our only win and keep you from a bowl? Priceless...

[Cadillac]

Kind of like 21-10 knocking y'all out of the top 25 for the year. When you suck, it's always nice to suck less then the guy next to you, if only for 60 minutes.

-CoS

[PonyLove]

North Texas had 601 passing yards against us.

And they still lost. I love that.

[Mustangs35SMU]

S.M.U. never allowed less than 21 points in a game, allowed less than 30 only three times and allowed more than 40 eight times. Opponents averaged 498.7 yards per game on offense

Guh. I didn't realize it was THAT bad.

North Texas had 601 passing yards against us.

I knew that much.......sadly. O well, I'll take them getting 601 passing yards on us and still losing over watching them beat us 24-6 on their home field any day.

[CalallenStang]

North Texas had 601 passing yards against us.

And they still lost. I love that.

On the bright side, we held them to 12 rushing yards

[Mustangs35SMU]

On the bright side, we held them to 12 rushing yards

But still gave up a rushing touchdown.

[03Mustang]

I actually remember thinking after that game that we were going to be lucky to win 2 more all season. If a team with a high school offense (as shown the previous week against OU) was able to put 600 yds on us, I knew it was going to be a looooong year.

Despite the win, it was almost as demoralizing as the beating we took the week before.

[Cadillac]

Despite the win, it was almost as demoralizing as the beating we took the week before.

I thought the loss to the Sand Aggies was a lot worse, since we expected to get lit up by their offense, but our own offense was so completely out of synch. Prior to the season I figured every game would be a shootout, with the last team to possess the ball winning. Who knew we'd just never be the ones on the good side of that?

-CoS

[2112]

Despite the win, it was almost as demoralizing as the beating we took the week before.


watching that game was a bigtime bummer--we looked terrible--and the writing was on the wall--i felt we would be lucky to win one or two more ballgames

[CalallenStang]

I was still confident that we would somehow get our defense in check (after all, our HC was a defensive genius, right?) and turn around the season.

I lost confidence after the Arky State game.