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This team is not the team that many watched last year. These guys, the committed ones, have been absolutely working their butts off, and will continue to do so. Coach Bennett would not have it any other way. I am extremely excited about the upcoming season, and cannot see anyone on our schedule whom we cannot beat, so long as we keep fighting through the fourth quarter. Coach Bennett has already begun to instill a pride amongst the players and the staff as a whole, that SMU FOOTBALL is not dead, and that this is just a new chapter. But, don't be fooled, this will not be the same old book. This team will succeed this year and years afte. Too bad we can't stay college students forever.

HHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUSTANGS!!!!!

we are about to see what a big time coach can do for a struggling program. In the next three years attendance will be up as well as wins. My question is will the students jump on the bandwagon or not and how to get them out to the games. I say in the next year if support from the student body is low, cancel drinking on Bishop. That will wake them up.

I don't want to see the privilages of the blvd. taken away, but I think that would be a good threat to the students. No attendace, no beer.

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Go Red, Go Blue, Go Mustangs, S M U

Beer is one of the few things that makes SMU football bearable.

[This message has been edited by BillBored (edited 02-01-2002).]

Seriously, are you kidding me?

We have football on campus, and SMU is allowing the student body to drink on campus.

To not allow drinking on campus is stupid.

The students only go to the pre-game because of the alcohol, if you take it away, you will get no one.

Allow the alcohol, and put a good team on the field, and you will get a rowdy, hard-to-play-in-front-of crowd.

That's what we need.

I think you are misunderstanding. I am not advocating taking drinking away. I am using it as a motivational tool for the students. Threaten to take it away. I don't want to lose that privilage at all.

Beer won't even be needed this next year. I have heard students all over campus fired up that we have a new coach and hope that Bennett will succeed. I have the utmost confidence that Bennett will exceed expectations.

I think M-Maverick is right. I think there will be a solid core of fans who stay the entire game, but I also think there will still be a large contingent that leaves at halftime.

I was joking about the beer thing, I did not think ponyfan would take that seriously.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by M-MAVERICK:
<B>Beer won't even be needed this next year. I have heard students all over campus fired up that we have a new coach and hope that Bennett will succeed. I have the utmost confidence that Bennett will exceed expectations.</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Ok, that's stupid.

Yes, I have the utmost confidence that Bennett will be exceptional, but no, beer will never, never (I repeat never) be unneeded.

Come on, let's not allow our hopes for a great season lead us to make stupid assertions.

You post well, M-Maverick, so I'll let that beer comment slide, but try to stay grounded.


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I'm a tacklin' fool.

Has anyone ever been to a game at Ole Miss?

That is the correct way to enjoy the tailgating/parting/socializing before the game. There should allow social groups, friends, families, and other members of the community to set up tents with food and beer/liquor. I know they allow them to do this now, but this needs to be something everyone looks forward to each week. I don't think anyone really wanted to take away the 'beer' from pregame festivities, but if that happened, some would skip the game and watch a better college game on TV.

The administration needs to encourage the student body and the community to participate on Saturdays. Let everyone drink Liquor as well. I like the step the admin has taken by hiring the new coach. What are they doing to recruit the best talent from all areas of the US? Does Bennett have the reach to attract top talent from lets say Florida or California? I understand that Texas has great high school football, but I feel we need to branch out some. Most if not all of the recruits on this site appear to be from Texas.

Any ideas? How can we make the student body less apathetic and more into sports. I recently graduated from SMU, and the one thing I missed from my college experience was awesome sports program. I grew up with the SEC where every week in the fall was a huge deal. We need to get SMU near that level. Even the week teams in the SEC, Vandy, or whoever, the games each weekend were huge deals.

SMU is in Dallas, which makes for tons of fun in night life, restaurants, outdoor activity and what not. Unfortunately, Dallas fans like winners and only winners. With competition against the Cowboys, Mavericks, Stars and even Rangers, SMU needs to do their campaigning for fan support on the field. You guys can talk all you want about fresh new creative ideas, but until SMU puts together a few winning seasons we will continue to draw 10,000 fans at Ford.

I know we can do it. Unfortunately, everyone likes to support a winner.

A bit of history... In 1978, Mustang Mania was launched for football. The promotional program was that the objective was to increase attendance at the Cotton Bowl. We were averaging around 30k per game (remember UT or A&M games nearly sold out so the other games were 'thin'). The campaign included posters & bumper stickers all over Dallas. Local corporations purchased inexpensive tickets that were either given to employees or the youth groups that were bused to the CB. Well even with a 4-6-1 team, SMU drew over 60k per game. After '78, SMU had some great recruiting years and the winning began. The key was excitement (FB is about entertainment), winning came later. Russ Potts (AD at the time) said that winning was the roof on the house, but we could fill the Ford with a Committed promotional campaign. Sounds like that is what they will be doing for 2002. I also believe we can get the corner turned on the winning in 2002.