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I am totally amazed at the number of Offensive Coordinators we have posting on this site. How many of you couch OCs have actually held that position? I thought so. Rusty Burns did quite a good job as OC at Cincinnati...I doubt he has suddenly become stupid since then. Between the "it's the coaching " crowd and the "its the low rated recruits" crowd, I don't see a middle ground to stand on. I'm not an athletic department apologist...but I'm not going to throw stones at the players either who for the most part work their butts off for SMU.

Quite frankly I'm surprised that any coaching staff here can get anyone to commit to playing here given the history of this program since 1989. Is anyone really surprised that Texas already has a full house of commits or that given the choice that a top 100 Texas player would go some where else other than SMU given the choice. Is anyone really surprised that given a choice between TCU, who has been to a number of bowls recently, and SMU a recruit of any ranking would pick TCU over SMU without a hell of a sell job by our coaches?

Every class of recruits has a number of excellant football players and a number of others at different skill levels at every school. Some schools, such as Texas, have a higher percentage of the excellant ones than other schools, such as SMU. That is not a trend that is going to be reversed over night without a whole lot of luck. The people in the know at TCU admit they were lucky when they got Coach Fran and more so when they were able to get the Sun Bowl people to pick them to play against USC and then lucky again when USC didn't take them seriously and let TCU get away with a win.

I am as frustrated as any other person who posts on this site, but to all of you "realist" out there...unless we get real lucky soon, it is going to take a long time to crawl out of this hole we are in. I don't know if Bennett is now or ever will be a great head coach...but at the same time I don't see that changing coaches every 4 or 5 years is going to help either unless you can get a proven WINNING head coach from some where else...and I'm not sure we can find any one willing to put up the bucks that would take. The coaching changes just seems to always put us back at day one.

Someone asked if there has ever been a head coach with the type of record Bennett has now that became successful. Seems to me that awhile back several had been listed. That doesn't mean that Bennett can, but I'm willing to wait another year to make a decision on my part...for what THAT is worth...unless someone is willing to come up with enough money to get Stoops in here.

Meanwhile, I plan on coming to games and supporting the team as best I can. After all, not only do recruits look at what kind of fan support there is...so do prospective head coaches.

PK wrote:The people in the know at TCU admit they were lucky when they got Coach Fran and more so when they were able to get the Sun Bowl people to pick them to play against USC and then lucky again when USC didn't take them seriously and let TCU get away with a win.

Well at least TCU was bowl eligible. Luck had some things to do with it, but that D held USC to minus 46 yards total rushing. I don't think that was due to luck.

Yes you are right PK-16 years of incompetence will be very hard to overcome. 16 years of cheerleaders who sucked up to the incompetent people making decisions that have crippled this program will be be extremely hard to overcome. 16 years of alleged leaders of the athletic program not forceably making the argument for a strong competitive athletic program may never be overcome, But just one thing -don't sit here and now claim that the people who have said you did not know what the hell you were talking about are now to blame. Some people have clearly set forth a Model that should be followed since the instititution of the debacle that SMU Athletics. The cheerleaders on this board have supported this path now the cheerleaders should accept the results. The Cheerleaders never knew what they were talking about in the first place. Its time for the cheerleaders to fade off into the sunset and its time to clean house at SMU. Long Live Eric Dickerson one of the few SMU Leaders with the balls to call it like it is.

You said it before I could Stallion! PK I wouldn't call 17 years of this mess "OVERNIGHT"

2112 wrote:You said it before I could Stallion! PK I wouldn't call 17 years of this mess "OVERNIGHT"

The hole I'm talking about us having to crawl out of is the result of this 17 year mess. Changing coaches every 4 to 5 years hasn't done a whole lot of good now has it. cleaning house may be the answer, but that begs a new set of questions. Who is going to select the replacements? Will they actually be any better?

PK wrote:The hole I'm talking about us having to crawl out of is the result of this 17 year mess.

That's a pretty deep fricking hole. I'd be happy just to see the faintest glow of light at the top, but I don't.

I was listening to sports radio last night and they had the Sporting News College reporter on and he was asked about Florida's loss to LSU. His remarks were interesting. He said Meyer needs to add a fullback and a tight end. He said that the spread offense works in the non-BCS conferences like the MWC because speed isn't the same at linebacker whereas in the SEC the linebackers all run 4.4's and thus close on the ball much faster, so the delays and dumps don't work as well. This could explain why our offense clicks against teams like UAB, but not against a different CUSA team like Marshall and ECU. Perhaps it comes down to the speed of their defense.

agree to guys -

i just have a sneaky little feeling our problem isn't a 'coaching' problem

LOL

Stallion wrote: Long Live Eric Dickerson one of the few SMU Leaders with the balls to call it like it is.

I would be more impressed if Eric would put his money where is mouth is, like say, contribute to SMU FB an amount equal to the money he took from SMU fans & Alums during the Pony Express Days.

PK wrote:Someone asked if there has ever been a head coach with the type of record Bennett has now that became successful. Seems to me that awhile back several had been listed. That doesn't mean that Bennett can, but I'm willing to wait another year to make a decision on my part...for what THAT is worth...unless someone is willing to come up with enough money to get Stoops in here.

Frank Beamer went 24-40-2 his first six seasons at Tech, including a stellar 2-8-1 in his SIXTH YEAR. That was in '92. Every Tech fan in the state of Va. wanted his head on a plate, but he miraculously kept his job. He's been bowling every single year since then, and most of those same fans who cursed him would now probably vote him governor if they could.

Sure, his record was not as bad as Bennett's is now, but his rebuilding job at VT was not near as difficult, either. For starters, Beamer had the full backing of his administration. But even that took seven years to see results.

thx knuckle -

great example!

you're right about the administration's committment though -

that is the one thing bennett does not have!!!

Since someoen asked, if someone were to dream the impossible dream, then that dream would be that Phil Bennett would turn into Joe Novak.

Joe Novak is the HC of the Northern Illinois Huskies. He had a worse record than Bennett his first three years: 1-10; 0-11; 2-9. During that span, he lost to two I-AA teams. His fourth year, however, he went 5-6 and hasn't had a losing season since.

Bennett also does not have the ability to bring in a lot of juco players, nor does he have the advantage of low tuition so that partial and non-qualifiers can come to SMU for a semester or a year and then get on scholarship. Nor does he have the athlete friendly majors that are necessary to build a winner.

abezontar wrote:Bennett also does not have the ability to bring in a lot of juco players, nor does he have the advantage of low tuition so that partial and non-qualifiers can come to SMU for a semester or a year and then get on scholarship. Nor does he have the athlete friendly majors that are necessary to build a winner.

Navy 38 SMU 7
Rice 27 SMU 15
Rice 41 SMU 20
Rice 44 SMU 10
Tulane 31 SMU 10


Here’s the bottom line. Real changes will only occur with a new AD and ‘commitment’.

Once that occurs, new AD will undoubtedly want to can PB. How can you have a fresh new start with an old losing coach? He certainly hasn’t shown us enough to be worth keeping.

So to me, a real signal that things are changing at SMU is when they fire Copeland. Anything else is simply window-dressing.

Fire them both…Copeland first...

sorry socal -

but nothing will EVER change at SMU until you deal with the board -

only then, will you see change -

and the board, well, they're happy with the status quo -

end of story!