What about the $3.5 million AD deficit?

[Sam I Am]

Sorry to have been away from this forum for a while, so I might have missed out on what is being said about the SMU AD $3.5 deficit reported in the DMN article about the AD retirement. The budget can only be balanced by winning teams in the FB and Men's BB revenue producing sports. So I presume that the school will try to hire a new AD who can produce such programs. A new AD will be very reluctant to fire coaches in their first year of administration. Then again, when A&M changed AD's, that is exactly what happened. As for doing my part, although only a modest contributor to the mustang Club, I did increase my support by 10% as requested. I truly believe that at some point SMU might decide they can't afford Div. 1-A competition and consider dropping football. Money (or lack of it) talks, and everything else walks.

[PonySnob]

A new AD will be very reluctant to fire coaches in their first year of administration. Then again, when A&M changed AD's, that is exactly what happened.

With all of the contract extensions that Bennett has already been given, a new AD is probably locked into him for several years. We are probably still paying money to Mike Cavan.......

[SMU Football Blog]

First, it took no time for Copeland to fire both Shumate and Rossley. Second, it really isn't that uncommon for coaches to get extensions and fired not long thereafter. A new AD only increases the pressure on Tubbs and Bennett to produce. If Bennett or Tubbs fail now, it is the mistake of the new AD's predecesor.

[PonySnob]

First, it took no time for Copeland to fire both Shumate and Rossley. Second, it really isn't that uncommon for coaches to get extensions and fired not long thereafter. A new AD only increases the pressure on Tubbs and Bennett to produce. If Bennett or Tubbs fail now, it is the mistake of the new AD's predecesor.

But given how cash strapped the athletic department is, they it could be possible that the school could not afford to buy Bennett's contract. I believe that SMU was paying Rossley for a fairly lengthy period after Copeland fired him and after Cave-in received his extension after one year, the school could not afford to fire him when it was evident he was going to continue to drag the program down.

[SMU Football Blog]

The athletic department is not cash strapped. The deficit is budgeted for every year. It amounts to less than 1% of the school budget. It drives the faculty nuts, but it is accepted by the trustees as on the budget and will continue to be. The faculty hate it because they all think they will be driving solar powered Segways around campus if there were no athletic department, which is absolutely not the case.

It is more accurate to say the University subsidizes the athletic department, which is something it can do as a private institution that public schools can't.

While everyone hopes for the day that the athletic department will be self-sustaining at some point, there are not going to be layoffs or a foreclosure sale of Moody any time soon.

[Sam I Am]

Regardless of how SMU does it's accounting, the AD is not self-supporting and is perceived as a drain on the school budget. As I understand things, the great majority of Div. 1-A schools have a version of this same deficit. Without BCS money, hardly anyone can afford BIG time sports programs. Football might be self-supporting even at SMU, but it can't carry the load for the other non-revenue sports as required by the NCAA. Is there a solution? One thing I know, the Doak Walker generation of benefactors will not be with us too much longer, and then what happens.

[SMU Football Blog]

One thing I know, the Doak Walker generation of benefactors will not be with us too much longer, and then what happens.

This point can't be stressed enough. What does SMU do when the Gerald Ford's and Hunts that care about athletics are no longer with us and there is a huge 20 year gap of alumae that graduated with no tradition in successful athletics? I am willing to be that SMU alumnae under 40 lag behind SMU's peer institutions in giving, not just to athletics, but the university as a whole.

[SMUstang]

Scary thought.

[McClown27]

This point can't be stressed enough. What does SMU do when the Gerald Ford's and Hunts that care about athletics are no longer with us and there is a huge 20 year gap of alumae that graduated with no tradition in successful athletics? I am willing to be that SMU alumnae under 40 lag behind SMU's peer institutions in giving, not just to athletics, but the university as a whole.

I don't have the stats, but have looked at them. We are behind in every kind of giving against our benchmark schools (which I think they set the bar to high, it is like Duke, Emory, Vandy, and I can't remember the other--Nortwestern?). I do know that our business school graduates give the most in the university, but if they did not, why have a business school.

You are also right about the situation after the Fords and Hunts leave. I graduated in 2003, none of us came to SMU (aside from the players) with any ideas that we would be a part of a huge football tradition. It is simply not part of the SMU college experience. Maybe we do need Brad Thomas back, or more bluntly--George Owen and Robin Buddecke.

[abezontar]

But if we have bandwagon fans, wouldn't we also have bandwagon alumni? What's to say that if we were to start winning consistently and go to bowl games, and make the men's tourny that they wouldn't start giving when they started seeing SMU on ESPN again?

[McClown27]

But if we have bandwagon fans, wouldn't we also have bandwagon alumni? What's to say that if we were to start winning consistently and go to bowl games, and make the men's tourny that they wouldn't start giving when they started seeing SMU on ESPN again?

Agree.

[Stallion]

so many longtime SMU alumni have left SMU athletics so far in the past-I'm not sure youn ever get them back except for the occassional homecoming game. I've put SMU Basketball in the past as the next step in my disgust with the athletic program and guess what-I've found I don't really miss it at all. May try to see if I can do without seeing SMU play the Sam Houston Monuments and Arkansas St Racoons of ther world next year in football too. That's what happens when SMU deemphasizes athletics and appeals to the "lowest common denominator" of athletic competition.

[SMU Football Blog]

I recall Stallion months ago saying something to the effect that he wasn't opposed to scheduling soft this year or next. Yet here he is [deleted] about it.

When we were winning, we played those "lowest common denominator" teams, too: Grambling, UTA, Wichita State, Santa Clara). Where would that glorious 10-1 team in 1981 that only lost to Texas be without the stunning three game winning streak against UT friggin' A, North Texas and Grambling?

And btw, every team that has gone from the bottom (where we were a year or two ago) to some level of respectability has played these "lowest common denominator" teams, too.

And unlike most people, you know it , too. That is what is so friggin' irritating.

[KnuckleStang]

When we were winning, we played those "lowest common denominator" teams, too: Grambling, UTA, Wichita State, Santa Clara). Where would that glorious 10-1 team in 1981 that only lost to Texas be without the stunning three game winning streak against UT friggin' A, North Texas and Grambling?

I seem to recall the late Old Pony (R.I.P.) had a great response to that argument: You can't compare today to the SWC days, because back then, we needed some cupcake games to offset a murderous conference schedule. In Conference USA, the conference schedule IS the cupcake, so you ought to be scheduling up in OOC games whenever you can.

And we all know OP was always right.

[Charleston Pony]

we need to give the "soft scheduling" a rest. Bennett is simply trying to build this thing borrowing a page from the Bill Snyder "how to" book. K-State was notorious for scheduling cupcakes as Snyder began the process of bringing them back from the dead

The flip side of scheduling tough is that SMU has been 0 for Sept far too often and by the time conference play begins, most people have had their fill of losing. Let's see what happens with a young QB against Sam Houston and Ark St and how much support the team gets in those 1st two home games. I guess I will have to book a flight and try to at least round up a few aging classmates to put a few more butts in the seats of Ford Stadium for one of those dates.