Best Opener You Ever Attended?

[FordtoTolbert]

......in my 35+ plus years as a true Pony fan, the best opener I ever saw was the 1990 Vandy game...SMU 44 Vandy 7. Second year back off of the DP...blow out an SEC team..Ponies and Romo on FIRE!! Vibe didn't last long...flew to NO the next week for the Tulane game (sucker!!), only to fall badly, 7-43..but, '90 opener was fun. Let's hope we have a "Vandy Vibe" v. TT....

[MrMustang1965]

Opening Day of Ford Stadium. Hands down. And hotter n' H*ll!

[Rayburn]

1978 SMU-45 TCU-14. Opening kickoff run back for a TD in the Cotton Bowl.

How could it get better than that?

[Buckethead]

Was the 78 TCU game the Jerry Lewis game. I was in school then, but to drunk at the game to remember.

[Peruna2001]

Ford Stadium Opener - September 2, 2000 vs ku

It was a great game! It was about 125 degrees on the field. The hoses were shooting out green water so that we couldn't drink it. But, SMU beat the hell out of ku and brought football back to campus.

[SMU Football Blog]

Definitely the Ford Stadium Opener. Great game. Win. McCown vomited on the field. Good times.

[mrydel]

I have to also mention the '90 Vandy game. SMU fumbled on its first possession and then scored on every other posssession if I remember correctly. It is possible we punted once late but I do not think so. Inspiring use of the Run and Shoot that appeared to be unstoppable. The only problem was the the remainder of the games we played that year. 1-10 for the year.

[regis]

9.2.2000 was great and all, but the first thing that came to mind was the 1992 opener versus Tulane at Ownby.

This was my soph year. The previous year, the Ponies didn't come close to winning a game I attended as the only win was a squeaker at Tulane. This was also my first night game at Ownby, which made for a pleasant evening. As I recall, we had a large for Ownby crowd, which was rowdy all night long.

Anyway, the Mustangs played them tough throughout and trailed 7-3 into 4th quarter. Dan Freiberger was bench in favor of true freshman phenom Ramon Flanigan, who promptly drove the Mustangs down for a score and a 10-7 lead. Tulane struck back and punched in a TD with about 2:00 left. We somehow blocked the extra point and I think it was Marcello Simmons who picked it up and raced the other way for a two point conversion. Ponies trailed 13-12 and were getting the ball back.

Flanigan flung and scrambled, racing against the clock, almost willing us to win. He got us down to the 12 with 4 seconds left, in range for a Russell Anderson 30 yard field goal attempt. Anderson, who what seems like missed at least 3 FGs to that point, missed again as time expired. This lead massive rumors around campus that he tried to hang himself the next day, but failed because he couldn't kick the chair out from under him.

Yes, we lost. But the momentum carried us to wins over UNT, NM and tcu. We were 3-1 for September. It was the last time we had a winning September.

Anyway -- I'm sure the details are hazy, but this was the best opener in my memory because after a 1-10 1991, it showed the Ponies had life, it showed the Ponies were competitive and it showed how great Flanigan would be the next four-to-six years.

[mr. pony]

[quote="SMU Football Blog"]Definitely the Ford Stadium Opener. Great game. Win. McCown vomited on the field. Good times.[/quote]

Yeah, that was great. Fell to his knees at mid-field, facing the home crowd, and blew beads. A collective 'Ohhhhhhhhh' was heard from the fans.....

[me@smu]

Ford Opener for me too. That day was hotter than hell. Spent the whole day leading up to the game in a button down and tie drinking beer in a babypool on the blvd. God bless the drink man who kept pooring ice bags into the pool.

Oh and the game was amazing also! Great way to welcome football back to campus.

[EmeraldCityPony]

My first SMU game my freshman year - 1995 vs Arkansas at the Cotton Bowl. Ramon Flanagan got knocked out of the game on the first offensive play and was out the rest of the season. But somehow the Mustangs scrapped and put together their only win of the season. How those piggies must hate us!

[SmooPower]

Ford Opener for me too. That day was hotter than hell. Spent the whole day leading up to the game in a button down and tie drinking beer in a babypool on the blvd. God bless the drink man who kept pooring ice bags into the pool.

I didn't think the baby pool made an appearance until later in the season, but you might be right.

[ponyte]

Though not personally there, one might consider the 1956 home opener against Notre Dame where the Ponies won 19-13 in front of 66,000 as an exciting start.

[me@smu]

Ford Opener for me too. That day was hotter than hell. Spent the whole day leading up to the game in a button down and tie drinking beer in a babypool on the blvd. God bless the drink man who kept pooring ice bags into the pool.

I didn't think the baby pool made an appearance until later in the season, but you might be right.

Nope definitely made the appearance...even made TV that night as did the interview I gave while sitting in the babypool. Not my best moment since I couldn't remember my name or year when interviewed...but I sure as hell remembered who I was supporting.

[93Mustang]

The memories of the 1992 Tulane game opened old wounds. That was one of the real near misses at a critical time for the program. Had we hit that short field goal and won the game, we might have had a winning record that year (6-5 versus the 5-6 we finished) in the senior year of the freshmen who brought back the program in 1989. Those guys went from being fodder for ND, UT, and most memorably UH (Andre Ware's 7 TD passes in the first half) to beating UH, TCU, and Arkansas in their senior year. Oh what could have been. Instead, we got booted from the real D1, we lost to 0-10 TCU, Malin got busted, CUSA snubbed us, and we've been terrible ever since . . .

The Vandy game was great, but my favorite "home" opener was the game against Arkansas played in Shreve-pit in 1997. We gave up the home date to play in that awful I-Bowl stadium and in front of a stadium in which obnoxious Arkansas fans outnumbered us by a margin of about 10 to 1, we mauled them behind Ramon and Womack (who I think was from Arkansas). A great road trip.