SMU versus Baylor

[Jeffrey Lebowski]

I have several points I want to make regarding SMU and Baylor...
(as I start off all of my posts, I want to point out I am a new guy on the Board, so I am sure these things have been discussed 100 times before...sorry if I am kicking a dead horse). And sorry for this long post...

I did my undergrad at SMU and walked on and tried to play ball (unsuccessfully)...then I joined a frat since the girls at SMU like frat guys more than football players. I have always thought that was something unique to SMU... I loved every minute I was at SMU...We had so many good times...I shudder to think how much cash I dumped into the Elephant and Milo's...I then went to grad school at Baylor, so I caught a glimpse of what life was like going to school in Waco, and it made me realize how happy I was that I went to school at SMU...but Baylor does have a leg up on us in one regard...I'll get to that in a sec...

First....

Why haven't Baylor and SMU tried to foster a legitimate rivalry??? It seems to make complete sense to me...our schools are comparable in terms of demographics and levels of play on the field, we are both private schools that are within an hour and a half of each other...it seeems to me it would be a great rivalry...It would pit the high society school whose students like to party (SMU) against the bible beatin school whose students carry bibles with Abercrombie and Fitch bible covers...(it still amazes me that the most "killer" place for freshman to hang out is a testosterone-siphoning coffee shop and that fraternity/sorority crush parties are daytime events like ice cream socials or water gun fights with alumni supervision and NO booze allowed (I'm not kidding)...How diffeent is that than an SMU freshman experience??? W-O-W )

So anyways, Baylor and SMU should play every year for the next 25 years...

This is the one area where Baylor has a leg up on us...While I was in grad school at Baylor, I was able to go to quite a few games in Waco and I always came away from their games shaking my head. How is it that Baylor fans and students are so much more dedicated to their football program than SMU students, alumni, and fans are? And while Baylor is obviously not selling out any games and there are plenty of empty seats, I have to give Baylor fans credit...the ones that do come make a whole lot of noise, they have their little "Sic Em Bears" routine on kickoffs where a legitimatley noticabel level of crowd noise gets generated, all the freshman wear the same color and run our before the game and stand on each side of the tunnel when the team runs on to the field and then they crowd behind the opposing players bench...there is actually a decent amount of crowd noise at a Baylor game, especially considering they don't fill up their stadium...I am obvioulsy not comparing Baylor's fans and crowd to any big school, but they put an SMU crowd to shame.

I just can't figure out why SMU can't at least have some semblance of this atmosphere...excited students, dedicated alumni who attend, a crowd that actually gets a little rowdy and makes some noise...I KNOW part of the reason is that Dallas provides many more distractions than an armpit of a town like Waco does....I KNOW that Baylor has more students than we do...I KNOW Baylor gets some bigger name schools and higher profile athletes in their stadium because it is Big 12 football...and maybe those reasons answer my question, but I guess I just hate that Baylor get at least 50-70% of their stadium full, get the fans who do show up to be reasonably loud and involved, a motivated, loud student body (at least the freshman), and have things like a kickoff cheer where the crowd makes noise, etc. Baylor has been losing bad for years as well, just like SMU, but their problems don't appear to be the same...Everyone says winning is the only way to get our crowds to improve, but how is Baylor doing it differently? The amount of empty stands at the Marshall game on a beautiful cool Saturday afternoon was an embarrasment...

And while they of course do exist, i get the feeling that there are far fewer Baylor students who pull for Texas or Texas A&M over Baylor...these guys are all over SMU, and bothing whips my [deleted] harder than an SMU student who skip[s the SMU game to watch a Texas game on TV or would pull for Texas if SMU and Texas were to play...and like I said, those guys are all over SMU's campus...I always wonder why they just didn't go to UT? Maybe they just couldn't get in.

My wife went to Baylor for undergrad and her little brother just started there so we were in Waco for homecoming this past weekend and went to the Kansas game...amazing comeback by Baylor by the way...it just beats me down to see how much better supported the Baylor team is in comparison to the SMU football team.

well, there is 20 minutes of work down the drain...

[Cadillac]

I did my undergrad at SMU and walked on and tried to unsuccessfully play ball...

You see, there's your problem right there. You should have tried to successfully play ball. That would have made a world of difference.

I'm kidding. I like this thread, and will actually contribute to it as soon as I can.

-CoS

[Jeffrey Lebowski]

HAHAHA...I guess that would be a problem...

[Charleston Pony]

tickets in Ford would be hard to come by if we played in the Big XII - no question that's a huge advantage Baylor has. SMU has always (at least in the modern era since the Cowboys came to Dallas) depended on our visitors to help fill our stadiums.

I think most would agree we'd love to be playing Bayor and TCU every year in our non-conference schedule - and I will throw in UNT as games of local interest that would be well attended.

Baylor has another slight advantage. Non-affiliated Waco area sports fans and Baptists relate to them better than DFW fans and Methodists do to SMU. That accounts for some small difference. Only game in Waco.

SMU has huge challenges in trying to gain support from it's own students, faculty and alumni (I think only 5% give to the Mustang Club and not many more than that regularly attend games). How do we expect to attract the DFW community when we can't attract our own? It's a HUGE marketing challenge that even winning and winning big hasn't solved (reference to the 80's for those of you who missed that)

[Billy Joe]

Baylor being in the Big 12 allows them to get more revenue, exposure, and better recruits. SMU has not invested in its athletic program to be successful (money, policies, etc.). I hope Orsini's hiring will change that. Copeland was an absolute failure as an AD and stayed around way too long. Baylor 23 SMU 0.

[expony18]

like you said... their students dont party like they do at smu... when i was a senior in high school my gf was at baylor and she came back every weekend because there wasnt anything to do, and nobody really went out. not the case at smu. however, it is sad that our students and the community aren't behind smu a little bit more. 1. our stadium is on campus 2. floyd casey stadium is a [deleted] hole... baylors locker room is much better then SMU's locker room, but the stadium is garbage. the problem i faced when i came to smu was that all of my buddies wanted to watch "their college" team on saturday... which meant go to the tailgate get hammered and then go to a bar to watch the sec/big xii games... it pissed me off when my closest friends wouldnt even come to support not only the college they actually go to, but their friends on the team. My constant thought was always "if you love LSU so much why the hell didnt you go there..." and if you didn't get accepted to what ever college it is that you support realize they didnt want you, get over it, move on...

[FloridaMustang]

It is so sad.. when I was there, I would always see small contigents of greeks at the games, but far from even a quarter of the frats. I would talk to my greek buddies about coming, and most of the time they'd have parties scheduled for that day.. beer pong tournament at the [insert frat here] house during the game. it's going to take a lot longer, even if we ever do start winning, to re-train the students and alumni to start thinking like winners too. Look how long it's taken the players to just get confidence and stop acting like they've got no shot in hell to win.

The fact is, we have to win without the fans first.. that's just the way it is.. so stop whining about empty seats and just pray for some more DB's for next year or for a pink slip for PB and a new coach that is the second coming of Lovie Smith.

[Peruna2001]

Baylor is in Waco. Nothing else to do there...for anybody. And like everybody else has said, being in the Big 12 helps too.

[J.T.supporta]

The difference in my opinion between us and Baylor is this:

Baylor is no longer that so called 'red headed step child', better known as a door mat in college football.

We still have not proved that yet. We beat a ranked TCU team but some how manage to take a step back with this years UNT game. Us and Baylor will have future games and it will become a rivalry in the near future.

[expony18]

The difference in my opinion between us and Baylor is this:

Baylor is no longer that so called 'red headed step child', better known as a door mat in college football.

We still have not proved that yet. We beat a ranked TCU team but some how manage to take a step back with this years UNT game. Us and Baylor will have feature games and it will become a rivalry in the near future.

my first tailgate was before the home game against baylor... it was awesome i hope we can get them on the schedule every year

[smupony94]

I love dancing in the parking lot when the Baylor students can't

[Jeffrey Lebowski]

George's was nice though. I could use a Big O.

[docabel]

Simply comes down to 2 things that differentiate the programs.

1. Only game in town.
You hit it right on the head when you talked about all the time/money spent at frats and various bars. Those things are not available in Waco to the extent they are here in Dallas. This was on display last night in Dallas. The Stars are having a specacular start to their season, but because the Cowboys were playing on Monday night, they only drew around 10K.

2. Money
The reports on last years income/expenses for NCAA teams show Baylor with an income of nearly 33 million compared to SMU's 22. This is even more dramatic when you look at their recruting budget of over 750K compared to to SMU's 300K (not to mention the 1.2M of the UT/A&M of the world)

[SMUguy]

1. Only game in town.
You hit it right on the head when you talked about all the time/money spent at frats and various bars. Those things are not available in Waco to the extent they are here in Dallas. This was on display last night in Dallas. The Stars are having a specacular start to their season, but because the Cowboys were playing on Monday night, they only drew around 10K.

That's true. I was there. Stars are off to a great start, and deserve the attention. If I lived in Waco, I'd drive to Dallas to see the Stars before I'd go to a Baylor game, though (unless SMU was in town, of course).

2. Money
The reports on last years income/expenses for NCAA teams show Baylor with an income of nearly 33 million compared to SMU's 22. This is even more dramatic when you look at their recruting budget of over 750K compared to to SMU's 300K (not to mention the 1.2M of the UT/A&M of the world)

Therein lies the real difference. That's the only way they can create anything down there that a recruit would even look at. It sure isn't the city, the campus, the social life, the atmosphere, the cool uniforms, the .... anything else.