PonyFans.com

From Mustang Club: Jim Copeland will be on the Norm Hitzges Radio Show on 1310 "The Ticket" this morning at 11:50 AM to discuss the conference realignment situation and the state of intercollegiate athletics.

will there be a transcript available?

I don't know, but you may want to try and get the station over the internet.

So what did Cope have to say?

I heard PK was supposed to be the official PonyFans.com secretary and type out Copeland's interview. Where is it?

Realize that what follows is my recollection of the interview and most of it is in MY words and not verbatium.

It was basically a question and answer format with Norm asking various questions such as, what happens if the ACC expansion happens...will there be ripples felt throughout college football (a leading question). The jist of it being (duh) yes.

Norm brought up the recent meeting of SMU with Rice, Tulsa, Army and Navy and asked if Tulane had been included. Copeland said that Tulane had been invited, but because of what they had just been through they were not able to join them at this time, but wanted to be included in future discussions. When asked what the WAC thought of their meeting, Copeland said that they weren't very happy about it, but that his job and prority was to investigate all contingencies and have SMU in the best position possible if and when things start happening.

Copeland talked about how it is going to be more important for SMU and most other colleges to be in more regional type situations not only to reduce travel expences, but to improve things for the fans so they can drive to away games or at least hop on a Southwest flight for a day trip to a game.

He mentioned that the non-BCS teams have been in discussions with the BCS to try to improve the opportunities for everyone to have a chance at the national title and a BCS bowl game. He also pointed out that for the first time even some of the BCS programs were seeing red ink. The BCS is starting to, or should be realizing the importance of the remaining 1-A teams to the BCS both in terms of scheduling and grooming of future coaches. Therefore they should be careful they don't kill the rest of the 1-A programs.

There were a few other minor items discussed, but I'm getting cramps in my hands so I'm going to let it go at that. There are many good reasons why I'm not a journalist....besides, you should have listened yourself.



[This message has been edited by PK (edited 06-18-2003).]

A couple of other interesting notes.
When asked if he thinks SMU and TCU should be in the same conference, Copeland said that he couldn’t speak for TCU but he is all for putting together a conference with regional teams. He didn’t really answer the question specifically about TCU, I sensed that he is still pretty bitter about the whole TCU/C-USA thing.
When asked about the BCS, Copeland mentioned that he is pushing for one or two of the top non-BCS conference schools each year to be included the national championship mix. At least that would give schools like SMU an outside shot at the national championship.

And BTW, Norm is way too smart and knowledgeable about sports to be on that station. He pretty much asked Copeland all the right questions.

Cope must read this board since I just brought up the "grooming of Coaches" angle just last week.

THANX for the tip pk - i listened in also....well done summary - u pretty well covered the finer points from what i heard also...to be honest - i'm pretty positive about what he said for smu & our future!