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i was watching the halftime show of the MSU and PSU game and as they left for the end of the break there was a comment made about how the football players might be distracted by finals and tests(i dont think any major school is having those right now but w/e)
....what was interesting is that just as the graphic came up but the audio had not cut off yet Craig James made a comment to the effect of:

"They sure don't have those at SMU!" ...while laughing.

.....................wtf?


did anyone else catch that?

Because Craig James is a idiot. He always bags on SMU when he gets a chance. I don't care if he's just joking around or not, it's ridiculous.

I have actually heard him say some positive things over the past few weeks but that one really isn't the worst thing he could have said - come on - SMU does not have finals? I would have sent in an application as a freshman in highschool. Better than him saying SMU, the school has sucked since I left - wait, he has said that....

What I heard was Craig comparing SMU to Stanford and Vandy in terms of studies, finals, academic issues and trying to field a competitive football team. I thought that his comments were positive. I guess it is one of those half full glass or half empty analogies!

i have at least 3 or 4 finals a semester

Big Hoss wrote:Because Craig James is a idiot. He always bags on SMU when he gets a chance. I don't care if he's just joking around or not, it's ridiculous.

yes. SCREW THAT DB!

i generally have 2 when I take 15 hours. most just have a last exam on the last day or a take home or something. greatness...

SMU is no different than any other school - end of story.

James just has it in for the school so leave it at that. Like most football players since the 70's, "class" or character isn't their strong suit. Unfortunate but it is what it is.

Craig has said lots of things about SMU. During the Georgia Tech game the other night a GT player who made a great play's father went to SMU (Jim Bob something) and Craig talked about the fun they had together at SMU. I heard the halftime comment, and wasn't sure what to make of it. During that Dickerson/James era there were rumors about football players getting preferential academic treatment, but none was ever shown. Perhaps, Craig was ackowledging that little factoid. And perhaps, he was saying to folks out there, come to SMU its easier than Stanford and Vandy (which is probably true). Or perhaps he didn't know his mike was still "live".

One beef that some top students have is that SMU has too many easy classes. I believe the senior admin is working to change that. Pony Up!

Tristate Coog: "One beef that some top students have is that SMU has too many easy classes."

What School doesn't??? For us on the Left Coast, Stanford, UCLA, & Berkeley, et al. all have them. It's across the board throughout the country. Are you guys that naive to think we are the only school with those problems??? Get rid of the corrupted tenure system in the 1-12 grades & ALL the colleges & that problem will go away real fast!!! REAL FAST!!!

J.T.supporta wrote:

Big Hoss wrote:Because Craig James is a idiot. He always bags on SMU when he gets a chance. I don't care if he's just joking around or not, it's ridiculous.

yes. SCREW THAT DB!

I thought he was an RB?

SMU89 wrote:

J.T.supporta wrote:

Big Hoss wrote:Because Craig James is a idiot. He always bags on SMU when he gets a chance. I don't care if he's just joking around or not, it's ridiculous.

yes. SCREW THAT DB!

I thought he was an RB?

i don't think he was referring to a position on the field. rather a feminine hygiene product.

who cares what craig james says.

Stanford and Vanderbilt are superior academic schools to SMU. No argument about that.

However, as far as football players are concerned the experience is not that different.

SMU has the Communications Arts majors for our football players. I think this was what Craig James majored in at SMU and why he had such a high GPA. Its a notoriously easy program in terms of grade distribution (Dickerson graduated from the school of business which is quite a bit more rigorous) The faculty has been working to fix the communications arts "problem" for about thirty years now and nothing has happened. Time constrained Greeks and Football players flock to these majors because they are easy. Makes sense that a football player with a busy schedule might not want to be taking electrical engineering or chemistry courses. However, it is not excusable for the rest of the student body that this inequity exists with other more academically respectable programs. There are a proportionately large number of students at SMU majoring in the CA curriculum at SMU and its one reason why people complain about SMU having such high GPA's. It tends to give cheapen the value of a degree in the more mainstream majors in my opinion even though these programs do not suffer from being "easy".

That being said, Stanford and Vanderbilt both have fluff programs at their respective institutions so I find the comment odd from James especially since football players at SMU are just about as good academically as any school in the country.

A friend from my high school played football at Stanford. He said he was about three or four hundred points BELOW the average SAT score of the normal student body. We laughed because he definitely was not "Stanford material" nor even a "smart jock" type. He never would have been admitted as normal applicant.

All you have to do is look at a dimwit like Chris Berman. He went to Brown. I would be willing to bet that Berman would not have been accepted at Brown if he had not shown an interest in playing football for Brown. He probably would have attended college at northeastern rhode island state university at nowhere.

All of this makes the story of that real smart kid from FSU remarkable in my opinion. Wish there were more serious students like him who took on real academic challenges while also playing football. Of course the facts are that most top recruits spent their high schools years prepping to be football players and are not are well balanced in regards to academics.

Good points.

I've learned years ago that you must research the schools within the university before making that decision which school you want to go to. Cox is the perfect example of that.