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What has happened over the last 6 or 7 years that has caused the steady decline in SMU football? Back in the early 90's, SMU seemed to be able to give a lot of teams a pretty good game and now we can't even be competitive with the a lower level of competition. Certainly the teams from the early 90's had their fair share of defeats, but at the same time, there were some pretty good wins and close wins:
Last second vistory over New Mexico
Arkansas games during the Rossley era
Close games with Wisconsin, UNC, UCLA, Texas A$M
At the time, recruiting standards were certainly much tougher than they have been for the last 3-4 years, the facilities were among the worst in the country and yet on a just about any Saturday, an SMU game was much more entertaining thant it has been the last 3-4 years. Why?

Bennett's play calling is the reason this team is notfun to watch. The draw play on 3rd and 20 kills me

Some will say the decline is because we had "Southwest Conference talent" back then and now we don't.....but still alot of what you say rings true.

Wow, if we could just return to the days of Jason Wolf, Ramon Flanigan, Bordano.....at least we pulled off an upset every once in awhile.

Hopefully Bennett can keep recruiting well and maybe those days when it was exciting will return.

<img src="http://www.smu.edu/forum/images/ownbydemo.gif" alt=" - " />

<small>[ 10-29-2003, 06:29 PM: Message edited by: VarsityShop ]</small>

are you guys trying to give Stallion a softball to hit out of the park or what? When you have SWC recruited talent, even if its bottom of SWC, don't ya think you have a better chance of beating New Mexico and staying close with North Carolina?

Originally posted by i10pony:
Bennett's play calling is the reason this team is notfun to watch. The draw play on 3rd and 20 kills me

It's a passed down thing. Rossley used to do the same thing when he was here.

That is an awesome picture of the old Ownby. Definitely a collector's item. Unfortunately, it looks like our football program.

Upon first look at that pic, I thought that they were making space for that Band Hall on the 2nd floor of Ownby they'd been promising since forever but then I realized I was wrong.

or maybe that pic is what Bennett needs to do to the old program before building it back up. Bennett has a plan, he is NOT the village idiot. I could never say that with any confidence about Cavan. This is a situation where some people are too close to the situation to understand, and others are too far from it. Bennett has been around alot of programs and worked for guys like Snyder, Tiller, Stoops and Slocum if I am not mistaken. He is doing what those guys would do for the most part. Forget play-calling, thats BS, and can only look as good as the execution.

Others at SMU have done more with less. Nuff said.

Sam, who are you referring to, Cavan???? Hayden Fry? Take a step back. Rossley was a different situation in the SWC and Flanigan almost single handedly got alot of the modest results we got under Rossley. And why do you think the great Forrest Gregg got run out of SMU? Thats what it was too, a run off. You think he really wanted to go coach the Shreveport Pirates? The alums and admin didn't understand what he was dealing with even then and most still don't get it today. We are part of the problem, firing every coach we get and letting the real problems go unchallenged for so long.

that's right Rossley was a significant improvement over this year-didn't he accomplish the incredible hurdle of ONE whole win 2 or was it 3 times in his short career. Ahhh! Those were the good old days of SMU Football.

Originally posted by Peruna_Ate_My_Rolex:
It's a passed down thing. Rossley used to do the same thing when he was here.

Great minds think alike...

you and me (not Bennett and Rossley - although they think alike too)

<small>[ 10-30-2003, 06:44 AM: Message edited by: MizterTea ]</small>

It sure wasnt fun in '92 after ya'll beat us...we had an off week that next week and we went full pads all 5 days with tackling drills all practice on friday....Sully ran off at least 5 guys that week. '93 wasnt much more fun either.