A ten-year plan for SMU Football competitiveness

[CalallenStang]

This is long. Spare me your "tl;dr" comments.

Earlier, I posted that I believe SMU can compete for national championships. I believe that it can happen in football. And while we are currently at a highly disadvantageous position compared even to our primary rival, TCU, to do so, that shouldn't stop us from trying. Here's a ten-year plan to have SMU competing with schools in the top 10 in the country for spots in the national championship playoff.

In order to be a top-tier program, we must first achieve a spot in a top-tier conference, and in order to do that, we must improve two things:

1) On-Field Performance
2) Interest in our program (primarily measured by attendance)

Let's start with everything that is required for the on-field performance portion to improve to an acceptable level for moving to a top conference.

Coaching
SMU needs a coaching staff that excels in talent development, game planning, and in-game adjustments. The staff will need to maximize the available talent in order to overcome the recruiting barriers that come from our conference affiliation. The staff must further excel in recruiting and battle bigger programs for recruits.

Recruiting
SMU must take a national approach to recruiting, but continue to maintain a local focus within the Dallas area. Go after all recruits from Dallas County. See if we can get a local 4-or-5-star or two per year to stay home instead of going to a Big 12 or SEC school. Sell recruits on the SMU experience and why it is better for the athlete than all other student-athlete experiences available. This requires the coaching staff to be exceptional salespeople.

Academic Infrastructure
SMU must ensure that recruits from even the most at-risk academic background not only have a path to gain admission to SMU, but an excellent chance to excel. Much of this has already been done, but we must ensure that it continues to be done.

Athletic Infrastructure
Did you see the new football complex Oregon built? Meanwhile, we still haven't built an IPF (there are reasons why it hasn't been built with, but that's not the point). We need to pour money into athletic facilities in order to ensure that our facilities are the top in the country. We need 1) An IPF, 2) A new football complex that goes above and beyond the facilities that we have currently, 3) The most state-of-the-art stadium in the nation. I want absolutely no recruit to turn down SMU because there are better facilities elsewhere.

Smart Scheduling
1 game vs. Big 12 opponent (TCU), 1 game vs. low-level P5 opponent (i.e. Wake Forest), 1 game vs. bad FBS (i.e. Akron), and 1 game vs. FCS per year. We should go 3-1 or 4-0 in non-conference every year.

Taking care of all of these issues should allow us to upgrade this program to an 8-10 win team on average over the next 5 years with the potential for a breakout year. I believe that that level of winning, combined with a solid record against low-level P5 teams and a respectable record against TCU, will get us looks to move up when combined with our history and TV market.

However, we won't go anywhere unless we also get people in the stands. Here's what we need to do to improve attendance.

Changing Dallas' perception of SMU
One of the big issues is that we struggle to get non-SMU affiliated Dallasites to Ford Stadium for games. I believe that a primary reason for this is that SMU is seen as an old, stodgy, exclusive, pretentious place that is unwelcoming to all but its alumni. To be fair to the community, SMU makes zero (or horrible) effort to change this perception ("Soiree"). SMU must do the following in order to change this perception:

Coaches Reaching out to the community
We are talking TV and radio shows here...we are talking guest interviews on The Ticket, The Fan, etc...but we are also talking about other things. The coaches (especially the head coach) must interact with the community in an informal way, so that Dallasites see the coaches as "one of us." When at Texas Tech, Mike Leach once did the weather forecast on local news. It endeared him to the community, and while it may seem like a small thing, it's exposure for the program. We need informal interactions like that.

General attitude of the coach
The head coach must reflect the city. Dallas is a brash, bragging, in-your-face sort of city. We need a coach that has that same personality. Gary Patterson, as much as I hate him, has endeared the city of Fort Worth with his brash personality, and an SMU coach can do the same with Dallas. This is not a city that appreciates a low-key approach, so the coaching staff can't appear to have just gotten back from having a mai tai at Duke's in Waikiki. We need a Ron Meyer type.

Inclusivity on the Boulevard
The Boulevard is awesome. But to outsiders, it seems like a bunch of old alumni having drinks with their college buddies. We need festival activities for outsiders to take part in. Bring in carnival games for kids, turkey leg vendors, etc. The Boulevard shouldn't be for SMU alumni. It should be for Dallas.

Increasing Student Involvement
We don't have enough students at SMU to have a low percentage of students attending games. Unfortunately, a lot of our students do not attend games as they do not feel an emotional attachment to the team, and they don't feel an emotional attachment to the team because they are not emotionally involved with the games when they do show up. Don't believe me? People on here lament the amount of band talk on PF, but we have all of that band talk because a lot of the people on here are former band members. The band goes to all of the home games and quite a few away games and are active participants during the game, playing different songs for different situations, participating in cheers, etc. We need students to be as involved as the band.

Cheers and Chants
One reason why student emotional involvement is so low at games is because students show up as individuals and largely participate as individuals or as a student section independent of what the rest of the stadium is doing. There's no unifying cheer or chant. At TCU, all fans yell "TCU" at the end of their alma mater. At A&M, there's the War Hymn and about 1.8 billion other traditions. At UT, there's the "Texas Fight" echo yell and "The Eyes of Texas." At SMU, we have none of that. Most people aren't at the stadium when Varsity is played pre-game and they've already left by the time it is played post-game. No one knows the words to yell when "Pony Battle Cry" is played. No one knows that "Peruna" has words. No one on the west side participates when students try to get an echo-yell going. The only thing we have is the dance to Beans, but that is usually done in the 4th quarter when most students have already headed to the bar. We need:
1) Better alumni involvement with student-led cheers, and
2) Better "indoctrination" into SMU traditions for incoming students.

Student Mustang Club
See here: http://www.ecu.edu/cs-admin/athletictic ... teclub.cfm
We need this for SMU. Pay a little amount, get a t-shirt, some other nice perks, etc.

Giveaways
Have drawings for a $100 Barley House gift card towards the end of the 4th quarter for students (must be present to win). Give something away to the "student of the game" who is making the most noise and participating the most in the traditional cheers, etc.

Post-Game Concerts
It wouldn't hurt to bring popular music acts in to play concerts after games.

Increasing Alumni involvement
I don't have the answers here, but it needs to be done. And the alumni need to get off their butt and cheer. Learn the words to "Pony Battle Cry" and "Peruna" as well. Don't be afraid to make noise and look like a fool. I am guilty of this as well.

So, to sum this up, we get into a bigger conference by:

1) Hiring the right coach - one that excels in talent development, recruiting, gameday coaching, and community involvement.
2) Ensuring that we are THE BEST in the nation in terms of facilities
3) Ensuring that our admissions and academic programs make us competitive for the best recruits
4) Taking affirmative steps to increase student and alumni involvement
5) Shredding SMU's "veil of exclusivity"

We must take all five of these steps immediately, as we need to reap the rewards within the next five years if we are going to compete for national championships within 10 years.

Once we move into a nationally relevant conference, we must continue to work on improving all of these facets of our program.

This will take money, but I believe that major donors will come forward if a plan is articulated.
This will take alumni involvement, but I believe that alumni will become more involved when they see their school taking actions to truly compete.
This will take administrative involvement, but I believe that the administration will support this initiative given the demonstrated financial and academic benefits of having a winning football program.
This will take everything SMU has, but I believe that with the right plan articulated, SMU will throw itself 100% behind this initiative as it is imperative we do so for the survival of our institution.

Let's stop piddling around and go for it.

[sbsmith]

Not long, read it all

[78pony]

Your administration wants to be a basketball school and we don't have enough wallet men that care enough to force the issue. You can stick a fork in the dream for a FBS conference slot unless something monumental happens and pretty much right now. I think you did a great job on your post, though. Kudos.

[SMU_Alumni11]

Yeah the main problem with your beautiful proposal is that it has no gas in other words money. If the rich alums that we have along with the upcoming stars in the NFL donate serious money, and im not talking mere 250k Im saying like 1-2 mil a person. We are sadly not going to have enough to pump your machine. Our tv contract gets what barely a mil and for a program costing around 10... we need a serious mini endowment fund to complete the 10 year plan.

[Rebel10]

I nominate CalallenStang for President and A. D. of SMU.

[RGV Pony]

I guess if we can get to sweet 16s elite 8s and final fours, I'm okay w the Duke thing and some bowls now and then.

My one stipulation: we play basketball games Saturday afternoons and are allowed to Blvd

[SMU_Alumni11]

I just hope our football is good enough to be like a bottom tier P5 and our basketball is nationally acclaimed so we can move up that way.

[ponyboy]

Nice post.

[Rebel10]

I guess if we can get to sweet 16s elite 8s and final fours, I'm okay w the Duke thing and some bowls now and then.

My one stipulation: we play basketball games Saturday afternoons and are allowed to Blvd

Football drives the ship in realignment. Duke is already in a BCS conference and we are not. We can't be okay with some bowls every now and then. That is not get us to a power 5 conference. In fact, that will get us left behind.

[RGV Pony]

I guess if we can get to sweet 16s elite 8s and final fours, I'm okay w the Duke thing and some bowls now and then.

My one stipulation: we play basketball games Saturday afternoons and are allowed to Blvd

Football drives the ship in realignment. Duke is already in a BCS conference and we are not. We can't be okay with some bowls every now and then. That is not get us to a power 5 conference. In fact, that will get us left behind.

Unless we already have been..

[CalallenStang]

Yeah the main problem with your beautiful proposal is that it has no gas in other words money. If the rich alums that we have along with the upcoming stars in the NFL donate serious money, and im not talking mere 250k Im saying like 1-2 mil a person. We are sadly not going to have enough to pump your machine. Our tv contract gets what barely a mil and for a program costing around 10... we need a serious mini endowment fund to complete the 10 year plan.

I agree - we need money. Yes, an athletics endowment would be ideal. However, I believe that the heavy-hitting boosters will financially support a well-written plan big-time. Our plan when we hired June was "let's no longer suck" and they got a group of boosters to commit at least $500,000 each to that plan. Writing a plan out, sharing it with boosters, and then asking them to support it is a different deal. We need to go to our established boosters, including Ford and Sewell. We need to go to Ray and Clark Hunt. But we also need to go to people who haven't given before - people who have money and want to ensure that Dallas is a world-class city with a world-class university and a world-class college athletics program. We need to ask those people if they believe that a university in Dallas can compete for a national championship, and ask them to put their money where their mouth is.

I'm going to throw the idea out. I don't have the resources or the power to make it happen. But I'm going to put it out there and we will see if the university will make it happen or not.

[SMU 86]

I am really tempted to copy/paste that and send it to Hart and/or Turner.

[CalallenStang]

I am really tempted to copy/paste that and send it to Hart and/or Turner.

Thanks for the compliments (you and others), and feel free to send it on

[SMU_Alumni11]

Yeah the main problem with your beautiful proposal is that it has no gas in other words money. If the rich alums that we have along with the upcoming stars in the NFL donate serious money, and im not talking mere 250k Im saying like 1-2 mil a person. We are sadly not going to have enough to pump your machine. Our tv contract gets what barely a mil and for a program costing around 10... we need a serious mini endowment fund to complete the 10 year plan.

I agree - we need money. Yes, an athletics endowment would be ideal. However, I believe that the heavy-hitting boosters will financially support a well-written plan big-time. Our plan when we hired June was "let's no longer suck" and they got a group of boosters to commit at least $500,000 each to that plan. Writing a plan out, sharing it with boosters, and then asking them to support it is a different deal. We need to go to our established boosters, including Ford and Sewell. We need to go to Ray and Clark Hunt. But we also need to go to people who haven't given before - people who have money and want to ensure that Dallas is a world-class city with a world-class university and a world-class college athletics program. We need to ask those people if they believe that a university in Dallas can compete for a national championship, and ask them to put their money where their mouth is.

I'm going to throw the idea out. I don't have the resources or the power to make it happen. But I'm going to put it out there and we will see if the university will make it happen or not.

Its a fine plan too, and I hope and pray some of our more well off than nots will consider the tax deductible payment to our program. It annoys me (and its probably my left brain talking) when we give a bunch of money to useless sports and arts programs that dont really do anything for the university or its rep. It would make more sense to put all the money into programs that people want (majority) into our school and whats left put into revenue driving sports (football basketball and eventually baseball) and get it running to where we can hopefully get into a conference that provides for all the sports and return to contributing to the other elective programs.

[SMU 86]

I am really tempted to copy/paste that and send it to Hart and/or Turner.

Thanks for the compliments (you and others), and feel free to send it on

It is tempting for sure.