PonyFans.com

Interesting article on Kentucky Football, and the uphill climb Stoops faces to rid an ingrained culture of losing:

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/college/mizzou/stoops-trying-to-change-expectations-at-kentucky/article_25ba1703-f73c-58a5-91ab-a3793f395080.html

If nothing else, I would like to thank June Jones for establishing higher expectations at SMU, something that I never had when I was an SMU student and fan in the 90's and early 2000's.

One can make the argument that SMU hasn't met those higher expectations, and that is a fair point, but we are miles ahead of where we were when Jones was hired. We can all complain about the lack of recruiting (my biggest issue) or the inability to compete with our former SWC rivals, or the odd playcalls on 3rd and inches (stop passing!), but you cannot argue that SMU had a LOSING CULTURE for 20+ years.

Now, we expect winning seasons and bowls, and we actually want more than just 6/7 wins and lower tier bowls. We want 10 win seasons and BCS births! It is unusual to make that kind of transition in a culture in only 5 years. Many pro teams cannot do that (Jacksonville Jags, Phoenix Coyotes, T-wolves, Cubs, Bobcats, et al).

I am of the opinion that new blood would be good for the program, and a focused emphasis on staff and recruiting has to be priority #1 - but let us not lose sight of the gigantic strides we have made in a very short period of time.

We no longer accept losing as an acceptable outcome. And for that, I am extremely grateful to the CofC and June Jones. Time to take the next step ponyfans!

I think he did. Our fans are expecting wins and bowl games...they are expecting us to beat teams our old SWC foes (something that we thought impossible when I started in '06)
We are already demanding entry into a big boy conference as well as shoot for top 25...we are tired of losing and we are now relevant

Good Lord.

Don't forget to thank him for recruiting to ASU while Art Briles was doing HIS job - building Baylor into a national power.

Let it go.

Or blow it all out of proportion.

Your choice.

June certainly rid us of our culture of losing (except against legit competition) and replaced it with a culture of mediocrity.

Are we better than when Bennett got us to 6-6? Yeah. Kinda. Bennett also had one hand tied behind his back with the academic restrictions and didn't have the budget for assistants that June does. It's not this miraculous revolution that the Jonestown cult thinks it is.

Bennett also followed up that 6-6 season with that 1-11 season. June has built a sustainable program. It may not be what we want long term, but if we can consider 6-6 or 7-5 a down year then, we he really has transformed our program.

mustangxc wrote:if we can consider 6-6 or 7-5 a down year then, we he really has transformed our program.

Who exactly is considering 7-5 a down year? 7-5 is the best regular season June has ever gotten us.

BigT3x wrote:Are we better than when Bennett got us to 6-6? Yeah. Kinda. Bennett also had one hand tied behind his back with the academic restrictions and didn't have the budget for assistants that June does. It's not this miraculous revolution that the Jonestown cult thinks it is.

Bennett got us one 6 win season in 6 years. June has given us 4 in 5.

June may teach us how to duck another loss by dropping Baylor next year

I couldn't have stated any more clearly in my post that I think a new coaching staff would be good for the program - holy Jesus [deleted] how does nobody read this?

But for you guys to ignore what has been accomplished in a 5 year period, it is just plain ignorance. Something has changed, because I never got to see an SMU bowl game for the 7 years I attended undergrad and law here.

Either competition has gotten worse, coaching was better or we have simply gotten lucky for 5 straight years.

The hubris from my fellow Ponyfans is unbelievable.

or the Admission Model has changed-you're right some one does not know the facts-if you did you would understand you are comparing two different things. All prior SMU Coaches would have taken this program to a Bowl under the current admission standards-don't forget Mike Cavan got SMU to 6-5 with much tougher standards than even Bennett. Even Mike Cavan had an 18-19 record in Conference-he just couldn't win the non-conference games. In fact, the WAC 1.0 was easily much tougher than CUSA and very comparable to the AAC

Stallion wrote:or the Admission Model has changed-you're right some one does not know the facts-if you did you would understand you are comparing two different things. All prior SMU Coaches would have taken this program to a Bowl under the current admission standards-don't forget Mike Cavan got SMU to 6-5 with much tougher standards than even Bennett

June got us to a Bowl in year 2, I might be wrong, but surely the change in admissions could not have affected the success of the program that fast? Who did he recruit that made the difference and was the result of the changes? Honest question.

Obviously this argument is never going to die, but I'd be interested to know how June is undeserving of credit for 2009?

he had 6 JUCOs and/or Division 1A Transfers on that team which for example Mike Cavan couldn't get in including

Shanwbrey McNeil
Marquis Frazier
The LB from Texas A&M
Sterling Moore