Speaking of doing things "the right way" ...
Posted: Sun Sep 26, 2021 1:59 pmSince Gary Patterson said/implied that he was less than impressed with the way the Mustangs handled themselves in Saturday's SMU win at TCU ...
I have the good fortune to have a great view of every game, as SMU Radio's sideline reporter. Fans, especially students, tend to let visiting teams hear it from the seats right behind the visiting bench — happens in every stadium across the country. TCU was no different. The student section at Amon Carter Stadium is right on top of the visitors' bench (many fields, like SMU's Gerald J. Ford Stadium have a buffer zone between the back of the bench and the visiting team, which affords players and coaches to filter out some of the sound coming down from the seats). TCU fans were fairly loud from start to finish, telling the Mustangs that the Frogs were going to win, yada yada yada ... and as would be expected, those fans got frustrated late in the game as the Frogs' chances to come back started to dwindle. Many fans stuck to fairly routine comments, but their frustration brought out the nasty side in some of them, who started yelling some much more harsh comments ... and I'm sure Patterson would commend the Mustangs for the ways in which they responded. The vast majority that I saw said nothing, choosing instead to point at the scoreboard and let the score do the talking. A few waved, a few cracked jokes, one player blew kisses at the TCU fans.
The players are college students and the coaches are grown adults, so it's not like they have never heard the words that were sent their way Saturday. But we all have seen instances in which players showed poor judgement in their responses, and if Patterson is going to complain about how the Mustangs acted after the game, it seemed only fair to point out the Mustangs' classy response down the stretch of the game's final minutes.
I have the good fortune to have a great view of every game, as SMU Radio's sideline reporter. Fans, especially students, tend to let visiting teams hear it from the seats right behind the visiting bench — happens in every stadium across the country. TCU was no different. The student section at Amon Carter Stadium is right on top of the visitors' bench (many fields, like SMU's Gerald J. Ford Stadium have a buffer zone between the back of the bench and the visiting team, which affords players and coaches to filter out some of the sound coming down from the seats). TCU fans were fairly loud from start to finish, telling the Mustangs that the Frogs were going to win, yada yada yada ... and as would be expected, those fans got frustrated late in the game as the Frogs' chances to come back started to dwindle. Many fans stuck to fairly routine comments, but their frustration brought out the nasty side in some of them, who started yelling some much more harsh comments ... and I'm sure Patterson would commend the Mustangs for the ways in which they responded. The vast majority that I saw said nothing, choosing instead to point at the scoreboard and let the score do the talking. A few waved, a few cracked jokes, one player blew kisses at the TCU fans.
The players are college students and the coaches are grown adults, so it's not like they have never heard the words that were sent their way Saturday. But we all have seen instances in which players showed poor judgement in their responses, and if Patterson is going to complain about how the Mustangs acted after the game, it seemed only fair to point out the Mustangs' classy response down the stretch of the game's final minutes.
