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In order, which OOC team do you want to beat the most.......
OSU, Texas Tech, or TCU...

Mine:
1)Texas Tech - think it would be a great way to start the season @home
2)TCU- Man..... I hate them
3)OSU- would be nice, but not as nice as the 2 above

The no-brainer answer is... Texas Tech. Big 12 and the first game out.

What a start!!

Personally for me...TCU

All three would be fine with me though lmfao

Seriously, how many wins does anyone predict for SMU in 2004? (Honest question).

Also, in all sincerity, how many games must SMU win this year for Bennett to keep his job?

My answer to both is 3 (SJS, LaTech and UTEP). A loss to SJS would kill the program so that is the must win game. UTEP even with Price and the transfers should be winnable, LaTech will be the tough one. Does Bennett stay with 2 wins?

It will be a tough start to the season and the D needs to keep it close and they will face 3 very good offenses to start off. A new offense will take some time to get it together and the first 3 games may not properly reflect the teams progress.

Good luck in 2004. Personally I hope you win 5 or 6 games at least (10 at most).

HFvictory wrote:Seriously, how many wins does anyone predict for SMU in 2004? (Honest question).

Also, in all sincerity, how many games must SMU win this year for Bennett to keep his job?

My answer to both is 3 (SJS, LaTech and UTEP). A loss to SJS would kill the program so that is the must win game. UTEP even with Price and the transfers should be winnable, LaTech will be the tough one. Does Bennett stay with 2 wins?

It will be a tough start to the season and the D needs to keep it close and they will face 3 very good offenses to start off. A new offense will take some time to get it together and the first 3 games may not properly reflect the teams progress.

Good luck in 2004. Personally I hope you win 5 or 6 games at least (10 at most).

Copeland doesn't fire coaches until they have a chance with their own recruits. Bennett has at minimum three more seasons, and I would expect he will be around much longer than that.

2004 Outlook: Be happy with two wins this year; be ecstatic with three. We still have a long way to go up front.

While frustrating, the good news is Bennett seems to be recruiting lineman that have appropriate size for Division 1A, and that lack of size has been our Achilles heel since 1997.

Combine his recruiting strategies with the progress in (lifting of) self-imposed recruiting rules (grade/score reduction in ’02, JUCOs allowed in ’03), and SMU should have the ability to field .500 teams annually by the end of this decade if progress continues on both fronts.

If/when the redtag restriction is lifted, SMU could become competitive for conference championships, but I wouldn’t count on that until that restriction is lifted.

Southland wrote:Copeland doesn't fire coaches until they have a chance with their own recruits. Bennett has at minimum three more seasons, and I would expect he will be around much longer than that.

I don't think it will happen, but if SMU goes 0-fer Bennett has to be gone. You can't go 0-23. Even with only one win I can't see how he stays, but I still stick with 3 needed.

If .500 ball is the goal by the end of the decade- fire them all and close it down now. This isn't the Big 12.
I agree that this year will be another ugly one with 3 wins at best and that Bennett has no pressure on his job for at least 2-3 years. Pressure will mount though if there is another o-fer as it should. We need to see improvement in competitiveness this year even if the recored isn't good. Say an offense that can score 17 points a game against conference teams at a minimum.
I dislike TCU more but the best win would be the first game vs TT. It would help all things.

Bennett should get 2 more years no matter what in my opinion. Based on where the program was when he came, considering firing him is almost ludicrous. Having said that and putting my meager opinion aside, I hear some key people have some expectations for improvement and wins this season. Not sure what that means exactly, but we'll see. I don't think any coach could survive back to back winless seasons, but provided we win a couple games and show some signs of better offense, hopefully common sense will prevail. I will say this, I feel alot better with Bennett running the show than I ever felt about Cavan. Bennett is on top of it. Hes getting consideration from good recruits, and even a better sign is he is getting credible transfers from places like Tech, Northwestern, Air Force etc. Cavans transfers used to all go the other way and the ones he did get were from East Tennessee State.

OldPony wrote:If .500 ball is the goal by the end of the decade- fire them all and close it down now. This isn't the Big 12.
I.

I'd say for a program that has finished above .500 sixteen times in the last fifty years, a consistent .500 record would be a HUGE improvement.

Those that have delusions of conference and BCS contention on an annual basis are totally out of touch with our reality.

We're so hungry for a win, it wouldn't matter who we beat when it happens. As for expectations, we're still in the WAC for goodness sake. If we can't start winning in these conference games, then forgetaboutit.

How many times would we have finished above .500 playing CUSA West? I know of very few from 1964 until 1988. You know at some point, we have to look at the post DP years and say the self flaggellation has ended. Most all of the recruiting disadvantages are gone (esp compared to our conference competition) and are history and have been for 3 years now. I understand that it takes time to rebuild and that it won't happen this year or next. The following year should be better than .500 in conference and there really are no excuses for it not to be. With a conference schedule of Rice, UTEP, Houston, Tulane and Tulsa a middle of the pack standing is not enough. I'm not dreaming of BCS status but I do think we are quite capable of dominating CUSA West within 4 years. Every one of those teams listed above would have been considered an easy game (a limited exception of Houston) for most of our history. If we are striving to be as good as middle of that pack by 2010, our goals are pretty limited.

OldPony wrote:How many times would we have finished above .500 playing CUSA West? I know of very few from 1964 until 1988. You know at some point, we have to look at the post DP years and say the self flaggellation has ended. Most all of the recruiting disadvantages are gone (esp compared to our conference competition) and are history and have been for 3 years now. I understand that it takes time to rebuild and that it won't happen this year or next. The following year should be better than .500 in conference and there really are no excuses for it not to be. With a conference schedule of Rice, UTEP, Houston, Tulane and Tulsa a middle of the pack standing is not enough. I'm not dreaming of BCS status but I do think we are quite capable of dominating CUSA West within 4 years. Every one of those teams listed above would have been considered an easy game (a limited exception of Houston) for most of our history. If we are striving to be as good as middle of that pack by 2010, our goals are pretty limited.

I think I heard this story before when we joined the WAC.

This is the annual myopia that plagues the Hilltop - no sense of our ability or the variables with which we play – and thus, no appreciation for improvement. Now we're going to bowl games because we're in C-USA West??? If we played in C-USA West this year, guess where we'd be projected to finish... dead last.

While I can appreciate your fantasy, none of what you wrote will happen unless the REDTAG restriction is taken away. It's the most important capability in recruiting, and a strategic necessity in signing talent. And NO, our recruiting disadvantages have not been taken away... they have only become less taxing (our recruits still are held to tougher standards than future Blue Devils or Cardinal or Northwestern Wildcats).

As for the "terrible" competition that awaits us in C-USA West, wake-up call... we had the worst team in Division 1A last year. As fans look at the college schedule this season, (sad but realistic) we are the automatic win on everyone's schedule.

If Bennett wins two incremental games a year over the next three seasons, it would be miraculous. In fact, if he can put together back-to-back seasons over .500, he would be the greatest SMU coach of the last 20 years.

If we could average six wins from 2005-2009, it would be a HUGE accomplishment for what is presently the worst football program in Division 1A.

As for those who want to fire Bennett if we go 0-11, 1-10 or 2-9… guess what, SMU can’t afford to pay the buyout, so forget about it.

I think the “worst team in D1” tag is a little exaggerated. Yes, we were bad last year but come on. We played the first six games without a D1 caliber QB and our lines weren’t able to compete physically. But as the season progressed we saw a few positive signs and that all culminated with a terrific effort against TCU. Phillips showed that he is more than capable and he should have more talent around him this year. Not to mention, the fine recruiting class we had two years ago should be ready to make a serious impact on this team. So let’s drop the “worst team in D1” garbage. That’s unfair and untrue.

0-12 speaks for itself and far too many of those games were humiliating blowouts. I sure hope those losses are burned into our guys memories when they hit the weight room.

Back to the original question: let's face it...a win over any of our 1st 3 opponents will be a shocking upset and would most likely be a turning point for the program. Win any of those 3 and you can probably expect this team to be 2004's Cinderella story. I agree that's too much to expect this year, but I do think these guys will be ready to compete at a .500 level as early as 2005.

Personally, I'd be pleased to see this football program consistently at .500 or better. CUSA may not be BCS, but there are too many respectable football programs for anyone to think SMU could ever dominate. Let's work on getting back to a point where we are dominating Rice and then maybe we can build from there.

Southland wrote:And NO, our recruiting disadvantages have not been taken away... they have only become less taxing (our recruits still are held to tougher standards than future Blue Devils or Cardinal or Northwestern Wildcats).

With all of the "loosening of restrictions" talked about over the last year, I'll need specifics, please.