It's Just Sad

[Dwan]

As I'm reading all the comments about the basketball sanctions, I'm watching college football. Cal, the finest public institution in the country is playing Utah, a top 5 team who 25 years ago was a mid level WAC Team. Also, Baylor and TCU have top 5 teams playing on national TV.

What is sad to me that in the last 25 years, SMU has sat on the sideline and done nothing (until recently) to improve its Athletics in the revenue sports. During this same 25 year period, the academic standing of the university has flatlined as well. I mean how long do we continue to fail at both before a change in leadership is necessary? There have been a bunch of nice buildings built and a presidential library but the university has been at an academic and athletic plateau for 25 plus years. The really sad part is to see TCU and Baylor use their athletic success to improve their academic pedigree. Nobody used to question our academic superiority to TCU and Baylor and now they are nipping at our heals. There is a long list of small private schools who have used athletic success as a way to market their university and increase the application pool. TCU, Baylor, USC, Gonzaga, Georgetown, Northwestern....it's just sad to watch this fine university with unlimited resources and potential not move forward.

[fifty]

We've only been unranked in football for 30 years

[The Falcon]

It's Just Sad

post by Dwan » Sat Oct 10, 2015 9:15 pm

.... There is a long list of small private schools who have used athletic success as a way to market their university and increase the application pool. TCU, Baylor, USC, Gonzaga, Georgetown, Northwestern....it's just sad to watch this fine university with unlimited resources and potential not move forward.
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We've been sad for a long time. Athletically we have been in the pits except for
the minor sports; however, we have been rated as an excellent Academic university
for some time now and we are still improving on that number. Our endowment is
continuing to climb. One of the goals of our current fund drive is to increase endowments
for academic and research progress. Also the university is currently in the midst of a program
to share resources, cut costs, and to become more efficient.

TCU is the only school on your list that would qualify as small.

The following schools could hardly be called "small" private schools:
Baylor - 15,000 +
USC - 40,000 +
Georgetown - 17,000+
Northwestern - 17,000

[Rebel10]

We've only been unranked in football for 30 years

I guess basketball broke the drought.

[Dwan]

Increased applications lead to increase enrollment. A surge applications usually is a result of success in the revenue sports. There was some crazy stat about how Boston College had triple the applications the year of Flutie's heisman and Hail Mary pass. Imagine if College Gameday was on The Blvd. on a beautiful fall day to see Number 5 SMU vs. Number 3 Texas....to quote Pony Excess...lot of high school seniors from all over the county would wake up and say, I think I want to go to SMU

[The Falcon]

Dwan, I do agree with you that success in revenue sports may have a beneficial
effect on the number of college applications; however, I think more impact is
currently being made by the fact that a majority of high school seniors can't find jobs
so they are going to college if they can get in. Also, graduating college students are having trouble
finding jobs because of the economy and there is an increase in the number of graduate
students also.

[Nacho]

tcu and baylor are not nipping at our heels academically.
they are consistently behind us in and in no way are they equivalent in the students who are admitted. we are well ahead in sat scores.
rice-18
ut-52
smu-61
tamu-70
baylor-72 (don't ask me how. must be beautiful waco)
tcu-82
utah-115 (still not an academic powerhouse)