ponyscott wrote:Same comments we heard about the 1,500 loyal SMU basketball fans and we would never sell out Moody. Put a good product out there and many more will come to watch and they don't have to be 'just' SMU grads.
Yeah, that's true, but isn't that the very definition of bandwagon 'fans?' I mean, it's great to finally have some support, both from the admin and the fans, but someone's got to pick up the slack when things go south. When South Carolina was first let into the SEC everybody wondered why the SEC let 'em in. They got their answer in Lou Holtz's first season when they lost every game and still sold out EVERY game - they averaged more people in the stands that year than the National Champs FSU. I mean, it's apple and oranges, I know, but you see my point. We're dying for some hard-core fans, here.
Planter's Punch wrote: No one is going to spend money on a terrible product given how many other options there are in DFW. FB isn't magic, it is a product like any other.
It's a simple concept but very few on this board understand it.
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security
Most SMU fans on this board seem to think that SMU hasn't made the commitment to advance to the next level. I don't really believe this is the case. You have a fabulous on campus stadium (long before baylor did) and a brand new basketball arena. I think, like TCU with Pat Sullivan, you should have gotten rid of June Jones when he showed he wanted to leave. Otherwise, he wasn't the wrong hire initially, and SMU enjoyed many bowl games during his stay. Death Penalty is not an excuse for regression. A disinterested coach is.
There are only two things I see that will give you problems in getting into a P5 conference once you start winning again in football. Minor commitments that I am sure your benefactors could handle easily. An indoor practice facility and a baseball team. For some reasons recruits are impressed by indoor practice facilities and everybody has one.
Lack of baseball will work more against you than anything in getting into a P5. It is becoming increasingly more popular and ESPN now broadcasts the entire CWS. It's a key sport for consideration.
Give Mason a serious look. Look at his improvement in conference play. SMU played damn good against a ranked ECU. Remember Gary Patterson as an assistant under Franchione and was an easy hire. He has done well and is extremely dedicated to TCU. Unfortunately, we can't seem to make the same decision about a basketball coach. Remember, I've never seen Troy Aikman or Tony Romo at a TCU basketball game.
HToady wrote:Most SMU fans on this board seem to think that SMU hasn't made the commitment to advance to the next level. I don't really believe this is the case. You have a fabulous on campus stadium (long before baylor did) and a brand new basketball arena. I think, like TCU with Pat Sullivan, you should have gotten rid of June Jones when he showed he wanted to leave. Otherwise, he wasn't the wrong hire initially, and SMU enjoyed many bowl games during his stay. Death Penalty is not an excuse for regression. A disinterested coach is.
There are only two things I see that will give you problems in getting into a P5 conference once you start winning again in football. Minor commitments that I am sure your benefactors could handle easily. An indoor practice facility and a baseball team. For some reasons recruits are impressed by indoor practice facilities and everybody has one.
Lack of baseball will work more against you than anything in getting into a P5. It is becoming increasingly more popular and ESPN now broadcasts the entire CWS. It's a key sport for consideration.
Give Mason a serious look. Look at his improvement in conference play. SMU played damn good against a ranked ECU. Remember Gary Patterson as an assistant under Franchione and was an easy hire. He has done well and is extremely dedicated to TCU. Unfortunately, we can't seem to make the same decision about a basketball coach. Remember, I've never seen Troy Aikman or Tony Romo at a TCU basketball game.
Great post HToady. Sometimes we need people from the outside to give the negatives here a clean perspective. TCU showed that the door is never shut and that you can still recruit and beat teams/get people in the stands (45,000) against any team (50,000 vs Utah a couple of years ago was impressive).
SMU showed up really well in 2010 vs TCU when we had a decent team, I cannot imagine our attendance if we had a Fiesta Bowl caliber team one of these years.
ponyscott wrote:Same comments we heard about the 1,500 loyal SMU basketball fans and we would never sell out Moody. Put a good product out there and many more will come to watch and they don't have to be 'just' SMU grads.
Bingo. Basketball was in worse shape than football and in two years SMU had the most sell puts in school history.
An atheist is a guy who watches a Notre Dame-SMU football game and doesn't care who wins. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
HToady wrote:Most SMU fans on this board seem to think that SMU hasn't made the commitment to advance to the next level. I don't really believe this is the case. You have a fabulous on campus stadium (long before baylor did) and a brand new basketball arena. I think, like TCU with Pat Sullivan, you should have gotten rid of June Jones when he showed he wanted to leave. Otherwise, he wasn't the wrong hire initially, and SMU enjoyed many bowl games during his stay. Death Penalty is not an excuse for regression. A disinterested coach is.
There are only two things I see that will give you problems in getting into a P5 conference once you start winning again in football. Minor commitments that I am sure your benefactors could handle easily. An indoor practice facility and a baseball team. For some reasons recruits are impressed by indoor practice facilities and everybody has one.
Lack of baseball will work more against you than anything in getting into a P5. It is becoming increasingly more popular and ESPN now broadcasts the entire CWS. It's a key sport for consideration.
Give Mason a serious look. Look at his improvement in conference play. SMU played damn good against a ranked ECU. Remember Gary Patterson as an assistant under Franchione and was an easy hire. He has done well and is extremely dedicated to TCU. Unfortunately, we can't seem to make the same decision about a basketball coach. Remember, I've never seen Troy Aikman or Tony Romo at a TCU basketball game.
I agree with you completely on the first point.
But Mason's D has given up 50 points a game halfway through the season. He's had his shot.
ponyscott wrote:Same comments we heard about the 1,500 loyal SMU basketball fans and we would never sell out Moody. Put a good product out there and many more will come to watch and they don't have to be 'just' SMU grads.
Bingo. Basketball was in worse shape than football and in two years SMU had the most sell puts in school history.
It helps that we shrunk Moody down to 7k capacity; we packed 10k in for big games when I was at SMU. Be thankful to Gerald Ford that we have Ford Stadium and aren't still having to play somewhere off campus. 32k seats is about right for SMU football and I'm cautiously optimistic the day will come to where we can sellout our "big" conference games without having to rely on our visitors to fill most of the seats in Ford
Stallion wrote:If we were 5-0 we MIGHT get 20,000 playing most teams in the AAC-UH could be slightly more. Our attendance average is a mirage built from TCU, A&M, Tech and Baylor fans. Right now we have about 12,000 fans we can count on-then more for Homecoming and Parents weekend
Shhhhhh, can't say that on this board.
Yes, that is so in-dispute on this board. Most of us are living under the delusion that we can get every single living alumni in Dallas into Ford so we can fill it, no matter the quality of our product or our opponent. Great in-sights. So novel!
Last edited by SMUer on Sun Oct 12, 2014 3:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The difference is getting more of your alumni, and then pulling in Dallas. Dallas requires winning - and I mean at a level we haven't had since 1985. There is no reason we can't draw 25-30k of our own.
Stallion wrote:If we were 5-0 we MIGHT get 20,000 playing most teams in the AAC-UH could be slightly more. Our attendance average is a mirage built from TCU, A&M, Tech and Baylor fans. Right now we have about 12,000 fans we can count on-then more for Homecoming and Parents weekend
Shhhhhh, can't say that on this board.
Yes, that is so in-dispute on this board. Most of us are living under the dillusion that we can get every single living alumni in Dallas into Ford so we can fill it, no matter the quality of our product or our opponent. Great in-sights. So novel!
....living in 'delusion', yes. The first step is admitting it, congrats.
I disagree about the baseball part. We have a monopoly pretty much on soccer and we are now in probably one of the top 2 soccer conferences in the country. I'd put Men's Track ahead of baseball. Lots of great wide-outs want to run track as well, and lots of throwers are dynamite D/L's. Michael Carter and Margus Hunt come to mind.
