R. Gerald Turner: Friend or Enemy?

[fifty]

Yeah, look at men's golf. They dominate for 1 year then head coach is terminated.

[1983 Cotton Bowl]

Ah yes, the old "R. Gerald Turner: Friend of Enemy?" thread. You can never count this one out. I think it would be interesting to analyze the correlation over the years between Ws and Ls on the football field in a given season, and this thread being pulled out of the dustbin and revived.

[smusic 00]

Yeah, look at men's golf. They dominate for 1 year then head coach is terminated.

If SMU hadn't intervened, it's likely the program may have been terminated.

[fifty]

Terminated like unc football?

[SoCal_Pony]

I am on the fence with Turner. He does seem to fundraise well, and the campus is improving. However:

1) I work with a number of colleges and universities. Within that space, SMU is not really on the radar as an "up-and-coming" institution within the academic media. I know these things take time, but over 20 years we haven't exactly soared up the rankings.

2) There is a lack of facing reality. I admit that if it could be proved that eliminating football would push SMU into the top 25 academic universities, I would support it in a heartbeat. If we were located in the northeast or Ohio, we'd probably be ranked 5-10 spots higher and we wouldn't really need a football team or serious athletics program. However, neither of the statements is true. We are located in Dallas, Texas. If you want to be a big-boy university in Texas, you must have a decent football team. Is it right? No. Is it reality? Yes. Stanford, Northwestern, Miami, private urban schools with higher academic rankings field quality programs. We should be able to as well.

1) I think Turner is a good fundraiser, I really don't know if he is a great one or not. There are more and more schools surpassing the $1B endowment number each year.

What I do know is that when I graduated from SMU some 30 years ago, SMU was ranked higher in US News (the gold standard IMO) than they are today. The City of Dallas itself, has of course, grown enormously in stature during this same period, us, we've moved backwards.

2) Uncertain if dropping FB would improve our academic position, one could argue it would have the opposite effect, certainly in one of our 2 crown jewel schools, Cox. I live in SoCal. Pretty certain if USC were to drop FB it would have an adverse impact on its school.

Which leads to a bigger point you just made and I think Pye & Turner ignore. FB success or failure impacts academics in a school located in Texas. You cannot escape this fact.

[smusic 00]

Terminated like unc football?

Nope.

[NewAgeMustange]

of course the success of the programs affect the applications to the school. After the Hawaii Bowl SMU was the number 1 search item on google the next day. how many kids turned around and applied to SMU after they looked into it. I would be interested in seeing the number of applications that have been submitted by today this year vs the last couple years. When the football team is doing good are there more applications earlier?

Does anyone know if application data is available?

[smusic 00]

Bball has a huge effect when you make the tourney. When Drake made their sweet sixteen run last decade they more than doubled applications.

[skurtn]

2) There is a lack of facing reality. I admit that if it could be proved that eliminating football would push SMU into the top 25 academic universities, I would support it in a heartbeat. If we were located in the northeast or Ohio, we'd probably be ranked 5-10 spots higher and we wouldn't really need a football team or serious athletics program. However, neither of the statements is true. We are located in Dallas, Texas. If you want to be a big-boy university in Texas, you must have a decent football team. Is it right? No. Is it reality? Yes. Stanford, Northwestern, Miami, private urban schools with higher academic rankings field quality programs. We should be able to as well.

What about Rice? Arguably one of the best scholastic universities in Texas. With a few exceptions, their football sucks.

[whitwiki]

One of? They are the best in Texas. One of the best nationally. Internationally.

[skurtn]

One of? They are the best in Texas. One of the best nationally. Internationally.

I bet when someone says the sky is blue, you nitpick that too.

[Nacho]

arguably?
who is arguing? unt?

[redpony]

Ah, yes. we have met the enemy and they are us.

[Greenwich Pony]

Rice is a nationally respected academic program. And they have a D-I program that played in the SWC (the top conference in Texas for 86 years), and has been doing reasonably well in the CUSA since we've been gone. They've not become TCU but they also aren't exactly rolling over either. And in this era of expansion, they've pretty much consistently been better than us.

Also, arguably they have had something of a head start in Endowment and academic quality from days before Texas football mattered.

[Stallion]

Rice has 2 ten win seasons and another bowl season during Jones tenure and is going for another one this year