SMU football history

[Charleston Pony]

In 1976, coach Ron Meyer took over a team that had gone 4-7 the previous year, ending a streak of 3 consecutive winning seasons at SMU. Meyer went 3-8 that 1st year and suffered through 4 consecutive losing seasons where the recod improved slightly year after year (from 4-7 to 4-6-1 to 5-6). The breakthrough came in year 5 when the Ponies went 8-4 and we then enjoyed 4 seasons with 10 or more wins. We all know that success came at a heavy cost (in more ways than one), but I can't avoid making some comparisons to today's situation.

In his 1st year, Bennett saw a team that had been 4-7 the previous year fall to 3-9. Assuming recruiting improves steadily year after year (even without financial incentives to the players), should we expect next year's Mustangs to go 4-8 and will our next winning season come in 2005 or 2006? Or, will this team be able to turn things around as early as next year and be competing for a WAC championship by 2004?

[Otto]

I like your style, Charleston - Bennett definitely will get this thing turned in the right direction.

But I wonder if all the hype around this recruiting class — and it sounds like it's very well-deserved — is setting up all of us for a disappointment. I keep thinking that as good as Ricky Joe Meeks, Zach Hall, Richuel Massey, Chris Phillips are, they're 18 years old. Or younger. A quick glance at next year's roster reveals some talent in the senior class (Comet, Jonas Rutledge, Keylon Kincade, Brian Bischoff, etc.), but a lot of the crucial guys will be young.

We all need to be patient, while the holdover players become more comfortable in Coach Bennett's system, not just understanding their jobs, but making their responsibilities natural, second nature. 2003 might be a long year, but the future is unbelievably bright for SMU.

[Mustangs35SMU]

I only have seen 2 of the guys that we are gettin and thats the guy from Dallas Carter and Tyler Lee! Im from Longview so I saw Tyler Lee twice and Carter once Carter had an awesome!!! D stoppin us at the line atleast 3 times and Tyler Lee was pretty good at home though! So Hopefully the guy from Tyler Lee will bring some East Texas Style to Big D since Tyler Lee and the Rest of 11-5A .::Longview/Lufkin::. Sweep across Dallas