Gimme a Break

[JustAFriend]

You people are still on here saying that the offense was horrible, etc... The only things that were horrible in that game were the blocked punt and THE FUMBLE on the 1 yard line. If you take away even one of those, SMU wins, and if you take both away, you are looking ata 26-14 win. Now I dont know much about the punting situation, except that it looked like it was taking him a long time to get the kick away. BUT, you would think a guy that carries the ball more times than anyone in the country would know to protect the freakin ball when a defender is makin the play. You know you people all wanna jump the QB anytime there's a loss, but that was not the problem the other night. Look at your little workhorse who dropped the ball, literally, and the game. Now I wouldnt normally come on here and blame someone like that, but it makes me sick when ya'll still wanna say that the offense didnt move the ball. They did. Granted Richard didnt play a perfect game, but he certainly gave us the chance to win. All this ridiculous talk about taking off Phillips' redshirt is getting old. The QB is not the problem. Deal with it...

[Ponymon]

I could be wrong about this, but I had the glasses on Kincade and thought that the UTEP defender had grabbed his face mask in bringing him down. The replay on the scoreboard seemed to confirm it, but I haven't seen anyone else mention it. Although he should have held onto the ball, the grab of the mask might have been enough of a surprise to take his mind off control of the ball.

[Stallion]

it definitely was not the QB's fault and yes he gives us our best chance to win. How many times have SMU receivers gotten separation from their opponents this year?. Geez it looks like a QB needs to make a perfect pass just to make a completion and even a slew of perfect passes have been dropped in every game I have seen.

[PK]

As long as we are passing out honors here for blunders, you must have been in the rest room when Richard fumbled the ball. Oh, I'm sorry, he didn't fumble the ball, some one knocked it out of his hand...sort of like they stripped it out of KK's hands. That stopped a drive forcing us to punt. You love your friend...we all do. There were enough errors, bad judgements and bad executions to go around for everyone. I've told you before, think about what you are saying before you go spouting off here about the glories of Richard. He is a good player and works hard...just like the rest of the team and just like the rest of the team he has his weak points. Sing his praises as you will, but not at the expense of other hard working players.

[Nacho]

Bartel was getting ready to throw when the ball was stripped from his hand. That is a completely different situation from getting stripped after running for 55 yards and getting tackled on the one and getting stripped. Bartel didn't win or lose the game. He executed the game plan, as it were. And what a game plan it was. I think I counted 2 passes on first down. Run, run, pass when it's more than 4 yards on 3rd down. The real key to the game was that SMU couldn't stop UTEP's running game, except for the excellent goal line stand. I didn't think the coaches made a bad call to punt with about 3:45 to go in the game. The D couln't stop the run. I thought we might win on a last second FG. Instead it just kind of petered out at the end. We are not a good team. No excuses. No blame, unless you want to blame those who are directly responsible for the state of SMU football, you know the guys who hire and fire the coaches. The buck stops with them. They make the decisions. I just go to the games and suffer along with everyone else.

[The PonyGrad]

Originally posted by JustAFriend:
You people are still on here saying that the offense was horrible, etc... (...) The QB is not the problem. Deal with it...

The fact of the matter is that the offense did not move the ball. 313 yards against the weakest defense we have faced is not moving the ball. If you were referring to my comments, I did not single out the QB. I personally think that Bartel is our best option (no pun intended.) But, the offense is not doing it. While we can point the blame around and say that the offense did not lose the game, well they did not win it either.

[echothat1]

Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda...isn't that what losers say (to quote Bennett)?

Actually, Bennett said something like "We are 4 plays away from being 3-2...Now, I'm not going to say that, because that's what losers say..."
:laugh:

Get a real coach who can coach, get some talent, and NOW...or continue to lose alumni support...it's that simple!

[Sewanee Stang]

I thought that the male UTEP gold digger dancer had some good moves.

[Nacho]

I was responding to PK. This offense is not good enough to win games. I like KK. I like Bartel. I like Comet and Rushbrook. The truth is that KK is so spent by the 4th quarter than I am amazed that he can walk much less run. He is an absolute stud but to expect him to carry 30times/game is nuts. Whatever happened to the next Eric Dickerson, Johnnie Fitzgerald? A few carries from him or sombody else would be nice. Our WR corps is limited in what they can do. Bartel has limited time to throw. We are a 10-19 points per game offensive team. Hard to win when you can't score more than 20/game and usually not close to that.

[abezontar]

echo......you don't live in reality do you, most of the supporters will tell you they aren't happy with what has happened, and I for one agree with them, but firing the coach now isn't an option, like I said earlier to fire a coach so soon would bring us down even more, no coach is going to want to go somewhere where he won't have the time it takes to turn the program around, consequently the coaching talent will drop even more and we will forever be caught in a cycle of one year coachs who can't get it done. If that is what you want then by all means get rid of Bennett, hire somebody else, and when the team isn't any better at the end of that coach's first year (and I can assure you it won't be) fire him and hire someone else and continue to repeat the process. We're all frustrated but now isn't the time to get drastic. Challenge the administrators to finally let us play on equal footing with the rest of the world, and then guess what wait until Bennett is in his 4-5 year and then evaluate him. If he isn't any better then by all means it I will support the movement to get a new coach, but the instant gratification mentality isn't going to help us AT ALL!

[PK]

Originally posted by Nacho:
Bartel was getting ready to throw when the ball was stripped from his hand. That is a completely different situation from getting stripped after running for 55 yards and getting tackled on the one and getting stripped.

Not that it really makes any difference in the total scheme of things, but Bartel was not getting ready to throw, he was holding the ball out in front of him at about waist high level while trying to move back up into the pocket when it got stripped. The point is that JAF is trying to defend his friend by bad mouthing other players...that is BS. This is a team sport and as I said there is plenty of blame to pass around. The team as a whole needs to continue to work hard together and improve all aspects of their game.

[echothat1]

I guess the fans at Miami, LSU or even TCU for that matter don't live in reality either...instant gratification would've been last year, bud...

Frankly, if we were even 2-3 right now, you wouldn't be hearing this out of me...but we're NOT, we're 0-5, soon to be 0-7...I think the vast majority of SMU fans and people on this board would agree that Bennett has not EVEN SHOWN THAT HE IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK with regard to coaching and play calling...Bennett himself admits he's made some terrible coaching decisions...you're just like all these other guys with rose-colored glasses...wait 4 years, wait 5 years...were you just born? We've been waiting 14 years!!!

I don't solely blame the coaches, though...Bennett didn't fumble the ball or take a century to punt the ball...60% players/40% Bennett...dems da fax...

[abezontar]

and you obviously only read the parts that you wanted to hear, firing our coach now would do more to hurt us then help us, because even if Bennett is a horrible coach, no other coach is going to want to be here if we won't give them enough time to build a program, and they are going to look at what we did to Bennett and assume that we will do the same to them. That is a recipe for disaster. Basically what I am saying is I understand everyone's frustration, and I am just as frustrated, but that is no reason to do something stupid that could potentially cause us more harm.

[Nacho]

I guess you are saying that recalls aren't a good idea.

[abezontar]

No I dont' think they are, instability only leads to more instability, if you elect someone, then they need to serve out their term unless they are committing an impeachable offense, in which case they need to be tried and removed from office if guilty. There isn't going to be a damn the Arnold will be able to do that will improve California's problems, and I fear that it could lead to a never ending cycle of recalls completely driving the state to a halt (of course that is a worst case scenario. Wasn't Davis re-elected in November of '02? They expected him to do what in 6 months when the entire country is having the same problems they are? But that is for a political discussion board, not this one.