SMU's Biggest Long Term Rally Killer-17 Years Ago

[jtstang]

i'm pretty sure the residual effects of the death penalty are still a MUCH bigger factor than our admissions standards.

sure the death penalty was 20 years ago but our team was terrible as a result of it and is still terrible. good players don't want to go to play for a terrible football program without any success in the last 20 years - plain and simple. let's not kid ourselves into thinking that SMU is an academic powerhouse. we have average academics at best. if we can start winning then players will want to come here but until then, we will be a very poor football program that doesn't attract good players because we aren't any good.

You're close--our ineptitude is not directly due to the death penalty, but is due to Pye's reaction to the death penalty. However, you are right on about upper tier mid-major quality players not wanting to come to a loser school. The biggest job and first order of business for a new coach is to figure out how to shed that loser image and get upper tier players interested in SMU again.

[SoCal_Pony]

Said Rossley: "Everything is right here that we need . . . We're going to win . . . We're going to be competitive.'

Said Cavan, Said Dement, Said Bennett, Said Tubbs, Said Doherty....and so will Say our next HC...

Thank You Stallion for your relentless pursuit to inform the masses, aka sheep as to the TRUTH of SMU athletics.

10,000 posts....that is true 'Commitment'

Just what would you like to them say after getting hired? "We have absolutely no chance of getting good recruits in and being competitive. No chance! I don't even know why SMU still has any athletic programs." Get real, you work behind closed doors to fix your problems, you remain optimistic to the media. If a coach dared to say, "I don't know if we can be competitive," then he should be fired on the spot. No committed coach would ever say such a stupid thing.

YOU ARE MISSING THE POINT...SMU is a complete failure not because of our coaches, certaintly not because of what they say on hire date...it is because of our broken Model....the ONE consistency over the past 20 years....

Yet posters like you come on this board and blame poor tackling as the reason we lose a specific game and don't have the intellect to connect our failures on the football field to us losing back-to-back games to Southern and Alabama State.

[Mustang1991]

I was told by a professor who was on the search committee to replace Bliss that the basketball program was even dirtier -- much dirtier! -- than the football program in the mid- to late-80s. The NCAA knew about it but Bliss was allowed to leave quietly and without any scrutiny of the program.

[OR-See-Nee]

Bus said:

Bottom Line is just go by the rules the NCAA sets out. No more and no less. If the Ncaa says X SAT that is the one we accept. If the NCAA says X hours to transfer then that is what we accept to bring in a transfer.

Personally, I would like to see some other degree major programs and maybe that will happen.

Go Mustangs and thanks STALLION

I say: Ditto.

[mrydel]

It seems that everyone thinks our situation is a jigsaw puzzle missing a piece and we are all arguing about what piece is missing so we can complete the puzzle. Trust me, this puzzle has been completely undone and the pieces have been thrown into the air and some have fallen down the air conditioning vent. We need new coaches, better players, better courses of study, less recruiting restrictions, more fan support, and whatever else is needed for which someone is screaming. There is a need for someone to put the puzzle back together, and find the missing pieces at the same time. Orsini has taken on this duty and hopefully he has already started the process with the administration and will soon put down some more pieces with the new coach. Let us see if he can at least get the puzzle together well enough that we can recognize the picture.

[SoCal_Pony]

I was told by a professor who was on the search committee to replace Bliss that the basketball program was even dirtier -- much dirtier! -- than the football program in the mid- to late-80s. The NCAA knew about it but Bliss was allowed to leave quietly and without any scrutiny of the program.

At the conclusion of the FB season when all this mess went public, while the NCAA was still investigating us for a possible Death Sentence, I attended an SMU BB game.

I purchased 50-yard line seats from an SMU football player...I was thinking at the time...WOW!!

I purchased these seats just outside of Moody about 10 minutes prior to tip-off.

I felt I did my University a favor by getting this kid out of public view.

[KnuckleStang]

I was told by a professor who was on the search committee to replace Bliss that the basketball program was even dirtier -- much dirtier! -- than the football program in the mid- to late-80s. The NCAA knew about it but Bliss was allowed to leave quietly and without any scrutiny of the program.

Remember that article in the StarTelegram around the time of Bliss' Baylor troubles, relating the story of Bliss and one of his assistants requesting a special audience with Pye, with the school freshly reeling from the DP, to give him the great news that Larry Johnson's SAT's had miraculously jumped something like 400 points, thus qualifying him for admission to SMU. "Mr. President, look how much smarter he got! Overnight!...it's a Christmas MIRACLE!!" Pye basically hit the roof. Can't say I blame him for that.