Is USC the new UT?

[Insane_Pony_Posse]

"There are no good 1-A football teams that dont have
some thugs that will sometimes get in trouble"

Last year Boston College finished #10 in the country and BYU was #14.

Not sure how many thugs are at BC & BYU, but I doubt
they have any where near the druggin, boozin, gun-runnin, and
other criminals that UT has had. Remember jTsteer's Longhorns
made national headlines last year for having so many arrests in
such a short period of time.

Besides thuggery the Longhorns have a pretty pathetic
graduation rate and I would think Boston College football
players see more cap & gowns than those hoodlums in Austin.

Click here to see the Texas Longhorns pathetic grad rate article:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/colleges/topstories/stories/100407dnspogradrates.37747af.html

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[ALEX LIFESON]

That 42% last place finish for the horns, must be an all sports accumulation. The DMN had something recently, where the football team was last in the Big12, with something like 12%? I know, I know, they are the greatest team that's ever put on a jock, and we suck and all that, but I refuse to believe, that you have to sell your soul to the devil, to have a good team. Mabey that's just the eternal optimist in mankind in me.

[gostangs]

You just made my point for me - if you flip your big 12 graduation rate graph upside down you basically have the final standings. Comparing graduation rate is for losers.

[ALEX LIFESON]

Missouri, Kansas, and Tech?

[perunapower]

I'm tired of this ignorant "you must have a low graduation rate to have a good football team". It's stupid and wrong.

Florida - 80%
Virginia Tech -74%
Michigan - 70%
Navy - 98%
Boston College - 96%
Wake Forest - 93%
Air Force - 93%

Here are some teams with embarrassingly low graduation rates that aren't any better or much better than we are.

San Jose State - 32%
FAU - 33%
UCF - 42%
UTEP - 44%
Minnesota - 44%

Having a low graduation rate does not equal a good team. Do better teams tend to have a lower graduation rate? Yes. Is it necessary to have a good team to have a low graduation rate? No.

[gostangs]

My point was really more that you have to have a pretty strong element of thuggery to be successful. BC and BYU have a double dose of thuggery I guarantee you. Whether or not the school has invested in the creation of a fake school within the school to graduate the thugs is really irrelevant.

What is ignorant is to pretend there are any real successful football programs that have a majority of students amongst their "student athletes".

[perunapower]

My point was really more that you have to have a pretty strong element of thuggery to be successful.

No, it wasn't. Look at what your wrote.

You just made my point for me - if you flip your big 12 graduation rate graph upside down you basically have the final standings.

You even said it was your point.

[gostangs]

Scroll up a little to my first post in the thread.

[perunapower]

Scroll up a little to my first post in the thread.

Would you like to substantiate your claim? What makes "thugs" better at football than other people? Can you not have good people that are talented at football? I honestly don't see a correlation between thuggery and talented football players.

[Samurai Stang]

I honestly don't see a correlation between thuggery and talented football players.

Allow me to enlighten you. When you eliminate a group of persons based on their questionable character, you are limiting the talent pool you are willing to draw from. For instance, while I would applaud SMU if it only recruited Japanese players, I do not necessarily think it would be a sound decision. When you eliminate a portion of the population from consideration you are always placing yourself at a disadvantage, particularly when others are not voluntarily handicapping themselves.

[perunapower]

I honestly don't see a correlation between thuggery and talented football players.

Allow me to enlighten you. When you eliminate a group of persons based on their questionable character, you are limiting the talent pool you are willing to draw from. For instance, while I would applaud SMU if it only recruited Japanese players, I do not necessarily think it would be a sound decision. When you eliminate a portion of the population from consideration you are always placing yourself at a disadvantage, particularly when others are not voluntarily handicapping themselves.

That's just a law of statistics. All that proves is that it is easier, or you are more likely, to have a good football team if you include the widest possible range of prospects. What I'm trying to extrude is what is the correlation between thuggery and successful football. Many on this board claim that an increase in criminal history and rap sheets will be a sign of an improving program. I want some sort of substantiation behind this claim if it's going to be used as fact.

[orguy]

Clarification for SoCal PONY:

SMU, UT, and Aggies are all very similiar academically. My UT friends often digress and play up the superiority of their school. However, two years ago when Freshman SAT scores were published they were within twenty points with SMU at 1220 and UT at 1240. AandM is lower and they dont publish their averages but a good school nevertheless.

USC is slightly better than SMU although it is not in the same league as schools like UCLA, CAL and Stanford. USC alumni often over inflate the value of their 50k a year education. SMU, in the early 80's when football was king was every bit the school USC was in terms of students. The advent of Piggie PYE lowered standards at SMU. USC has benefited from the increasingly competitive nature of the UC system. It could be stated that four or more of the UC campuses have equivalent or higher stats than USC in terms of quality of students.

Miami has recently shot up in the US news ranks though I suspect the students at university of Miami haven't kept pace. A winning football program has resulted in kids wanting to go there ala USC.

I predict with June Jones and a couple of CUSA football championships, SMU will rise again. Turner/Orsini have us going in the right direction. Of interesting note: when SMU was king in the early 80's, they had the highest graduation rate in the Southwest Conference. Dickerson/James/Mcclehenny etc. were all good students. Eric Dickerson even did well in an intro chemistry class according to one of my profs!! (Chemistry/Physics/Engineering) being "difficult" majors at SMU.

[couch 'em]

What I'm trying to extrude is what is the correlation between thuggery and successful football. Many on this board claim that an increase in criminal history and rap sheets will be a sign of an improving program. I want some sort of substantiation behind this claim if it's going to be used as fact.

Thugs tend to come from poor families. Poor kids tend to focus on sports instead of other pursuits at a higher rate than middle class or rich kids. Poor kids are also more likely to become thugs. Thus, the more talented athletes you have, the higher the percentage of thugs will be. Eventually, it becomes 100%, like UT.

[Mexmustang]

Orguy, where did you get the statistics about SMU's decline during the Pye years? I always thought that Pye was turning the school into a girls school, but I didn't realize that our overall student body scores had declined.

If this is true, then perhaps our Spanish lecturer should be made aware of this as well. Just goes to show you, a University is dependent upon a number of activities all doing well to succeed.

[perunapower]

Thugs tend to come from poor families. Poor kids tend to focus on sports instead of other pursuits at a higher rate than middle class or rich kids. Poor kids are also more likely to become thugs. Thus, the more talented athletes you have, the higher the percentage of thugs will be. Eventually, it becomes 100%, like UT.

If that's the case, someone should tell the Dallas high schools (except Skyline) that they need to be good at football and tell Highland Park, Austin Westlake, The Woodlands, Euless Trinity, etc. that they should suck.