Norm just addressed this situation on The Ticket

[ponydawg]

by smuuth » Thu Jul 08, 2010 10:19 am

Stallion is right. Do you want to lower your standard and compete with UNT, Louisiana Monroe/Lafayette, Troy, Texas Tech? Or do you want to maintain your standards, work harder and sell your university to recruits with what matters and compete with Duke, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Stanford.

I want to win football games.
I want the student body to show pride in their team.
I don't think 15 or so marginal academic athletes on a football team will lower the value of education for the other 6,000 students.

[PK]

Stallion is right. Do you want to lower your standard and compete with UNT, Louisiana Monroe/Lafayette, Troy, Texas Tech? Or do you want to maintain your standards, work harder and sell your university to recruits with what matters and compete with Duke, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Stanford.

This is a trick question...right? Food for thought. Texas is a tier 1 university...SMU is not. I would be happy if we used the same standards for accepting athletes into SMU that Texas uses in accepting their athletes...well except for the thug aspect of it all.

[HB Pony Dad]

Texas is a tier 1 university...SMU is not. I would be happy if we used the same standards for accepting athletes into SMU that Texas uses in accepting their athletes...well except for the thug aspect of it all.

Do we really want to go there?

My beloved USC apparently had "a payroll to meet" and undoubtedly so does Texas!

SMU has been down that road; the apparent "caution" in following USC/Texas model is understandable.

[1983 Cotton Bowl]

Of course, if you start taking lots of marginal student-athletes who ultimately can't hack it and drop out after a year or two, you are burning valuable scholarships and scholarship dollars without getting any return for either the school or the athlete. Plus there is the issue of athlete graduation rate and how that can affect a school under NCAA rules. So if SMU has been taking marginal student-athletes and then losing them at a high rate, I could see where that would be a concern that would make the admissions office look closer at whether a particular student-athlete is actually a good candidate to stick around and graduate.

We'll probably never know, but if this is ultimately an issue of WHEN these student-athletes were notified that they wouldn't get in, that can be easily fixed and we can move forward. If it is an issue where there is a clash between the football coaching staff and the University over who should or should not be admitted, then that's obviously a much deeper issue.

[EastStang]

The only explanation that comes to me for any delay was that the Admissions folks were waiting on the applicant's final senior grades to see if they got high enough to offset other issues. Those would only have come out in late June.

[PonyKai]

Stallion is right. Do you want to lower your standard and compete with UNT, Louisiana Monroe/Lafayette, Troy, Texas Tech? Or do you want to maintain your standards, work harder and sell your university to recruits with what matters and compete with Duke, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Stanford.

Reality Check: Letting in marginal recruits to fill out a roster for a revenue sport ain't going to lower the value of our degree. 6,000 undergrads. 85 football players on scholly. Even if 100% of our team was composed of "marginal recruits" that is 0.0141% of the undergraduate population...not exactly tanking our US World and News ranking there, even if they are the most visible students.

[Nacho]

another way to tank the us news and wr ranking is to not give anything. the mag only looks at percent of alumni giving, not dollar amounts. if you want to get smu's attention don't give one red cent. maybe they will wake up when the only thing they really understand-money-stops.

[PK]

Texas is a tier 1 university...SMU is not. I would be happy if we used the same standards for accepting athletes into SMU that Texas uses in accepting their athletes...well except for the thug aspect of it all.

Do we really want to go there?

My beloved USC apparently had "a payroll to meet" and undoubtedly so does Texas!

SMU has been down that road; the apparent "caution" in following USC/Texas model is understandable.

I am referring to how they determine the academic standards for acceptance into the university...not how they lure the recruits to come there. Two different things...unless they are paying off the academics review committee too.

[jtstang]

...unless they are paying off the academics review committee too.

Now that's an interesting idea, PK. Where is it stated in the NCAA by-laws that we cannot start a slush fund to pay the admissions committee big money to look the other way when a player who meets the NCAA minimums wants to get into SMU? Somebody needs to get this account opened.

[ponydawg]

...unless they are paying off the academics review committee too.

Now that's an interesting idea, PK. Where is it stated in the NCAA by-laws that we cannot start a slush fund to pay the admissions committee big money to look the other way when a player who meets the NCAA minimums wants to get into SMU? Somebody needs to get this account opened.

[HB Pony Dad]

...unless they are paying off the academics review committee too.

Now that's an interesting idea, PK. Where is it stated in the NCAA by-laws that we cannot start a slush fund to pay the admissions committee big money to look the other way when a player who meets the NCAA minimums wants to get into SMU? Somebody needs to get this account opened.