Interview with the Comet

[MustangStealth]

This was in today's Insider email.

"Have you been able to follow the Ponies? Of course, I stayed on the Internet at smumustangs.com following SMU. One of my coaches in Toronto is a fellow Mustang, Cornerback Marcello Simmons. So we stayed up to date with SMU all the time. I was also at the Homecoming game. It was a great win for the team and now we need to continue to build on that. Every week we should expect to win and when we win the team should be congratulated. Not criticized for what we should have done because enough of that goes on when we lose. I came to SMU to turn this program around, and I didn't get that accomplished on the playing field. But that doesn't mean that I am going to give up on SMU. I will always be a Mustang and I will stay with the program and continue to the support the program until we are a winner again. Because that is the reason I came to SMU. I will do anything that SMU needs of me. "

Eric Dickerson could learn a thing or two from Chris.

Good luck Comet with whatever you decide to do next!

[Stallion]

.....so could Don Meredith and Doak Walker who went 20 odd years ignoring SMU through the 60s 70s and 80s. Have we got a double standard here? Eric's been to 3 SMU games in the last 7-8 years which is 3 more than I remember Don and Doak going to during that period.

[SCAMP6381]

That's okay they didn't trash the school in the media like E.D. DID

[gostangs]

He shows up everytime we kiss his hiney. Think we have seen the last of that.

[jtstang]

.....so could Don Meredith and Doak Walker who went 20 odd years ignoring SMU through the 60s 70s and 80s. Have we got a double standard here? Eric's been to 3 SMU games in the last 7-8 years which is 3 more than I remember Don and Doak going to during that period.

Meredith was here for the Navy game couple years back-tossed the coin with Staubach as I recall. Dickerson was a great player, but was paid to be--Blackistone was right one one thing, even if he doesn't want to support SMU now, he ought to pay back the $ that got us the death penalty.

[Stallion]

read carefully-I acknowledge bot Meredith and Walker before his death attended events-fact is that as someone who went to every game since 1964- I don't believe either Meredith or Walker made an appearance at a SMU home game in the entire decades of the 1970s and 1980s or the late 1960s. If we are going to start singling out absentee famous alumni the long line starts on the left. Dickerson's criticism of the program IS ENTIRELY JUSTIFIED and LONG OVERDUE. That's why the people who tell you they made a Commitment 4 years ago are quietly attempting to make even further changes as we speak. If the Commitment was made 4 years ago then what are the academic changes of which Dickerson is unaware as charged by Copeland. If Dickerson's criticism is unfairly aimed at Big Jim it is precisely because he told the BIG LIE that SMU made the COMMITMENT 4 years ago.

[The PonyGrad]

Nice to hear from the Comet and how fast we ignore his advice and focus on the negative.

[jtstang]

read carefully-I acknowledge bot Meredith and Walker before his death attended events-fact is that as someone who went to every game since 1964- I don't believe either Meredith or Walker made an appearance at a SMU home game in the entire decades of the 1970s and 1980s or the late 1960s.

I did read carefully--I was responding to this part of your prior post:

"Eric's been to 3 SMU games in the last 7-8 years which is 3 more than I remember Don and Doak going to during that period."

Your memory is bad as established by the appearance of Meredith at the Navy game a few years back.

BTW, I agree the criticism from prominent alums is warranted and overdue.

[Stallion]

Even one famous, respected SMU football player (Walker, Meredith, Gregg, Berry, Rote, Dickerson, McIllhenney, James) openly and strongly articulating his disgust with the direction of the football program circa 1994 could have accomplished more than a bus full of kiss-ass, cheerleading Mustang Club members over the following 10 years.

[jtstang]

I don't disagree, but at that point, I don't think the powers that be recognized the failure of their experiment yet, and may not have listened even then.

[Stallion]

5 straight dead-last finishes in every single recruiting season should have been a BIG CLUE but then again this was a Model designed by academicians running an athletic program. I refuse to believe that the SMU athletic community is so devoid of knowledgeable observers of college athletics that they didn't know on DAY 1 that this was doomed to failure. Which brings us back to the great Forrest Gregg-the great, quiet, almost invisible Forrest Gregg. I'd rather take Eric Dickerson with an opinion than a Forrest Gregg who apparently has none-guess he's been on board since the start since we haven't heard a peep from him as to the problems with SMU football. He was there and yet can't publicly comment on a single thing. What a friend of SMU athletics!!!!!! Of course, I'm sure every coach fired by SMU has been required to sign a non-disclousure agreement in order to receive his hefty buy-out----that's why you don't hear any criticism of the school even after they left.

[Lamont_Cranston]

I'd love to see CC and Ramon Flanagan team up on the sidelines in a coaching capacity at S.M.U.

[jtstang]

5 straight dead-last finishes in every single recruiting season should have been a BIG CLUE but then again this was a Model designed by academicians running an athletic program. I refuse to believe that the SMU athletic community is so devoid of knowledgeable observers of college athletics that they didn't know on DAY 1 that this was doomed to failure.

As to your second sentence, please see your first. I suspect recruiting was the least of the academicians' concern--far behind average GPA and graduation rate. Unfortunately, it's water under the bridge, Stallion.

[Pony4Life]

I'd love to see CC and Ramon Flanagan team up on the sidelines in a coaching capacity at S.M.U.

That's a hell of an idea! And I bet they can recruit, too - they're both very outgoing, charismatic guys who clearly love SMU.

And Dickerson's been to 2 games, I think, not 3. And I met Doak Walker at 2 games in the last few years he was with us. Dickerson was an amazing player, but as a Mustang, he's no Doak Walker.

[Stallion]

Dickerson has been to 2 home games and UCLA in the Rose Bowl where he gave a pregame speech. Walker came at least twice in the 1990s-I'm fully aware of that-what I pointed out was their complete absence from the late 1960s until the 1990s.