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[Caballo]

Caballo, that wouldn't have been Todd Dodge, would it?

No, Dodge was at UT earlier. I believe he was also from Port Arthur or thereabouts. He went to UT with a PA classmate, a WR by the name of Brett (or Brent) Duhon. They were both all-world and were going to bring a national championship to the 40 acres. It only took one Ackers to stop that from happening, Freddie.


No fruit sucks like the BIG ORANGE of Texas.

[SMU Football Blog]

When Meyer left, there was a void that was filled in the dumbest way imaginable-it was orchestrated and managed by the university and athletic department leadership. The two biggest problems for SMU were (1) getting caught repeatedly for the same thing; and (2) a paid SMU athletic department employee was in charge of distributing the money at the end.

You will have a hard time finding something similar in other programs. It is one thing for a booster to give $$$ or a car to a recruit, something else entirely for money to be sent by an athletic department employee in an envelope with SMU's logo on it. At least most universities have plausible deniability and can throw a booster or two under the bus. SMU had no such luxury.

[originaloverthehilltop1]

blog has it right. and not only were we caught repeatedly, we were arrogantly, blatantly, obvious about it. anybody who read the papers or the book, "payroll to meet" knows this.
then, we compound the problem by bringing in an administration who allowed us to compete in swc football with no regard to realities of top 100 recruiting competition. top 100!
15 years later, we we only recently stopped excluding academic "risks" rice would take. or keeping them on hold after rice and duke offered them scholarships.
and i'm still not sure we have any majors that a "real bubba" football player wants to try to take. rice has em. all top 100 programs have 'em. do we? somebody address this question.

[jtstang]

You will have a hard time finding something similar in other programs. It is one thing for a booster to give $$$ or a car to a recruit, something else entirely for money to be sent by an athletic department employee in an envelope with SMU's logo on it. At least most universities have plausible deniability and can throw a booster or two under the bus. SMU had no such luxury.

Thank you. The folks who cannot see the difference are being willfully blind to the facts.

[BUS]

For me, I thought the was that that administration told/challenged the NCAA to get tough and said SMU would press charges against the NCAA. That just made the situation WORSE.

Was it a idle threat ( stupid ) or a threat that did not have enough backing to go forward ( again stupid ).

This talk will only go away after we are back winning and doing it correctly.

[Stampede]

Remember boys...Eddie Sutton, yes, the same Eddie that presently coaches at Okie ST. and his staff at Kentucky...

sent $10,000 cash via Fed Ex package to a B ball player in California.

[SoCal_Pony]

Snif...how unfair for the poor small private school. How about this--you wake up, SMU was cheating in ways Barry Switzer hadn't even thought of, and that's why we got nailed.

Well you should clarify your point JT, because to state that SMU bungled its payola in ways other schools didn’t is a reasonable position, but to say SMU cheated to greater depths than other schools is pure nonsense. And the way most people are interpreting your post is the latter.

BTW, one of my favorite comments from that era came from TCU great Kenneth Davis, who also had a productive career with the Buffalo Bills. He said he felt a moral obligation to be a frog, given the fact he was paid so much money on so many occasions while still in high school.

[jtstang]

Well you should clarify your point JT, because to state that SMU bungled its payola in ways other schools didn’t is a reasonable position, but to say SMU cheated to greater depths than other schools is pure nonsense. And the way most people are interpreting your post is the latter.

Okay, let me try to clarify. I do not care to what depths or in what ways the other schools of the era were cheating, because I did not go to them. I had to sit through two years of my college experience without college football because of the depth and manner in which SMU cheated, and as pointed out by the blogster, that was a manner which was pretty unique to SMU in the way it was being done. At least the NCAA did not have the same factual findings with other schools. So my bottom line, for clarity's sake, is this: SMU got what it deserved, mostly because of the cheating itself, but in part because of the arrogant way in which it manifested itself, and I don't care what sanctions others did or did not receive because it did not affect me personally at the time.

[Caballo]

BTW, one of my favorite comments from that era came from TCU great Kenneth Davis, who also had a productive career with the Buffalo Bills. He said he felt a moral obligation to be a frog, given the fact he was paid so much money on so many occasions while still in high school.

To be fair to Davis, he did not know any better. He showed such promise in junior high in the little town of Bartlett, Texas that a company in Temple, Texas gave his daddy a new job and moved the family to Temple so that Kenneth could go to school there. Davis later led Temple to a state title prior to him going off to the money pastures of Fort Worth.

As to your "moral obligation" quote above, word is Davis was headed to TCU beginning early in his junior year. The seed was planted early.

[SMU Football Blog]

I don't intend to be antagonistic, but you have a hard time convincing anybody how unfair it is until you point to a case with repeated violations over a relatively short period of time that involved assistant coaches, the head coach, the athletic director, boosters, the tacit knowledge of the president of the university, the knowledge of more than one member of the board of trustees and (though not revealed until later) the endorsement of the chairman of the board of trustees and Governor of the state. All of those people had knowledge and/or involvement in the payment of players.

[EastStang]

Let me try and recap our NCAA penalty history since about 1972. In 1972 we were caught using inappropriate inducements to recruit by boosters, Hayden Fry was coach. After losing to Va. Tech that year, HF was thrown under the bus. Next we got Dave Smith. Smith figured handing out money for tackles was a great motivator. He was the bag man and insisted on having control over who got the money. A player felt short changed went to the NCAA and Smith got the gate. Next came Ron Meyer who could sell a proverbial cemetery plot to anyone, and he allowed boosters to do the work and let the Aggies pay our players (ED's car). He left to the NFL followed closely thereafter by the NCAA, and in came Coach Collins. Collins and Hitch let the boosters run wild in the program after Hitch promised to clean up our act from the Meyer-Potts years. Add in the fact that the Board of Governors members were putting up much of the money and running the school and the NCAA had enough. That said, in 1969 Darryl Royal was paying players at UT, no investigation there. In the 1980's A&M was paying everyone including our players. In the 1990's Jackie Sherill's Aggies were buying up players right and left (as he did at Pitt and at Mississippi State). Did we deserve the death penalty, absolutely, but that is no excuse for not levelling it at other schools behaving badly today.

[jtstang]

Add in the fact that the Board of Governors members were putting up much of the money and running the school and the NCAA had enough. That said, in 1969 Darryl Royal was paying players at UT, no investigation there. In the 1980's A&M was paying everyone including our players. In the 1990's Jackie Sherill's Aggies were buying up players right and left (as he did at Pitt and at Mississippi State). Did we deserve the death penalty, absolutely, but that is no excuse for not levelling it at other schools behaving badly today.

I don't know, and nobody knows, but I believe the first sentence in the portion of your post I've quoted is why we got the death penalty and the others did not. As for the others, I don't care, they are not SMU.

[SWC2010]

I don't know, and nobody knows,.

Wrong, JT. Lots of people "KNOW". I'll give you 2 quick factual examples:

[1] Head west... I played with a guy who made a visit to a nearby DI school one Friday, many, many, years ago. He returned home with a new car & a backseat full of clothing. The next week he signed to become a ______!

[2] Head North... A joke circulates of a certain NFL player that was attending an NFL "Roast" for a teammate. When this certain player is introduced to roast his teammate, he is described as the ONLY NCAA player to take a cut in pay to go to the NFL! Funny, but no joke. I was told this story in his presence by his best friend.

Your on the wrong side of history, JT.

[Caballo]

Thanks SWC2010 for your attempt to educate our young colleagues.

Does anyone else see the irony in this:

We cheated and it doesn't matter what others did vs. We cheated and everyone did (and still does);
We got what we deserved vs. Selective enforcement;
Younger Pony fans vs. Older Pony fans;
Those who have read about the history vs. Those who lived it?

[jtstang]

Wrong, JT. Lots of people "KNOW".

Okay, I guess I assumed too much about the level of reading comprehension on this board. When I said "nobody knows" I really meant nobody on this board who is speculating about the reasons the NCAA acts in one situation and not the other. I DID NOT mean to suggest the people directly involved in the violations did not know what they were doing. I apologize for confusing you.