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June burned this thing to the ground. For that he should never be praised for the bowl games. That said, he put more SMU guys in the NFL than we've had in the last 30 years and the four unquestionable NFL'ers on the current roster were all June recruits (Courtland Sutton, Evan Brown, Justin Lawler, Jordan Wyatt).

StallionsModelT wrote:June burned this thing to the ground. For that he should never be praised for the bowl games. That said, he put more SMU guys in the NFL than we've had in the last 30 years and the four unquestionable NFL'ers on the current roster were all June recruits (Courtland Sutton, Evan Brown, Justin Lawler, Jordan Wyatt).

I agree he burned it to the ground, but from 2008 to 2012--he was good and played P5s out of conference.

He was building nothing in a crap conference-that's why no other College program has or will hire him

No body hired him as he is a mental case. Arrogant and lazy is quite a combination.

But he excels at it. Probably one of the better arrogant and lazy people I have ever witnessed.

I will agree with comments that Chad has not yet accomplished what JJ did here, i.e., take the program to several bowl games but there will be one HUGE difference if Chad does leave after this season and that is that he has this program on an uptick. As we all know, the decision to retain JJ after he made it clear he wanted out was a huge mistake and one we can't afford to ever repeat.

No other head football coach has ever called me at my house before. Well, that wanted to talk to me anyways.

I created a memorial in the cement for him across from his condo it's still there today. And it ain't spelled correctly lol.

You're Welcom

https://youtu.be/XPIlpCtSpWw

SMUer wrote:Fine. But what exactly is the benefit of being a ΓÇ£hard-coreΓÇ¥ fan compared to a ΓÇ£stupidΓÇ¥one? I don’t think the hard-core fan is the Dallasite we will be initially be attracting.

Hardcore fans support their team whether they are winless or undefeated.
Smart fans support their team when they are good.
Stupid fans support their team the season after they won a championship. i.e. All the people that will want to go to Astros games in 2018 that did not go in 2017. (Total Houston Astros attendance for 2017 was approximately 2.4 million. I can almost assure you total attendance for 2018 will surpass 3 million. Those .6 million are the stupid fans.)

One of my favorite teams of all time was the Mike Ford, Emanuel Tolbert, Tweetie Hunt, Putt Choate, DK Perry 1978 SMU Mustangs that finished 4-6-1 because I knew without a doubt that Ron Meyer was building the foundation to build a strong program. I have the same feeling about the foundation Chad Morris has built now. I don't judge a rebuild upon Year 1 or Year 2 defeats (or the stupid "war crime meme") because that ain't what the process about. Only superficial fans that don't really understand how a total rebuild in College Football is completed are overly concerned about what happens in Year 1 or Year 2. Those same guys criticize the Coaching ability of a Head Coach in the early years and won't admit that that same Coach got so much smarter when he got better, more experienced talent on the field. Where are those guys now that we are a Top 10 Offense? I judge the hardwork, young personnel and recruiting foundation 2-3 years before it blossoms. Part of the excitement of building a Championship team is watching the foundation being built which makes success so much more enjoyable when the vision is reached.

Charleston Pony wrote:

SMUer wrote:What’s the alternative entertainment option in Waco, Buzzard BillyΓÇÿs ?

For college football fans, they have sports bars showing plenty of very entertaining games on TV...or you can gather with friends at someone's house where the drinks and food are cheaper and the non interested can just mingle. I really get tired of the "but there's nothing else to do there" argument. People are either motivated to support their school and alma mater or they are not and the majority of SMU students and alumni are not, especially by comparison with those schools that enjoy P5 status, whether they were grandfathered in or earned their way there. No SMU alum needs to look any farther than TCU/Ft Worth to realize what can be done if enough people care enough to make it happen.

I lived in a town that was small enough and near enough that both Brownwood and Waco were considered “town”. Once I had a car and an option of where to spend my time, Waco was never a winning option. I agree with your sentiment to a certain extent, but you’re a fool if you don’t think that A&M and Penn State don’t enjoy some benefit of being in BFE Happy Valley or College Station. I’m confident we could increase our enrollment to UT’s and we’d still have trouble filling Ford. We are competing to be the best entertainment on Saturday night—that’s why speaker snafus, mini mustang cheerleader halftime performances and announcer suckage matter. As has been drubbed on here endlessly, at 15,000 fans we are actually capturing a decent % of DFW alumni...we really need to get non-alumni support and to do that we have to be fun to watch for someone unaffiliated. We also need to get donations/donors up.

mustangxc wrote:

SMUer wrote:Fine. But what exactly is the benefit of being a ΓÇ£hard-coreΓÇ¥ fan compared to a ΓÇ£stupidΓÇ¥one? I don’t think the hard-core fan is the Dallasite we will be initially be attracting.

Hardcore fans support their team whether they are winless or undefeated.
Smart fans support their team when they are good.
Stupid fans support their team the season after they won a championship. i.e. All the people that will want to go to Astros games in 2018 that did not go in 2017. (Total Houston Astros attendance for 2017 was approximately 2.4 million. I can almost assure you total attendance for 2018 will surpass 3 million. Those .6 million are the stupid fans.)

I really don’t see what is stupid about waiting for SMU to win something to someone not already invested in SMU athletics. I lived in Houston for a few years, never attended an Astros game, and feel zero percent stupid about it, even at the pinnacle of their glory. Calling potential but noncommitted fans stupid by espousing some sort of nonexistent sports economics doesn’t make sense to me. Pretty sure I’ll be able to get an Astros ticket whatever weekend I want in 2018.

I think I can nail down the problem SMU has with building a fan base.
The school doesn't do much to get people who have gone to a game to go back to another one.
There's just no direct marketing.

I've gone to games where I had the tickets mailed to me. That was the last time I got anything in the mail from SMU.

I've bought online and sent them my email address. Never have seen an email inviting me to come back or offering any kind of deal on tickets.

I'll go one better: I follow the school's teams on Twitter and Facebook. They undoubtedly have a list of their followers. It would not be hard to reach out individually on occasion to offer something to their followers, particularly to the ones who show in their social media posts that they love the team.

SMU has all of the information they need to contact me by regular mail, email, social media and phone and they choose not to do so. I'm sure I'm one of tens of thousands who are like that. If they decide to start emailing, mailing and maybe even calling, they'll get more people to the games.

planoponyfan wrote:I think I can nail down the problem SMU has with building a fan base.
The school doesn't do much to get people who have gone to a game to go back to another one.
There's just no direct marketing.

I've gone to games where I had the tickets mailed to me. That was the last time I got anything in the mail from SMU.

I've bought online and sent them my email address. Never have seen an email inviting me to come back or offering any kind of deal on tickets.

I'll go one better: I follow the school's teams on Twitter and Facebook. They undoubtedly have a list of their followers. It would not be hard to reach out individually on occasion to offer something to their followers, particularly to the ones who show in their social media posts that they love the team.

SMU has all of the information they need to contact me by regular mail, email, social media and phone and they choose not to do so. I'm sure I'm one of tens of thousands who are like that. If they decide to start emailing, mailing and maybe even calling, they'll get more people to the games.

That involves effort. Fans have offered to help but that has gone nowhere.

We had a great guy that was making progress but he was runoff

Come on-you really need marketing to support your alma mater. All these honest responses in the last few days only serve the reinforce the central proposition that SMU alumni just don't care too terribly much about SMU football-you can dress up all the excuses anyway you want but it comes back to this basic problem. Antipathy for your alma mater sometimes tinged with a heavy entitlement factor (ie I really can't be bothered until we win 9-10 games 3-4 years in a row.)

OK here's your personal marketing plea from Head Coach Chad Morris:

https://twitter.com/SMUMustangs/status/ ... 2510453760

SMUer wrote:

mustangxc wrote:

SMUer wrote:Fine. But what exactly is the benefit of being a ΓÇ£hard-coreΓÇ¥ fan compared to a ΓÇ£stupidΓÇ¥one? I don’t think the hard-core fan is the Dallasite we will be initially be attracting.

Hardcore fans support their team whether they are winless or undefeated.
Smart fans support their team when they are good.
Stupid fans support their team the season after they won a championship. i.e. All the people that will want to go to Astros games in 2018 that did not go in 2017. (Total Houston Astros attendance for 2017 was approximately 2.4 million. I can almost assure you total attendance for 2018 will surpass 3 million. Those .6 million are the stupid fans.)

I really don’t see what is stupid about waiting for SMU to win something to someone not already invested in SMU athletics. I lived in Houston for a few years, never attended an Astros game, and feel zero percent stupid about it, even at the pinnacle of their glory. Calling potential but noncommitted fans stupid by espousing some sort of nonexistent sports economics doesn’t make sense to me. Pretty sure I’ll be able to get an Astros ticket whatever weekend I want in 2018.

So you would rather go to an Astros game in 2018 than 2017? The 2017 team had a .623 win percentage for the season and actually started off with an even higher winning percentage early on. It was pretty clear from the onset that the team was destined for the post-season and strong contenders to win the world series. Fans that did not see reason to attend games in 2017 but now are excited to see the team play in 2018 are stupid. You are paying to watch the team on the field, not to see the trophy the team won last year.