May have to give this some time

[Charleston Pony]

No question but that SMU has been a tough "sell" in the post death penalty era, but as much as I liked Chad Morris, I'm not going to proclaim him our would be savior. Just looking at how our most recent coaches have performed in terms of turning around the program, earning "quality" wins and improving attendance:

JJ took over a 1-11 team and then went 1-11 his 1st season. He had a winning season in year 2 and beat a ranked TCU team in year 4. Attendance in his 1st year averaged 19,780 and increased to 21,528 by year 7.

Chad also inherited a 1-11 team and went 2-10 in his 1st year. His team did beat a ranked Houston team in year 2 and he had a winning season by year 3. Attendance actually fell from 21,043 in his 1st season to 19,944 by year 3. I know SMU's attendance is heavily influenced by who we play because we've ALWAYS counted on our visitors to help fill the seats at Ford, and while Chad had 7 home games, it was a weak home schedule last year so I won't blame him for the decreased attendance.

It remains to be seen how Sonny will do. He gets the immediate advantage of inheriting a team that went 7-6 and at least attended a bowl game (admittedly a big advantage over what JJ and Chad inherited). He also FINALLY has the IPC to help sell recruits and the AAC now has a stronger reputation thanks to UCF, Houston, Memphis and others who have beaten "name brand" P5 teams in recent years. I'm not expecting much this year, but will be watching for that 1st "quality" win because I think he's going to need that ASAP to bump our recruiting up another notch and get this program to a level where we will be tough to beat at Ford and can compete with the top programs in the AAC and of course our cross town rival.

[Stallion]

yeah well I'm not expecting much either-I've got a suspicion that season ticket sales may be way off as a result of the Basketball re-seating. I think it's probable that some made an investment decision on where they wanted to spend their financial resources on SMU athletics. It's going to be interesting how attendance shakes out in both Football and Basketball. Basically nothing has gone right in the entire athletic program (Football and Basketball) since December 2017. I'm not sure whether it's "the natives are getting restless" or the natives just don't give much of a damn any more but there's some ill-wind blowing throughout the entire program

[Charleston Pony]

yeah well I'm not expecting much either-I've got a suspicion that season ticket sales may be way off as a result of the Basketball re-seating. I think it's probable that some made an investment decision on where they wanted to spend their financial resources on SMU athletics. It's going to be interesting how attendance shakes out in both Football and Basketball. Basically nothing has gone right in the entire athletic program (Football and Basketball) since December 2017. I'm not sure whether it's "the natives are getting restless" or the natives just don't give much of a damn any more but there's some ill-wind blowing throughout the entire program

Good point. Not sure whether 30 years of wandering through the desert has cost us a generation of fans, but I'm going to remain hopeful there are plenty of SMU grads out there who are at least interested in college sports and are just waiting for a good reason to become the bandwagon fans we so desperately need.

[JasonB]

At this point I do think Coach Morris was a little more creative in his play calling than Coach Lashlee regarding the offense. Both run Malzahn’s offense just different play calling. With that being said Coach Morris did not have bad recruiting classes but Coach Dykes seems to be doing better. No knock on Coach Morris there. As far as defense goes does Coach Kane run a 3-4 or a 3–3-5?

So if CM had decent recruits, and the JUCO and GT recruits from Dykes were decent recruits, then what we are seeing is a coaching issue on offense, correct?

I think the route tree in this offense is a little different, with more read and react similar to what June did. The QB and WR seem to be on completely different pages. And the OL blocking has completely regressed, especially in pass protection.

Kane typically runs a 4-3 look that is sometimes a 4-2-5. The 2 deep is published as a 4 man front, and it generated a lot of pressure against UNT. Last night, he ran a 3-3-5 exclusively, with Nelson as an extra safety giving the look of a 3-4 opposite Denbow. He may have intended to run the 3-3-5 against UNT, but with Denbow getting tossed it threw that out of the equation.

In practice, there was a ton of variety. So, I think you will see them change things up quite a bit depending on the game and matchups.

For the most part, I have been impressed with the defense, at least from the front part. A little disappointed that we leave the seam routes so open in the zone we end up playing centrally. Easiest pass to hit. I would have liked to see us force the young QB to throw to the outsides. Last night it was good to see the line hold their own even with a 3 man front. We are even seeing some depth at LB, as Robinson and Hailey both made plays out there on the outside, and Williams actually looked good at MLV when Moore came off injured.

[Rebel10]

Morris was selling recruits off 1 win (1 month to recruit), 2 wins and 4 wins. Sonny was selling recruits off a 7 win bowl team. Big difference

Good point.

[ALEX LIFESON]

May have to give this some time

yes...just a year or 2 or 3 away

I was 28 when we got the DP, now I'm getting buriel and cremation deals in the mail.

[MV pony]

Fast forward to September 8, 2049 and a new football post will read "May have to give this some time."

[BIGHORSE]

Is it too late to follow the T.C.U. model?

[geno]

Is it too late to follow the T.C.U. model?

And what, exactly, was the TCU model? They lucked into promoting an assistant to head coach, and that assistant, heavy on the first syllable of that word, turned out to be Gary Patterson. Is that the model, keep promoting assistants until one turns out great?

[JasonB]

No, the model is that they opened their doors to academic non-qualifiers under Francione and hired GP to run the defense. On offense, they hit it big with late qualifiers, such as LT, who were good enough athletically to play anywhere. Defensively, GP was great at identifying athletic talent who played one position in high school because of their athleticism, but would explode at another position in college. LT got them the visibility they needed, both in terms of building a local fan base as well as national attention. Then when Fran left and they kept GP, GP took it to another level by extending his athlete projections across the entire team.

So, the model is finding a great coach who can both recruit and project, and support of the school to build the program.

At SMU, June and Morris were the right attempts at finding a good coach. We didn't give either coach enough of an assistant budget, however. Dykes might be a good recruiter/CEO, and we have upped the coaching budget on both sides of the ball. I still think it can be a good coaching hire - someone with great Texas ties who was on a strong upwards trajectory until Cal hit. Questions remain if that level of support for coaches will still exist once we actually have to pay Dykes' salary.

On the academic side, we are miles better than we were under Pye, but we still struggle with getting certain kids into school and past the Provost. When we hit those challenges, it really damages our reputation with high school coaches, who believe in their players.

When you see relationships sour over time between June, LB, and CM and the administration, it would seem to indicate that significant support issues still remain at SMU. I'll be interesting to see how Dykes' demeanor changes over the course of the next two years, or if he still remains positive and upbeat. As much as CM rubbed me the wrong way the last year, I believe him sniffing around Baylor early on had as much to do with the administration not living up to commitments as anything else.

[03Mustang]

I think we know the answer to the first sentence of the last paragraph. While Mexmustang is a little over the top on some of his criticisms, I suspect he isn't as far off as many of us want him to be.

Without a wholesale flush and restart of the administration, nothing meaningful will change and at best we will get back to a low-end bowl before we do this dance all over again until one day we wake up in the Southland Conference.

I agree with Stallion that it feels like the winds are changing. They have blown from hope to indifference with a growing segment of the fanbase...and there isn't much of one to begin with. A 2 or 3 win season this year followed by a 15-18 win basketball season and we're right back to the winter of the 90s and 2000s all over again.

I want to believe it will get better some day, and many of you have been around longer then me, but after 15 years as an alumnus and season ticket holder it just gets incredibly tiring...my kids are getting to the age where they don't even think it's fun to go anymore. How does someone with a family keep justifying the time and money for this when the program is clearly not built to grow and succeed over the long term? If SMU athletics was a company, it would be languishing on the pinksheets and we would have all sold our interests long ago. We are only here because of emotion - if those winds blow away completely, might as well pack it up and go D3 like Pye wanted.

[SMU_Alum11]

I agree with the above. I'm only 7 year alumnus so my support is probably a hell of a lot smaller than most y'alls but its hard for me to even think about donating more when family is more pressing. If there was a shake up or an excitement that the old guard is off the influence and there's someone in thats will to make drastic changes then I would definitely contribute as much as I can. Otherwise, I'm going to stick with bare minimum of going to the game and pay for my seats.

From a fundraising point of view, they really need to think from crowd funding point of view. It would be nice if you did something like donate $25 and get a yard sign and $50 bucks get yard sign + flag and so on. Also highlight tax incentives for donating. I think selling tickets at those levels where you have donate like $2,500 to get access to tickets is silly. All those level really should drop to give better access to younger alums. We are kind of in the need to drive volume rather than price especially given that this team is looking at 2-10.

Next year should be much better record wise given the cupcake schedule which in turn also hurts demand because nobody wants to watch NTCC (#NotARivalry) and TxState especially given most of our fans don't have a lot of interest with probably at least half our conference. Anyways, I'm hoping something different changes in the sports admin.

[MV pony]

Forget D3. Go the Emory route

[Stallion]

Mustang Club donations which count for seat priority are no longer tax deductible

[One Trick Pony]

Mustang Club donations which count for seat priority are no longer tax deductible

Always a bonus