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Since Coach Jones has been here, SMU has only won one game to start the season, with that one win against Stephen F Austin at home, which we had to come back in the game to win.. I realize that most of those loses have come against bcs teams, besides the loss to Rice in 2008, but still I think more scrimmaging would help prepare our team for that first game. Obviously, injuries are a concern, but we have more depth now. So I'm not sure why he continues not to want to scrimmage more before the first game ? Now I'm not a June hater, and think Coach Mason is the best DC in the country. I think Coach Phillips will really improve the passing game. I like the staff's coaching ability in general. I just wanted to bring it up for discussion.

westexSMU wrote:Since Coach Jones has been here, SMU has only won one game to start the season, with that one win against Stephen F Austin at home, which we had to come back in the game to win.. I realize that most of those loses have come against bcs teams, besides the loss to Rice in 2008, but still I think more scrimmaging would help prepare our team for that first game. Obviously, injuries are a concern, but we have more depth now. So I'm not sure why he continues not to want to scrimmage more before the first game ? Now I'm not a June hater, and think Coach Mason is the best DC in the country. I think Coach Phillips will really improve the passing game. I like the staff's coaching ability in general. I just wanted to bring it up for discussion.

PB scrimmaged. What was his record?

There IS an issue with Jones and openers. Look at Hawaii.

Is it a lack of scrimmaging or just that pass heavy offenses take a while to gel? Just do like Leach did at Tech and make sure you schedule patsies early. His offenses didn't hit their stride until the third or fourth games of the season.

Yeah, and one of those patsies was US...

PB wasn't a very good head coach, and PB did not have the ability to recruit the same quality of players Coach Jones has recruited because of SMU recruiting restrictions until 2008.

Also, Aleric said "pass heavy offenses take longer to gel", than more reason to scrimmage before the first game, right ?

I agree totally. Now add a QB that was not here in the spring. I hope these guys are hanging out on their own and tossing the pigskin around.

I know that JJ doesn't have contact scrimmages during the season but I thought he held contact scrimmages two or three times during August. Maybe I misunderstood. Nevertheless my primary concern is that once again we will be opening the season with a new QB and, to add to my nervousness, a brand new OL.

Tough question. Usually, the better the talent, the less hitting that is needed. Also, the thinner the talent, the less hitting to prevent injuries. So one could make the argument that hitting less has been the conventional wisdom for JJ's entire career at SMU. Less talent first and now more talent now. It does help to be up to hitting speed but what is the right amount of hitting to get to that speed? Hard to know.

We need WWRMD bracelets for times like these-What Would Ron Meyer Do

Meyer scrimmaged like all get out he he first got there. We were going full scrimmage Thursday before the Bama game. And we had significant injury issues all year. 5 years later Meyer had much less hitting. Even during 3 a days. By then one has a more upperclassmen team that has been hitting for years. They don't need as much hitting. And we had a lot less injury issues.

I found that even full speed scrimmages never matched the game speed so I do not think it helps from that aspect. I do think our early season tackling would be better if we did some 2-a-day scrimmaging to get the feel for wrapping up and taking a player to the ground.

ponyte wrote:Meyer scrimmaged like all get out he he first got there. We were going full scrimmage Thursday before the Bama game. And we had significant injury issues all year. 5 years later Meyer had much less hitting. Even during 3 a days. By then one has a more upperclassmen team that has been hitting for years. They don't need as much hitting. And we had a lot less injury issues.

Seems like I remember a lot of practice injuries in those days. Of course, more than one friend of mine on the team fell victim to "Mustang Reminders" if you remember what those were.

Aren't full-speed scrimmages to encourage more physical play/ conditioning?

I don't think we've had an issue being physical, given our defensive performance.

Can you imagine if Zach Line reinjured his foot this summer??

Fine line between physical interaction & keeping peeps healthy.

Get the QBs & receivers on the same wavelength, have everyone else pop the pads some, but don't tee off on one another...