SMU2006

I'm not entirely certain but I think for certain filings they have to disclose "something". Sonny's been north of $3M since before the 2020 season.

SMU, as a private institution, doesn't have to disclose coaches salary data. Its why you find stuff like Brian Kelley making $2M at ND when its more likely 5-6M. Sonny came to SMU at $2M and got a nice bump after the 10-2 season to get to $3.5M.

Houston had fewer (announced, so yeah its tickets sold) for their homecoming game against ECU on Saturday. SMU was playing an awful Tulane team on a Thursday night and still had 20k plus. And yes there were 20k in attendance. I've attended every SMU home game since '02 so I'm more than aware of when the stadium "looks" like 20k but is actually at 12k. Like I said, I hope UNT gets its act together in football and your fans show up. Despite having 40k plus and a really nice new stadium you don't draw flies. Facts.

Actually a ranked UNT would be a welcome change of pace for SMU. We need a much better SOS.

I have no insight into Sonny's mindset b/c when its your alma mater and your dad was a coaching legend it makes for a compelling set of circumstances to leave. I will say that he's got a pretty sweet gig at SMU. Top 20 program. The premiere transfer destination for Texas kids looking to come home and get a great undergrad degree or get their MBA. Landing multiple 4 star high school recruits. Making $3.5M living in the most posh zip code in the state with young kids going to HPISD. Stress level is very low. No one is putting "For Sale" signs in your yard at SMU if you have a bit of a down year and go 6-6. Tech fans will expect results if they are going to pay Sonny $5M a year (and I do think that's where the conversation starts). I certainly hope he stays for obvious reasons.

SMU is a school with an undergrad enrollment of 6,700 and we had over 20k in attendance for a week night game against a terrible Tulane team. I get that a lot of folks here hate SMU but if we want to play the ratio game then a school with nearly 40k undergrads and having 13k against a pretty decent Liberty squad on a Saturday evening is well.....ya know.

UNT getting to 72,000 undergrads too?

It aint just those two but hey..... I'm sure I know nothing 🙂

Shakespearean in its simplicity and complexity. A Renaissance Man eh?

SMU needs North Texas? Aside from the almost assured victory I'm struggling to see the rationale. And as far as not believing it well.... all I can say is I'm feeling 1000% better about where SMU will be in a near future from an ironclad source. The year or two left in the AAC will be a positive springboard. And we're not the only ones leaving but I think its pretty easy to tell who the others are.

Incorrect sir but hey, what do I know?

Nah we're gonna try and stick with institutions that have endowments larger than Abilene Christian.

Wouldn't get too attached gents. If what I heard last night is to be believed (and I genuinely trust the source) there might be one season of SMU and UNT in the AAC. 🙂

SMU athletic dept. revenues (exclusive of COVID year) is around 65M.

SMU has zero desire to grow enrollment the way that UNT has done in recent years. Trust me the general thought among many alums (myself included) is that the university should actually be somewhere in the 5,500 to 6,000 undergrad range with an acceptance rate in high 30's low 40's. We don't want to turn into TCU with a near 10,000 undergrad population and relatively mediocre SAT/ACT and GPA metrics by which other private schools are measured. Becoming "bigger" for the sake of being bigger is a fool's errand for a private institution. SMU should focus on being better and growing the endowment and attaining AAU status. It is borderline criminal that the endowment is only $2.3 billion with the university's ties to Dallas/Fortune 500. Too many old Gerald Turner sycophants on the board content with where things stand while our aspiration peers like Tulane and USC are separating.

LOL. This is beyond preposterous. Rick Hart, the SMU AD, was the largest proponent of adding UNT and Rice. I don't see why SMU would be "afraid" of adding a program like North Texas. There is zero reason for that as proven on the field. The additions of Rice and Charlotte are completely outrageous. The general consensus is that adding six now helps offset the eventual departures of AAC legacy schools in the near term. Either way Rice has shown zero commitment to football and Charlotte plays in a 15,000 seat stadium with an athletic budget akin to a Sun Belt program.

Absolutely didn't. COVID brah. It happened to a ton of schools last year.

Having scoreboard certainly doesn't hurt 🙂

Obviously a lot of frustration. Losing programs like Cincinnati, UH, and UCF was a gut punch to the AAC. There was no combination of schools that would've offset those schools leaving. I think SMU still has the hope of future Big 12 instability leads to an invite after the 2025 season. If the TV money being floated out from the Yahoo! article is correct about the remaining 8 staying at $7M then it is absolutely the right decision to stay in the AAC as opposed to leaving for the MWC.

OK. If this is to be believed then I'm certainly cool with it. If the remaining 8 stay at $7m while the new schools are around $2M then lets go! "Conference USA schools currently receive less than a million dollars annually in television revenue. The amount they will receive is still being finalized, but the television revenue will be more than $2 million at the start of the deal and rise significantly from there. Incumbent AAC members are still expected to average about $7 million annually over the course of the current ESPN television deal, which runs through 2031-32."

Dykes isn't sticking around for this version of the AAC I'm afraid. Not to mention I'm not sure how SMU is going to be able to justify paying a HC north of $3M a year when the TV revenue is about to go from $7M to around $1M.

lol. We didn't dodge UTSA.

How many other G5 programs are consistently winning and in the Top 25? Winning helps. If there is a second round of Big 12 expansion its going to be Boise, Memphis, SMU, and USF.

The idea that SMU brings "nothing" to the Big 12 is silly. SMU has built a Top 40 football program under Dykes and is committed to facilities upgrades north of $150M over the next five years. Top 60 academic institution with a lot of ties to Fortune 500 in one of the largest cities in the nation. $2.3 billion endowment. Presidential Library. More alums of Big 12 schools live in DFW than any other metro area in the nation. I'm not saying SMU is a no-brainer. We certainly have our warts as a small private school with less than 7,000 undergrads but to say we would add nothing is dumb.

Motivation would be a TV deal that is likely at least double what the new AAC is going to get.