Have to laugh.

[UNTexas]

Took a few minutes to go to SMU's fansite. Many of them are talking about dropping football. Many of them are saying they are embarrassed for their small fanbase and lack of support. Most of them spoke about how they intentionally didn't watch the game. It made me happy. 

We have been through really really rough times and its nice to pay it forward. Especially to these folks. 

Edited September 3, 2018 by UNTexas

[GrandGreen]

There is a lot of activity on the Mustangs' boards relative to their fan base that actually attend games. 

I am not sure why anyone that won't bother to watch their school on tv or would never imagine actually going to a game would want to participate in an athletic message board. 

SMU is propped up by a few very wealthy donors, it is going to be interesting as that group dwindles.   They won't be easily replaced and SMU is going to have a big challenge broadening their fan base.  

[Rudy]

I thought it was sad to see how many of them feel entitled to winning, and since they lost they feel that's the team doesn't deserve their support. 

 

 

Then I read how they think they should have hired Seth, and the thought that they think he'd leave for $mut nearly made me fall out of my chair laughing. 

[UNTexas]

37 minutes ago, GrandGreen said:

There is a lot of activity on the Mustangs' boards relative to their fan base that actually attend games. 

I am not sure why anyone that won't bother to watch their school on tv or would never imagine actually going to a game would want to participate in an athletic message board. 

SMU is propped up by a few very wealthy donors, it is going to be interesting as that group dwindles.   They won't be easily replaced and SMU is going to have a big challenge broadening their fan base.  

Its got to be tough for a school like SMU to broaden their fan base. Regular folks in Dallas aren't going to go watch SMU.  Their own students don't care about their team. The university isn't really bright either. They could have bussed students in like we do. Put up a party tent for their people, like we do. Nope. Crickets.

I was talking to one of their player's parents and they felt most of the fans in their area twere players families and friends. They said they loved the atmosphere at our stadium. That was good to hear. 

27 minutes ago, Rudy said:

I thought it was sad to see how many of them feel entitled to winning, and since they lost they feel that's the team doesn't deserve their support. 

 

 

Then I read how they think they should have hired Seth, and the thought that they think he'd leave for $mut nearly made me fall out of my chair laughing. 

Most of those people are delusional about winning. I loved reading how their old timers really miss the old days. Really? Cheating and lying which all lead to the only NCAA death penalty ever. Ah, the good ole days...

Seth isn't leaving. Especially not to SMU.

Edited September 3, 2018 by UNTexas

[Salsa_Verde]

SMU is that pop star that had a string of hits 35 years ago and doesn’t realize their time has come and gone. 

[wardly]

14 hours ago, UNTexas said:

Its got to be tough for a school like SMU to broaden their fan base. Regular folks in Dallas aren't going to go watch SMU.  Their own students don't care about their team. The university isn't really bright either. They could have bussed students in like we do. Put up a party tent for their people, like we do. Nope. Crickets.

I was talking to one of their player's parents and they felt most of the fans in their area twere players families and friends. They said they loved the atmosphere at our stadium. That was good to hear. 

Most of those people are delusional about winning. I loved reading how their old timers really miss the old days. Really? Cheating and lying which all lead to the only NCAA death penalty ever. Ah, the good ole days...

Seth isn't leaving. Especially not to SMU.

I doubt any of their students have ever ridden on a bus.

[TheColonyEagle]

11 hours ago, Salsa_Verde said:

SMU is that pop star that had a string of hits 35 years ago and doesn’t realize their time has come and gone. 

Yes and that pop star is Milli Vanilli

They were really hot for a short window then people realized how they became hot then they disappeared 

Edited September 4, 2018 by TheColonyEagle

[MeanGreenHoops]

12 hours ago, Salsa_Verde said:

SMU is that pop star that had a string of hits 35 years ago and doesn’t realize their time has come and gone. 

Milli Vanilli?

Oops, I see this guess has been taken.

 

Vanilla Ice?

Edited September 4, 2018 by MeanGreenHoops

[Legend500]

I recall one of my first development meetings with Arts & Sciences - being briefed on some program or the other, I made the huge rookie mistake of asking how our programs compared to peer institutions, such as UTA, UTD, and SMU, plus the other flagships. 

Stone-cold, immediate response by random tenured professor with a slight French accent who sounded like he was tired of saying it: "SMU is not, academically, a peer institution. They have neither the necessary masters nor doctoral programs in the relevant fields, and lack research which would be expected of institutions even of their caliber."

I have never been so aroused.

But facts are much less important that perception these days. And the perception remains somewhat muddled. I don't blame SMU fans for feeling the way they do - again the perception overrides their knowledge of the facts - but I do think it only ends in them combusting quite enthusiastically when the perception is shattered. Most of their active alumni are still from the 70's, and that was a much different world than the one we now inhabit. The athletically #1 school in the region now swings back and forth between #2-3, and academically... they're playing between #4 and #5. The only thing that helps these days is that they were saved by building a library to a non-alum, a library and institute which actually have no formal relationship to the university. 

That's a tough pill to swallow - far harder even than UTEP, UNT and Houston (initially) being stonewalled from the SWC because they integrated first. I don't blame them at all, and I'd be equally pissed.

I would be, if I didn't have a wise admissions counselor at my tony North Dallas private high school level with me and say that I could go to SMU or UNT, but I should probably pick the one that was 1/10th the cost and had more programs on offer. Owe that man a lot.

[untjim1995]

If I was an SMU alum from the glory cheating years of the early 80's, I wouldn't follow them, either. The whole point of SMU football in the 80's was to promote their $$$ and the look good in Texas boardrooms. They were competing with Texas, A&M, Arkansas, Baylor, Houston, etc...in the top conference in the land at that time. To sell a 60+ year old guy (age of an alum today from those pay-for-play days) to care about watching SMU play Temple, UConn, East Carolina, South Florida, or Tulane is just not understanding the letdown that the alum feels about being basically relegated down forever. And if that alum actually paid money to the players, there is zero chance he even watches them play ever again. 

Basically, we are the pure opposite of SMU. We had to basically watch our school get relegated down by our doing and play the SFAs, SHSUs, Nicholls States, McNeese States, and other directional I-aa schools in Louisiana and Texas, then get to play schools nobody in Texas care about out west and then in the southeast for almost 20 years. Today, we play in a conference with Texas schools and regional schools that people will go and watch (see La Tech vs ULM, see UTEP vs NMSU, see USM vs Troy). SO when we play a team like SMU, a team just above us on the college football totem pole, we are enthusiastic as hell to support our team against them, just as we are when Army comes to town or we play a team like UTSA that hates us, too.

Their posters on ponyfans are right to question what the point is for the future of their football program--they have felt the pinnacle of playing at the highest level and were deemed inferior to play again there basically forever. I couldn't fathom how awful that must suck--and it couldn't possibly happen to a better group of SchMUcks...

[TheColonyEagle]

1 hour ago, untjim1995 said:

Their posters on ponyfans are right to question what the point is for the future of their football program--they have felt the pinnacle of playing at the highest level and were deemed inferior to play again there basically forever. 

That's a very good point

[greenminer]

Kinda surprised SMU didn't make this week's bottom 10

http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/page/bottom090418/texas-longhorns-fall-bottom-10-coveted-fifth-spot

[UNTLifer]

They are in the waiting room an after getting blasted by TCU and Michigan, they will be firmly entrenched for a season long ride in the Bottom Ten.

[EagleMBA]

The writeups on the FCS wins should be required reading this week, lest we go there. The SMUt win was heady stuff and we just can't afford a hangover.