Not trying flame any Mustang fans, but I'm really curious how they drove off the cliff this season. 7-5, 8-5, 7-7, 7-6, records the past few years, 5-7 last season, and a dumpster fire this year. Did their fans see this coming? Any insights?

Yes

In December 2011, Jones agreed to take the HC job at Arizona State. For reasons I have never quite grasped, Arizona State then decided they didn't want Jones, after all. And SMU decided to keep him. But from that point on, most Pony fans I have heard from say that Jones seemed bored/distracted/burned-out/etc., and that recruiting has suffered greatly as a result. This is the year that the decline showed up on the field. True or not, that's what I've been told.

Actually I heard he does have a serious illness but has not gone public with it so I need to take back some of the vitriol I threw his way.

(10-07-2014 06:53 PM)cwise Wrote:  Not trying flame any Mustang fans, but I'm really curious how they drove off the cliff this season. 7-5, 8-5, 7-7, 7-6, records the past few years, 5-7 last season, and a dumpster fire this year. Did their fans see this coming? Any insights?

Obviously I have no clue about the inner workings of their program but they are not totally void of talent….They have enough size and athleticism to be a competitive team in this league.

Not sure what happened with them but they flipped a switch on ECU this weekend…We were rolling and they were looking really bad on offense then all of the sudden late in the first half they turned into old school Texas Tech on us. They totally stopped running the ball and started throwing all those short passes to the flats and some nice shallow crossing routes. Their QB was getting the ball out quickly with accuracy and their WRs were catching everything.

There defense was horrid but their offense possessed the ball long enough to limit our possessions. Still think it will be tough for them to win games with their defense but if their offense plays other teams like they did us late in the 2nd quarter and through the 3rd quarter they will have some chances.

(10-07-2014 07:08 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  In December 2011, Jones agreed to take the HC job at Arizona State. For reasons I have never quite grasped, Arizona State then decided they didn't want Jones, after all.

(10-07-2014 07:12 PM)Pony94 Wrote:  I heard he does have a serious illness but has not gone public with it

Maybe those items are connected, somehow.

SMU is now a basketball school, thought everyone knew

(10-07-2014 07:12 PM)Pony94 Wrote:  Actually I heard he does have a serious illness but has not gone public with it so I need to take back some of the vitriol I threw his way.

I hope that is not true…If so I wish him well and will be praying for him.

I don't dwell on the past. June resuscitated the FB program and showed it can be successful. I'll ignore the current struggles.

At this point, whoever SMU hires needs to make local recruiting a top priority and then move forward from there. We need to rebuild some bridges and get the DFW high school coaches familiar with SMU. 5% of all FBS football players are from DFW; SMU just needs to get a small portion of them.

Last year's troubles were largely masked by our Texas transfer QB, Garrett Gilbert. He had issues in Austin, but he was still a great player. Without him, I bet we win 1-3 games last year. June never recruited decent QB's, a KEY part of his run-and-shoot, and Gilbert fell into his lap as a graduate transfer from UT.

(10-07-2014 07:31 PM)shere khan Wrote:  SMU is now a basketball school, thought everyone knew

Hey, if they're going to be down in football, this always helps out.

The future of this team will depend on the Cincinnati game. If we were to pull that one out somehow, we might win several other games and dig ourselves out of last place in the league. If not then we are looking at 0-12 probably. What happened, the coach got distracted and the kids weren't near ready for the our schedule, we have played 4 out 5 Top Twenty teams!

UC @ SMU....AAC pillow fight of the week. First one to 50 wins.

SMU has the $$$ and then some... SMU will be fine, they just need to regroup... Heck, they could very well be this leagues best football program in a year or two.

(10-07-2014 08:50 PM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  UC @ SMU....AAC pillow fight of the week. First one to 50 wins.

The sad part is I don't know if you're talking football or basketball.

It sure doesn't help having played 4 top 20 teams already

SMU played with nothing to lose against ECU, which is what I think they should continue to do. Just sling the ball around and if it is 4th down and less than 5 just go for it. They were 5 of 6 on 4th down's against ECU, they should keep going for it on 4th down's to extend the drives. I think ECU helped SMU a lot by running a very vanilla defense for most of the game which really hurt us. I would not be surprised at all if they win a couple games this year if they can keep playing like they did against us.

If June Jones got sick, then that's similar to what happened at Memphis. Tommy West came in and had success during the DeAngelo Williams days. Then he had a heart attack, and just quit working hard. We slowly got worse, finally fired him, and then made the wrong hire with Larry Porter, which made things worse.

Thank goodness we got lucky with Fuente, and he turned us around rather quickly, so far at least.

@FootballScoop: Tommy Tuberville. Just going to leave that there.” Yes that's Tuberville being rumored for the #SMU gig. Wants back in TX.

I am sure some Cincinnati fans will help him pack