Why does the DFW media act like SMU belongs in a Power Conference?

[untjim1995]

Listen or read the DFW media and they love the SMU deal to get into the ACC. Ok, since they used their money and political clout to get in over there, they pulled off a move that nobody else in the G5 has been able to do. 

But what just galls me is hearing all of them say that SMU should have been in the Big 12 this entire time, that if TCU and Baylor or in, then SMU should be, too. And I have no idea why they always say this. SMU has never shown an ability to compete in a league of power schools since the Pony Expre$$ day$. They have no decent following. They don't produce sports journalists, They have no recent winning history to sell. Just Death Penalty stories, days of SWC glory in the Doak Walker days, and a ton of cash.

I truly don't get it.

[NT80]

2 hours ago, untjim1995 said:

Listen or read the DFW media and they love the SMU deal to get into the ACC. Ok, since they used their money and political clout to get in over there, they pulled off a move that nobody else in the G5 has been able to do. 

But what just galls me is hearing all of them say that SMU should have been in the Big 12 this entire time, that if TCU and Baylor or in, then SMU should be, too. And I have no idea why they always say this. SMU has never shown an ability to compete in a league of power schools since the Pony Expre$$ day$. They have no decent following. They don't produce sports journalists, They have no recent winning history to sell. Just Death Penalty stories, days of SWC glory in the Doak Walker days, and a ton of cash.

I truly don't get it.

The DMN thinks Smut's location by association = Dallas support; which it does not obviously by their lousy attendance.   

The Big 12 conference is very familiar with Smut.  They have wanted nothing to do with them since they were left out from the SWC days.  The ACC will soon see the lameness in person!

Edited September 6 by NT80

[ColoradoEagle]

It's a bunch of old guys who remember SMU being in the SWC for 80 years and think of them as temporarily embarrassed. It's been almost 40 years since they were relevant at a power conference level.

[untjim1995]

I mean all the sports talk shows all say the same thing about SMU belonging. Literally nothing suggests that makes any sense if you look at SMU over the last 40 years.

[TheColonyEagle]

I don’t get it either. ESPN had an article about them and they referred To SMU “returning to their glory days” and then immediately talk about those glory days being the early 80’s. And what always amazed me is the SMU people that also refer to 1982 with such warm memories. It completely destroyed their program and should be a shameful, embarrassing  time in their history. But they’re actually proud of it. 
 

Ironically, imbedded in the ESPN story was a link to “Pony Excess”. 
 

mind boggling…..

[SMU2006]

10 hours ago, TheColonyEagle said:

I don’t get it either. ESPN had an article about them and they referred To SMU “returning to their glory days” and then immediately talk about those glory days being the early 80’s. And what always amazed me is the SMU people that also refer to 1982 with such warm memories. It completely destroyed their program and should be a shameful, embarrassing  time in their history. But they’re actually proud of it. 
 

Ironically, imbedded in the ESPN story was a link to “Pony Excess”. 
 

mind boggling…..

Nothing remotely shameful about it.  Everyone in the SWC was doing what SMU did in the 80's but without the protection of being a true blue blood we were crucified.

Now with NIL and the commitment of hundreds of millions from billionaire boosters there is no reason we can't regain status as a consistent Top 20 program.  

[NT80]

1 hour ago, SMU2006 said:

Nothing remotely shameful about it.  Everyone in the SWC was doing what SMU did in the 80's but without the protection of being a true blue blood we were crucified.

Now with NIL and the commitment of hundreds of millions from billionaire boosters there is no reason we can't regain status as a consistent Top 20 program.  

So you're saying your cheating was not power conference level then?   Lol

[TheColonyEagle]

1 hour ago, SMU2006 said:

Nothing remotely shameful about it.  Everyone in the SWC was doing what SMU did in the 80's but without the protection of being a true blue blood we were crucified.

Now with NIL and the commitment of hundreds of millions from billionaire boosters there is no reason we can't regain status as a consistent Top 20 program.  

Yeah but you kept doing it after getting caught so many times.  So not only did you do it but you were bad at it. 
 

seems like that would be a little embarrassing 

Edited September 7 by TheColonyEagle

[GrayEagle]

On 9/6/2023 at 12:09 PM, untjim1995 said:

Listen or read the DFW media and they love the SMU deal to get into the ACC. Ok, since they used their money and political clout to get in over there, they pulled off a move that nobody else in the G5 has been able to do. 

But what just galls me is hearing all of them say that SMU should have been in the Big 12 this entire time, that if TCU and Baylor or in, then SMU should be, too. And I have no idea why they always say this. SMU has never shown an ability to compete in a league of power schools since the Pony Expre$$ day$. They have no decent following. They don't produce sports journalists, They have no recent winning history to sell. Just Death Penalty stories, days of SWC glory in the Doak Walker days, and a ton of cash.

I truly don't get it.

I think that there are two reasons.  One is their past history.  They played in the old Southwest Conference (and did well).  They did better than TCU and the Frogs are in the Big XII.  SMU and Rice are the oldies that haven't advanced.  The other is their recent history.  They've had a number of All-Americans (more than TCU) and the DMN believes that they have received more publicity than most of the Big XII.  Most of the positive spin lately has come from the Dallas Morning News but SMU is not that strong currently.  They've been in the AAC for 13 years and have not won a football championship. 

[untjim1995]

The SWC bit just floors me. That conference ended in 1995. It’s 2023 and people act like SMU should be included. I’ll tell you the truth. They deserve what Rice has become. Same situation as Rice, but their culture is surrounded by paying for football success, while Rice lets academics to the talking. Rice, Tulane, Tulsa, and SMU are all the same. But the SMU Death Penalty is some kind of romantic ideal to the CFB media. It shouldn’t be—Pony Excess showed it perfectly. They flat out cheated blatantly worse than anyone else and their pissant school was the perfect piñata for the NCAA to bust into pieces. That anyone makes that time some great penalty for SMU didn’t live here during those days. We all saw firsthand how crooked it all was. 
 

And in perfect societal fashion for the US today, they get rewarded for it.

[rojomojo]

On 9/6/2023 at 12:09 PM, untjim1995 said:

Listen or read the DFW media and they love the SMU deal to get into the ACC. Ok, since they used their money and political clout to get in over there, they pulled off a move that nobody else in the G5 has been able to do. 

But what just galls me is hearing all of them say that SMU should have been in the Big 12 this entire time, that if TCU and Baylor or in, then SMU should be, too. And I have no idea why they always say this. SMU has never shown an ability to compete in a league of power schools since the Pony Expre$$ day$. They have no decent following. They don't produce sports journalists, They have no recent winning history to sell. Just Death Penalty stories, days of SWC glory in the Doak Walker days, and a ton of cash.

I truly don't get it.

You live in Texas... Every aspect of life here is dominated by rich, white, oil tycoons. Why else do you think SMU somehow manages to get state funding even though it's a private university? Oil tycoons donated over 200 million dollars just to push SMU into the ACC

This is Texas... EVERY aspect of life is controlled and dominated by oil

[TripleGrad]

It's all nostalgia for the SWC, when SMU gained legitimacy simply by being in the same conference as A&M and Texas.  For some reason, 40 years of nothing doesn't impact that school as badly as it does ours.

[DentonStang]

5 hours ago, TheColonyEagle said:

Yeah but you kept doing it after getting caught so many times.  So not only did you do it but you were bad at it. 
 

seems like that would be a little embarrassing 

Embarrassing was sending checks in SMU envelopes and accepting an interview about it. That was embarrassing and dumb 

The rest of it.... no. It was just being competitive. We were explicitly targeted. 

Read The Pony Trap by Dave Blewett. It does a great job comparing the huge discrepancy in punishment for the same infractions between UT and SMU (and TCU), and the direct personal and political links between the NCAA enforcement apparatus and UT.

[GrandGreen]

49 minutes ago, DentonStang said:

Embarrassing was sending checks in SMU envelopes and accepting an interview about it. That was embarrassing and dumb 

The rest of it.... no. It was just being competitive. We were explicitly targeted. 

Read The Pony Trap by Dave Blewett. It does a great job comparing the huge discrepancy in punishment for the same infractions between UT and SMU (and TCU), and the direct personal and political links between the NCAA enforcement apparatus and UT.

I always like the (everybody was doing it) defense.    I actually agree with that for the programs with that kind of money , but no one was doing it so stupidly and in your face as the ponies.  

As fas as SMU getting the amount of attention it does in sports, it is the Dallas Morning News.  With the continued demise of newspapers, this will become less a factor.  

There is obviously a strong continuing connection with the DMN and SMU that makes no sense.  They still cover the P5 more, but UNT much less despite the Mean Green having many more area fans.

SMU will remain a major player just because of money.   Conferences and teams are willing to take their money with a straight face, while  wondering how any team's management can be so desperate.  

 

[DentonStang]

15 minutes ago, GrandGreen said:

P5

 

P3

[GrayEagle]

I neglected to say it's not the DFW media pushing SMU it's the D media...as in Dallas Morning News.  There was a time when SMU was deserving of the publicity that they received.  Doak Walker, Kyle Rote, Forrest Gregg and Don Meredith were Hall of Famers who were worthy of their fame.  Scandals kept others from receiving rewards.  Still, the DMN kept pushing SMU.  It's the reason that SMU has received more publicity; third only to UT and A&M.

[untjim1995]

I don’t read newspapers anymore. But I do know that the sports talk guys and their DFW media guests from the newspapers and Tv stations all act like SMU deserves to be a power school because of their money and name recognition. 
 

Very annoying.

[dodgefan]

10 hours ago, DentonStang said:

P3

TCU, Tech and Baylor didn't want SMU in the Big 12 for obvious reasons, you guys have been beating them in some recruiting battles as a G5, there's no way they wanted ya'll to be on equal footing. It's ironic, they blackballed SMU from the Big 12 and you guys end up in the ACC, that's academically and sports wise superior. I know my friends from TCU and Baylor are pretty pissed off.

[DentonStang]

2 hours ago, dodgefan said:

TCU, Tech and Baylor didn't want SMU in the Big 12 for obvious reasons, you guys have been beating them in some recruiting battles as a G5, there's no way they wanted ya'll to be on equal footing. It's ironic, they blackballed SMU from the Big 12 and you guys end up in the ACC, that's academically and sports wise superior. I know my friends from TCU and Baylor are pretty pissed off.

And the next day TCU is embarrassed nationally by Deion, Baylor loses TxSt, Tech loses to Wyoming. 

It's been a good week in Ponyland.

[GreenEggs&Ham™]

While we are on the subject of past glory days, why does TAMU come up as one of the unquestioned powerhouse football stories in Texas? All 3 of TX A&M's national titles (1919, 1927, 1939) are contested. Yet these years all appear at Kyle Field. The 1919 Title is also claimed by tiny Centre College among a few other schools.

Yeah, TA&M is competitive some years and there are some nice folks in College Station. But their nothing special in college football history.