Friday, October 07, 2005

UAB Game

Man, I really don't even know what time the game is tomorrow. Is that bad? Lots of talk about SMU's season. I find it amusing that people can look at 1-4 and not be disappointed. The argument is that going into the season, we should not have expected any better. Indeed, we are ahead of the "worst case scenario" I laid out in August. We did beat TCU. We did know A&M would beat us like a drum.

But see, here is what we did not know:

We did not know SMUwould have a kick blocked in each of the first five games. And at least one other special teams miscue in every game as well.

We did not know SMU would have arguably the worst offense in the country.

We did not know SMU would play a team that's entire August would be wiped out and be practically homeless. And we didn't know the effort against Tulane would be so poor.

We did not know recruiting would be spiraling downward.

We did not know the defense would wear down in every game (except TCU). We did not know the defense would forget how to tackle.

You see, you can't just look at the record and say it is OK because we all tought SMU would be 1-4 or 0-5 anyway. You have to look at how this team is played. And if you do that, you have to be disappointed.

OK, I will say it. This team can still get three or four wins. Would four wins be an improvement? Yes. Would just three wins, including a victory over TCU save Bennett's job? Probably.

Maybe that is why UAB holds little interest to me. I am more interested in ECU and Rice, and to a lesser extent Houston and Tulsa. Both ECU and Rice are bad football teams. SMU could put together enough offense to beat them both. So, I am going to be watching ECU next week like a hawk. It is a far more important game in the grand scheme of things.

Oh, and I looked it up. UAB game starts at 6, 5PM on the radio or Mustang All Access. SMU beat TCU because of four turnovers and missed fieldgoals (forgot about those, didn't you). UAB has the best turnover ratio in the nation. UAB is gonna roll.

3 comments:

Chris Yount said...

Congrats on the win.

You need to keep predicting people are going to blow you out. It worked against TCU and now UAB... Couldn't hurt, right?

Congrats again, and good luck the rest of the season.

SMU Football Blog said...

Good win against Iowa State, btw. Even though it is belated, you guys deserve all the credit in the world for hanging with A&M. Though that loss is looking worse this week.

Chris Yount said...

Yeah, would have been really nice to pull that one out and be undefeated right now.

But, should we beat Nebraska, I like the Bears to be 6-1 going into the Homecoming game against Tech, with a chance at 8 wins. Who would have thought that was even a possibility?