Jasmine wrote: Wed Dec 11, 2024 7:38 pmI agree! Besides, I really doubt that he fully understands what he’s getting into. The college football landscape has radically changed with the transfer portal, NIL money, etc.
I like your nickname for him!
Speaking of NIL -
'Oh, s---, here come all the billionaires': How SMU came back from the dead
... The money -- NIL means Now It's Legal -- is flowing again in Dallas, and SMU is in a major conference, the ACC, cutting an unprecedented deal to forgo television revenue for nearly a decade as a devoted group of deep-pocketed boosters pledges to cover the shortfall, while also funding a leading NIL collective. The Ponies are back in the game.
I like that reinterpretation of the acronym.
... It was almost a badge of honor, like the adage says: If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'.
"Certainly, the culture embraced the arrogance," said Thaddeus Matula, an SMU alum and the director of "Pony Excess," the ESPN documentary about the SMU scandal. Students wore T-shirts that celebrated: "Ponies. Polos. Porsches. Probation. Nowhere but SMU."
Now, the cash corruption is out in the open. Is that better?
... So, when last year's chaotic wave of realignment opened a door, SMU was ready to kick it down. The enthusiasm galvanized an SMU faithful convinced they had been blocked by other schools that saw the Mustangs as a threat if they had equal standing again. And that might be true: SMU raised a record $159 million during the 2023-24 fiscal year for athletics, including $100 million in just five days after the Sept. 1 announcement that SMU had landed an ACC spot.
"Is it endless in terms of what our donors can do? I wouldn't say that," Miller said. "But I'd say to you that there is a mountain of excitement and enthusiasm that we're back."
Those record-breaking donations didn't just come from a few wealthy wildcatters. There were four donations of eight figures, 35 of seven figures and 82 of six figures.
A lot like our post
Citizens United politics.
"There are some oilmen in the mix that absolutely helped lead the charge," Miller said. "But it took more than oilmen."
Still, there are lots of oilmen. In 2022, boosters launched the Boulevard Collective, formed by Chris Kleinert, CEO of Hunt Realty Investments and the son-in-law of famed oilman R.L. Hunt (net worth: $7.2 billion, according to Forbes) who is also one of the boosters who helped with the ACC move, and Kyle Miller, son of David Miller and the president and CEO of Silver Hill Energy Partners.
Oil, of course. This could have been a
Dallas subplot.
By that fall, the Boulevard Collective signed every football and basketball player to standard NIL deals of $36,000 annually, according to On3. The Ponies have the payroll working again, and this time it's all aboveboard.
I wondered what would happen with less commercially marketable athletes. Now we know.
... Last season, Lashlee led the Mustangs to an 11-3 finish and an AAC title, their first conference championship since 1984.
They lost the Wasabi Fenway Bowl vs Boston College 23-14.
When the ACC announcement came, Miller proclaimed to ESPN that day that "the beast is about to emerge," while Lashlee remarked that SMU was the only school in Dallas-Fort Worth in a top-three conference, a not-so-subtle shot across the Metroplex at TCU, which calls itself "DFW's only Big 12 school." After years of envy, SMU alums are ready to be equals, aghast that they had to watch their former peers play big-time football.
"Everybody kept talking about TCU. It's just TCU," Lance McIlhenny, Dickerson's old Pony Express quarterback, told ESPN in 2019. "They're nothing special other than they've had deep pockets for 15 years. I want to win a bunch of games and play a team like Baylor in whatever setting and put a shellackin' on 'em."...
I do like it when TCU and Baylor get embarrassed.
SMU beat TCU 66-42!, finished 11-2, 8-0 in the ACC regular season, barely lost to the Pussies from SC in the ACC championship 31-34, and got an 11 seed in the CFP ahead of the 12 Pussies. They play @6 PSU
, also 11-2 (-8.5), on Saturday. I'm neutral. I dislike both teams, go football. Money matters.
Tonight 9:00 PM ESPN
LA Bowl, Inglewood, CA
California 6-6 vs 24 UNLV 10-3 (-3.5)
UNLV lost the Mountain West championship vs 3 Boise State 7-21. I like both teams, go football.
. . . to chicks with bellies. 
You screw up even when I hand you the correct grammar on a silver platter. Typical Clemson literacy.
Serial idiocy, loses track easily, endless repetition, forgetfulness and irrelevant posts, infantile self-portraits - seems 1 FAT CAN is now as demented as his idol, DonOLD.
. MD is (37) and SDSU is 23, while Duke is 4 and WDE is 2.
) > 8 Idaho 10-3
, now 38-10 
x 1356!