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Actually, Jim Oakes told me personally that it was nothing more than SMU's attempt to schedule a "WIN". According to Jim, SMU was happy to drop LA Tech from its football schedule simply because they couldn't compete with us.Originally Posted by TYLERTECHSAS
HD
That's what I figured. Why would they schedule us? They've been pounded the last two years and we wouldn't be able to benefit them financially. It's still flattering that there is still at least 1 team in the NCAA who thinks they can't compete with us.
Time is your friend. Impulse is your enemy. -John Bogle
damn skippy! that game last year was like a home game for the Dallas LaTech fans. woohoo! this year North Texas becomes the new biznitch! no offense NT d00ds, just talkin' some smack
It was a long time ago - early to mid-80's I think. They were caught several times with recruiting violations, paying players, etc. Nothing more than several BCS teams have done recently. :icon_wink SMU just happened to be "expendable" and a poster child for the NCAA.
Go Tech!
Plus, they were not an SEC team.
An SEC team could have s**t on the NCAA president's desk and he would have asked them to forgive him for not wiping their ass.
I don't think many of us in the Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas area thought the SEC was any better than the SWC at the time the penalty was levied against the Ponies.
But SMU was obviously a scapegoat example rather than the world's worse offender.
Dittos, Aub.
SEC & SWC 'bout same prior to BCS activity initiated by SEC's Kramer.
Louisiana Tech University
Flagship of the University of Louisiana System
No one else was dumb enough to get caught paying players while on probation with the knowledge of school officials. Everyone else had enough sense to go low-key after an NCAA visit instead of escalating the cheating to beat the sting of the penalties.
I'd have to agree. From what I've read about what happened, it was SMU's 3rd highest-level offense and 2nd probation violation that got them the death penalty. They also were not very cooperative with the NCAA and tried to cover it up, which just teed them off more.
If the lead NCAA investigator from the late 1990s is to be believed, Alabama was very close to getting it as well. He (and I can't think of his name, I'll have to look it up) was the one who was quoted as saying, "But for the complete and unequivocal cooperation of the university in our investigation, they would be facing the death penalty."
The NCAA really, really does not want to have to use the death penalty ever again though. Look at what happened to SMU football; they have never recovered from that. Over 15 years have passed, and their football program is still a complete train wreck.
Also, they were not the only athletic program to ever receive the death penalty. According to the Cajun Delphi board, the UL-Lafayette (then USL) basketball team got the death penalty back in 1974. I didn't get the wholy story as to why though, so I can't tell you the reasons.
Here's the Bottom Line:
SMU, as the NCAA's most highly visible PRIVATE school at the time, was the NCAA's most logical choice to make an "example" of. The NCAA wanted to take a stand, but didn't want to take a chance screwing with a "state" school (e.g., Alabama, Oklahoma, etc..) simply out of fear from a countersuit. Futhermore, SMU football was very visible in 1984, as it had finished #2 in the national polls featuring the "Pony Express" tandem of Eric Dickerson and Craig James.
When you take on a "state" school, you're taking on a potentially very worthy opponent with DEEP pockets backed with allot of PUBLIC taxpayer support. The NCAA didn't want to go there. SMU may have had deep pockets, but there's no way the "state of Texas" government was going to come to the aid of SMU. And that's why SMU was chosen instead of Oklahoma. Sad but true.
HD
Yeah, during the Barry Switzer years at OU, the joke was that many players took a pay cut when they went into the NFL. :icon_wink
Go Tech!
Regarding Smu... read this page from ESPN... Biggest lies in sports.
#1 Pete Rose: "I did not bet on baseball".
#2 Steinbreiner "I'll stick to building ships"
#3 Avery Brundage: " The Nazis don't descriminate."
#4 Bill Clements, Texas Governor and SMU supporter/alum: "We are cleaning up the program"... it got worse.
#5 Almonte father: "He is only 12."
The rest of the list below.
http://sports.espn.go.com/page2/s/list/lies.html
I don't doubt OU wasn't all the clean under Switzer but SMU was very deserving and continued to cheat even when caught....and that is a lot of bull that it was because it was private school. It has been the only college to get the death penalty in football.
The fact still remains that SMU was CHOSEN over all other public schools --including Oklahoma-- that COULD have been chosen. Nobody disputes SMU was guilty of continuing to cheat. But so was Oklahoma. And Alabama. And Houston. And on, and on, and on.
The bottom line is that SMU was "easy pickins". The fact that the Mustangs were really guilty only made the NCAA's decision more acceptable.
HD
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