Don’t be so hard on our pastel, multi-shirted , popped collar friends from up North .
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That’s right…just beat the crap out of them.
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Seems we are not the only ones in this league to pull in highly touted transfers. Let’s see which ones work out
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Life in the American Athletic Conference comes first. The Mustangs just missed being a bowl team last year, losing their final game to Tulsa to finish at 5-7 which Dykes thinks might be a blessing for the 2019 squad.
"What happens these days is you get rewarded for mediocrity. And we were mediocre at best last season,‘’ Dykes said. "We would like to have had those extra practices for the bowl game but right now it’s probably good that we didn’t get that reward. Our sights are set a lot higher than going 6-6.‘’
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SMU made a three-pronged pitch to Buechele: He would have a good chance to start in an offense that fit his skills, he could pursue an MBA at a good business school and he would be close to his family in Arlington.
“They’re running that air raid stuff he ran at Cal. That’s very similar to what Shane did in high school,” says Damon Evans, one of Buechele’s high school coaches. “His learning curve is going to be very small, because he has experience with that stuff.”
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Buechelle (sp?) is their spark plug. And I hope they are undefeated when we smoke them…
I’m not buying any stock in SMU yet. So far the only somewhat decent win they have is against a North Texas team that has one win against an FCS team. Let’s see how the Ponies do this weekend against TCU.
Also…they haven’t had a 3-0 start since 1984?!? Goodness!
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They often schedule TCU, Baylor (while they were good) and others in their OOC. So they usually get blown out in one of their first three games.
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Saturday’s American Athletic Conference opener against SMU should more accurately indicate whether the Bell system — which totaled one touchdown against Wisconsin and Georgia Tech in the first two games — is starting to click among the Bulls.
If it’s not, how much longer will it take?
History says that varies.
“The big thing about this system is, there’s just so much to think about,” said Bell, whose team averaged only 3.7 yards a play and went a combined 7-for-29 on third down in losses to the Badgers and Yellow Jackets.
SMU’s starting quarterback is a transfer (Buechele). So is its leading receiver (Roberson) and its top tight end (Kylen Granson from Rice). So is its leading tackler (Patrick Nelson from Illinois), a starting defensive tackle (Zach Abercrumbia from Rice) and a starting cornerback (Brandon Stephens from UCLA). So is its starting kicker (Luke Hogan from West Virginia), kickoff specialist (Russell Roberts from Middle Tennessee) and kick returner (CJ Sanders from Notre Dame).
“It’s been a really good thing for us,” Dykes said. “We had good players when we got here, but we’ve been able to build depth and do some things we’ve never been able to do.”
Dykes loved the potential of the SMU job in part because of its proximity to local high school talent, and the high school recruiting has gone well — his first full class last year was No. 3 in the AAC and No. 68 nationally, according to 247Sports’ Composite Rankings. Dykes, the son of longtime Texas Tech head coach Spike Dykes, knows the state like the back of his hand.
What Dykes didn’t expect was he’d be inundated with Power 5 transfers, most of them looking to come home to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
“I figured there would be three, four a year,” he said.
This past offseason, SMU brought in 16 transfers, according to 247Sports’ transfer database. That’s at least four more than anyone else. The year before, the Mustangs’ six graduate transfer additions were the most in the country.
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