FB: Duke 27, #22 SMU 28 (OT)

Perhaps stretching the definition of legend a mite with Goldsmith. But I'm glad the 94 team is getting a 30 year celebration.

I haven't done much digging into the stats, but SMU is good. Easily the best team we have played. They typically don't recruit at a power 5 level, but they have done a nice job in the portal. I'm not sure I see a weakness at first glance. The biggest mismatch may be our anemic running game against their run defense, which has allowed just 87 ypg. Still, I doubt their DL is as talented as FSU's. The good news is that their pass defense is middling, and allowed over 400 against TCU. Offensively, they are good and have shown nice balance, especially since making a change at QB.

Candidly, I think our offense needs to take a major step forward for us to win this one. If there are openings in the passing game, we need to take advantage and hit them for big plays.

The last thing to consider is the familiarity factor. Rhett Lashlee is one of the hot young coaches in CFB, and he owes a lot to Manny for giving him the OC job at Miami. Lashlee then took the SMU HC job, and now Manny has plucked his OC Jonathan Brewer. I can't imagine there will be many surprises on Saturday. For what it's worth, Manny has beaten his former employer (MTSU), his former boss (Mack), and his alma mater (FSU). Can he beat his former employee?
 
HoKogan said:
Unless they act like classless wankers Saturday night, I'd totally root for SMOOOO to beat either Miami or Clemson in the title game. And if I had to pick between the next 2 games on which I rather Duke play spoiler for, its Miami 1000%. The Manny revenge tour cannot be denied.
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With apologies to Mr Coleman's girlfriend, "can't we have both?"
 
Dr. Maturin said:
Candidly, I think our offense needs to take a major step forward for us to win this one. If there are openings in the passing game, we need to take advantage and hit them for big plays.
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I agree the offense needs to show marked improvement this week and I believe it is possible.

Easy to be discouraged after only posting 180 yards of Total Offense against FSU but we went conservative after jumping out to the 17-3 lead for a couple reasons. One, horrible field position due to the FSU punter pinning us deep and, two, FSU’s defensive line was hard to block. Coach Diaz addressed this in his post game comments.

Jordan Moore should be available to play more snaps this week and hopefully SMU’s defensive line will be less of a factor. I don’t know anything about SMU’s defensive line so when I say “hopefully” I mean it. The offense has to be productive on 1st down to get ahead of the chains. Easy to say, harder to do.

We saw a couple wrinkles against FSU with Belin and Murphy in the game simultaneously on the flea flicker pass plus we lined up with two running backs multiple times. Que’Sean Brown was the second RB. I’d welcome additional wrinkles Saturday perhaps an end around or jet sweep to jump start the running game.

It is our eighth game so we’re getting to the point where what you see is what you get but I remain cautiously optimistic the offense will be able to sustain drives and score points.
 
johnb said:
I just wanted to emphasize how big this game is to SMU.

The rich donors wanted into the ACC for a variety of reasons, but one fundamental motivation was to be more like Duke, their midsize Methodist competition. To do that, they have been carefully investing in academics since hiring Ken Pye from Duke in 1987 to clean up after the death penalty.

These donors would prefer that academic greatness not come with the usual baggage (weird people, liberal ideas), but they do want the greatness.

They hate that SMU has gotten stuck playing regional schools like Tulsa, Louisiana Tech, and Memphis, while their local competition gets on Sportscenter. They know they can’t really compete with Texas or A&M (2 of the richest and biggest schools in the country), but it’s painful to watch TCU and Baylor get on the national stage, especially since those are schools that have systematically kept SMU out of a major conference for 40 years. Plus, SMU got the death penalty when these same schools pulled the same shenanigans, with SMU just being the one who got caught.

More than most similar folks elsewhere, these rich donors intensely want SMU (and Dallas) to be world class. They tend to live in Dallas, send their kids to SMU, and have gotten rich from Dallas industries like oil, investment banking, and tech. These elite donors also work in overlapping industries—what we see as an act of rich-guy fandom, many of them might see a million dollar donation as just one of the ways to strategically develop productive business connections with guys they’ve grown up with and with whom they often do deals. These donors breathe Dallas in a way that rich Duke alumni donors don’t breath the Durham/Duke cultural and business communities.

Obviously, one twist to their aspiration: if SMU becomes a Duke in 20 years, their grandchildren will probably get rejected in favor of some left-wing weirdo from out of state. But that’s their problem for tomorrow.

The donors aren’t going to be on the field, of course, but that sort of aspiration with a side order of resentment may supply more of an focused edge than we might anticipate when playing a team we’ve only played twice.

My SMU friends (not megadonors but fans) circled this Saturday on their calendars as soon as the schedule was released.

All that is to say that SMU REALLY wants to beat a school (Duke) that is very much what SMU is aiming to become. Though I’d add that many would say that this whole ACC investment is not necessarily about beating a Duke but about being casually mentioned in the same breath as great universities like Stanford, Berkeley, UNC, Georgia Tech, and UVa. Regardless of how this game goes, SMU’s leadership is going to see this very big Saturday as a win for the institution.
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Like has been said in the other thread, just a massive inferiority complex on the part of the entire university (outside of the players on the field, who couldn’t care less)

Honestly, the SMU mentality of buying their way into everything makes me want to harken back to the older fan days where we did petty things to get under people’s skin. Someone should hold up a sign that says either says “#91” or “61%” and just see what happens
 
I watched highlights from a few of SMU's games. Suffice to say their offense doesn't look much like what Brewer brought to Duke. They definitely have more variety on offense. Most importantly, they have far more dynamism at QB. Their guy has a strong arm and can run, and is really good at throwing on the run. He scares me.

Defensively there's more to like. They are aggressive and like leaving their DBs in single coverage. They remind me a bit of a Jim Knowles defenses, creating a lot of havoc but also giving up some big plays. I think the deep shots Maalik loves will be there. Can he hit them? Alternatively, some teams have scouted our OL and said, "we can change what we do and just stop the run with a light box." Manny has said multiple times this year teams have surprised us in that way, so hopefully we'll be ready. If that happens, we have to find a way to run the ball. I do think the jet sweeps to Queso Brown are a good idea, as I don't think SMU has overwhelming speed on defense.
 
SMU is really different from Duke academically. About 40 percent of undergraduates are in what I would group together as "business majors" not offered to undergrads at Duke -- or at Rice, where I went to grad school, and with which SMU would like to compete academically.

John B. is a god poster and I am sure his use of the term weirdos was not based on evil intent.
 
johnb said:
I just wanted to emphasize how big this game is to SMU.

The rich donors wanted into the ACC for a variety of reasons, but one fundamental motivation was to be more like Duke, their midsize Methodist competition. To do that, they have been carefully investing in academics since hiring Ken Pye from Duke in 1987 to clean up after the death penalty.

These donors would prefer that academic greatness not come with the usual baggage (weird people, liberal ideas), but they do want the greatness.

They hate that SMU has gotten stuck playing regional schools like Tulsa, Louisiana Tech, and Memphis, while their local competition gets on Sportscenter. They know they can’t really compete with Texas or A&M (2 of the richest and biggest schools in the country), but it’s painful to watch TCU and Baylor get on the national stage, especially since those are schools that have systematically kept SMU out of a major conference for 40 years. Plus, SMU got the death penalty when these same schools pulled the same shenanigans, with SMU just being the one who got caught.

More than most similar folks elsewhere, these rich donors intensely want SMU (and Dallas) to be world class. They tend to live in Dallas, send their kids to SMU, and have gotten rich from Dallas industries like oil, investment banking, and tech. These elite donors also work in overlapping industries—what we see as an act of rich-guy fandom, many of them might see a million dollar donation as just one of the ways to strategically develop productive business connections with guys they’ve grown up with and with whom they often do deals. These donors breathe Dallas in a way that rich Duke alumni donors don’t breath the Durham/Duke cultural and business communities.

Obviously, one twist to their aspiration: if SMU becomes a Duke in 20 years, their grandchildren will probably get rejected in favor of some left-wing weirdo from out of state. But that’s their problem for tomorrow.

The donors aren’t going to be on the field, of course, but that sort of aspiration with a side order of resentment may supply more of an focused edge than we might anticipate when playing a team we’ve only played twice.

My SMU friends (not megadonors but fans) circled this Saturday on their calendars as soon as the schedule was released.

All that is to say that SMU REALLY wants to beat a school (Duke) that is very much what SMU is aiming to become. Though I’d add that many would say that this whole ACC investment is not necessarily about beating a Duke but about being casually mentioned in the same breath as great universities like Stanford, Berkeley, UNC, Georgia Tech, and UVa. Regardless of how this game goes, SMU’s leadership is going to see this very big Saturday as a win for the institution.
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A small quibble - SMU got the death penalty for repeat offenses, even after being caught and warned. TCU was also caught once (even before SMU, I believe) and was spanked very soundly, but I'm not aware of any foolishness since then. (As a TCU alum, I wanted to set the record straight that the Frogs only cheated once, not repeatedly like the hated SMOOOers.)
 
sagegrouse said:
SMU is really different from Duke academically. About 40 percent of undergraduates are in what I would group together as "business majors" not offered to undergrads at Duke -- or at Rice, where I went to grad school, and with which SMU would like to compete academically.

John B. is a god poster and I am sure his use of the term weirdos was not based on evil intent.
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A God poster! Wow, that's high praise. :)
 
Dr. Maturin said:
I watched highlights from a few of SMU's games. Suffice to say their offense doesn't look much like what Brewer brought to Duke. They definitely have more variety on offense. Most importantly, they have far more dynamism at QB. Their guy has a strong arm and can run, and is really good at throwing on the run. He scares me.

Defensively there's more to like. They are aggressive and like leaving their DBs in single coverage. They remind me a bit of a Jim Knowles defenses, creating a lot of havoc but also giving up some big plays. I think the deep shots Maalik loves will be there. Can he hit them? Alternatively, some teams have scouted our OL and said, "we can change what we do and just stop the run with a light box." Manny has said multiple times this year teams have surprised us in that way, so hopefully we'll be ready. If that happens, we have to find a way to run the ball. I do think the jet sweeps to Queso Brown are a good idea, as I don't think SMU has overwhelming speed on defense.
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Doctor, I appreciate your astute analyses. FYI, your SMU counterpart is here:

 
patentgeek said:
A small quibble - SMU got the death penalty for repeat offenses, even after being caught and warned. TCU was also caught once (even before SMU, I believe) and was spanked very soundly, but I'm not aware of any foolishness since then. (As a TCU alum, I wanted to set the record straight that the Frogs only cheated once, not repeatedly like the hated SMOOOers.)
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TCU cheated every bit as much, as did every SWC school not named Rice. But as of now I’m very glad SMU and Duke are in the conference they’re in, and TCU isn’t.
 
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