SMU game review

I still can not put my finger on it but I just don't know what to say about the loss in Dallas last Saturday afternoon. Special teams again let us down on the road with the punt coverage team giving up some big plays. There is no way that the smu coaches taught their punt return man to pick up off the ground a punt that was inside the ten yard line but he did and made a big play. An amazing stat that I just found out was that last season in 2010 we gave up a total of 80 return yards - ALL SEASON! This year we give up a punt return for 92 yards and a touchdown. Overall it was not a complete game. I am not sure if the guys lost focus throughout the game or we just did not have a good game plan. At times the offense looked good moving the ball and at times the defense looked good at stopping the smu offense. Maybe the team is showing the effects of losing so many senior leaders and they just aren't always 100 percent sure of what to do and what is expected of them. That is not to say that the seniors who are currently on the team aren't doing their jobs its just that there is not that many of them with the right amount of experience.

I was rather surprised at the poor attendance of the game and would have thought that coming off a huge win against rival TCU and wanting to avenge the loss of the conference championship game would have been enough to fill up their stadium. Apparently that was not the case. From where I was sitting (in the comfort of my living room), there were a lot of empty seats at Gerald J. Ford stadium last Saturday. I'm sorry but that was downright pitiful to see that many empty seats at probably one of the most important games of the year for them. I was looking at the attendance figures for last year for NCAA football and their numbers are pretty embarrassing, especially for a team that represented their division in the CUSA championship game. Memphis which had a pretty bad year last year actually had slightly better attendance than smu. They better hope that gets better.