SMU

 Southern Methodist University is located in the tonyist part of Dallas. The homes surrounding the main campus all start in seven digits and many leak into ten. The fans do not just attend the game, they dress as if they will not have time to change for a formal affair just after the contest.  Shirts buttoned to the top collar and if you were a lady over 30, you were absolutely not showing a speck of ankle under your dress - and believe me you were in a dress. The majority of campus is quiet on game day, but one glorious tree lined main artery through campus is reserved for the beautiful people to gather. From one end of the University to the other is The Boulevard, and under the canopy of shade oaks are all the IT tailgates. The backbone of this $90k a year institute of elite learning is so wealthy that they begged to join the ACC and offered to not take any of the television proceeds for nine years. Nine! Cuz they already had raised that much money. Yup, but after spending a night with the other half, I can assure you that cash does not buy class. 

Now I know that not every school fanbase greets the away fans with overwhelming warmth. But, we walked the length of The Boulevard (about 3/4 of a mile) and not a discernible word was spoken to us. These fans looked at us like we were 1700's Irish dregs fresh on the plantation as indentured servants. The stadium experience is very similar to what many of you had in your living rooms. It was blissfully quiet as the only sound was when the PA announcer loudly requested that the fans raise their Poms to swish in unison. There are no cheers, no chants and no fight songs. The 112 member (yes I counted) band who not surprisingly refers to themselves as the Best Dressed Band in the Land has 29 different uniform varieties. We got two of the vest and bowtie combos and they played the Pony Battle Cry at halftime and no one - and I mean no one - joined in with so much as a hand clap. After a touchdown, two button down and khaki adorned men race a tiny pony across the turf and fans politely golf clap. Here is where it gets fun. All these polo accruements was a prelude to the student section repeatedly throwing beer cans, food and pizza boxes at our bench. This was not an isolated incident. It happened all game long and with such ferocity that the PA had to warn them multiple times that there might be a penalty. There was not, as the refs were way too busy taking out a holding vendetta against our RT.  When the game ended, hundreds of these previously quiet fans decided that they did indeed have a cheer, and it was the warchant that they did in every Seminoles face loudly as we left the stadium. Fans young and ancient all decided that they were going to get in our grills and show us how this cheer should sound. It was delightful. This has to end. We cannot be in the glorified Sun Belt with teams and schools like this. We have to get out and be with Our People. These wannabes make it easy to want to leave this conference, or at worst just play better football. Bring on the chaos of realignment!

Well, I delayed as long as I could, but I guess it is time to address the mess between the lines and the slight issues we have with coordination. Mike has a major problem and this is Taggart-esque. Let's start with special teams. Deuce takes a kickoff a yard deep and decides to run it out. On cue, he does not come close to the 25. Solution, bring him to the sideline and loudly remind him that in modern college ball, that is an automatic fair catch. Next kickoff - and we had plenty of at bats with this unit - he repeats the same and this time we add a penalty and start inside the 10.  Zero accountability. We fair caught a ball after a safety when the RB catching it has 25 yards of nobody in front of him. We essentially ended the game with a facemark on a fair catch punt return that gave them back the ball, and the kid was back on the field the next offensive play. Yes, our two kickers are amazeballs, but accountability is a real issue here even on special teams. 

This thematically takes me to Kyle Morlock who has spent much of the season playing squash as balls just rocket off his hands, and this time it ended up with the other team. The aforementioned RT had three holding calls, every one of which took away a first down. These guys need pine time, and somehow it does not happen. This is the crux of the offensive issue in my mind. But the head man is not close to innocent. What game action can possibly have taught him that the slow power qb dive was going to ever work inside the 5? It has not the three times we tried it before this year, but what the hey, let's do it twice more with the game on the line. LT was the lead blocker on one attempt. Maybe there was a smaller offensive player on the bench for this role, but I doubt it. The repeat attempt after a TO was even nuttier. By the time he got to the line, I think there were 10 dudes in blue all waiting for him. We have a better shot teaching calculus to a pre-K class than this call again. Coach, what are you seeing on Tuesday that leads you down this road on Saturday. 

I do not think that last years National Coach of the Year forgot how to coach in one offseason. But, you will recall that he does have a weakness that was on full display in 2021. He spent the offseason falling in love with his transfer qb in Milton who every idiot in the stands could immediately see did not have the goods anymore. That stubbornness went into overdrive this year and manifested itself not only with DJ but many returning offensive players. You could hear in his presser last night that he desperately wants younger players to show more in practice, but HE is not letting them play in the games. We hear that the true freshman Micahi Danzy has a long TD every day. Not one game rep. Freshman receivers Moore and McKoy are tearing it up in weekdays in Tallahassee.  Tossing towels on the bench. We have a five star breakout stud in Hykeem who is mossing guys in the endzone every Wednesday, and we threw at him one time, and never inside the 20. He is simply not evaluating accurately what happens Monday thru Thursday and translating that to the weekends, and then spends a half hour telling the media that practice is not showing up on Saturday. Mirror time Mike. DJU is over the top obvious, but it trickles everywhere, and this team finally quit on him last night. If he does not start getting mad and not just lost and disappointed, the players will join the fanbase and bail on him. 

The season, as he curated it, is over. 14 points a game with five games in is so atrocious that there has to be no options left but to shred the carefully manicured 2024 plans and play for the future. The worst fears are now a reality. Throwing the kids at the Tigers and Hurricanes. But it has to happen to finish this year with the kind of hope that can trigger an offseason. Losing with this sad group of upperclassmen to a lame duck UF coach over Thanksgiving is a program killer. 

The defensive situation was different but equally befuddling. It was obvious that we were much better on the line than SMU. We won first and second downs with stuffed runs on the regular early, but somehow a little white wr seemed to come off the sideline unguarded three times to wipe out third and forevers. How, with our famous two deep safety base can one guy be that open in the middle of the field? Did they have 13 guys on the field? A blown-up flea flicker so bumfuzzled our safeties that they were literally hypnotically frozen staring at each other when they realized a guy in blue just ran between them. The SMU qb played the night of his life, throwing multiple perfect deep balls right before getting planted, and Nicholson and Joseph were both in phase, just too young to turn around and play the ball on touchdowns. You can live with youth. Special teams gaffes, a pick six and two very short fields put the defense in terrible positions, but they did not exactly bow up either. But let's face it, once SMU scored three times, they knew the game was over. 

This was a last straw weekend for many fans. I personally have lots more straws on standby, but I get it. Again, the same guy that handles himself with class and represents FSU the way every one of us wants in a leader and continuously made all of us proud for three years did not just disappear. He is completely overwrought right now, and is probably waking up to the fact that he has a major internal evaluation problem. If the accountability starts at home, we have a chance. And that is a reminder for not just the coaches and players, but for all of us as well. As we fly home from this bastion of wealth and utter lack of class, remind yourselves Noles that it is easier to bitch and quit. But support and class is the right answer.