Southern Methodist 10/22 12:00 ESPN

[Pharmfam]

Terrible lack of discipline. Pathetic.

[longtimefan]

The worst defensive stand with the game on the line that I have ever seen. I’m disgusted, even though they still have the lead. Wind at their back, SMU can make a 60+ FG. Offense has to move the ball.

[longtimefan]

The same running play again, 2nd and 9.
Same play. 3rd and 8.
Tight End screen, first down. Whew!

[longtimefan]

I like Coach Fickell, but even with the win, he cannot continue to allow this team to commit so many stupid penalties. It is disgusting to watch. You rip a guy’s helmet off 5 yards out of bounds, with the game on the line, and that wasn’t even the dumbest penalty of the day.

[London 'Cat]

I am predicting a loss next week at UCF. The Knights will make UC pay for the continuing penalties. Take UCF to win no matter the spread. I say the ‘Cats will lose by two touchdowns.

[longtimefan]

I am predicting a loss next week at UCF. The Knights will make UC pay for the continuing penalties. Take UCF to win no matter the spread. I say the ‘Cats will lose by two touchdowns.

Wish I could disagree. They’re escaping this year, instead of dominating. I’m not sure Ben Bryant is consistent enough through a whole game. Coaching has to be better, focus has to be better. That said, they can beat UCF if they play mistake free football for the entire game, but they haven’t done that in a single game this season.

[Bearcat Chris]

Despite lots of ref calls that were questionable, I thought the UC play calling was absolutely horrible. If UC plays like this next week, they will lose by 18 to UCF, and will have a battle against Tulane at the end of the season. My prediction is UC ends up in the Pinstripe Bowl against James Madison University, or Maryland, unless a quick reorganization happens.

B.C.

[bearcatbret]

During SMU's last touchdown drive, there was a pass interference call that should have been an interception. Was it a bad call or was it an interception? But 40 yards of penalties on that last SMU TD drive is unacceptable. Not sure on the final count but it was something like 13 penalties for 130 yards. It was tough listening to the game. One good thing about listening to the homeboys, is that they can explain some things that the TV announcers do not even look into. It has been said earlier, teams are going to watch the Tulane game and now the SMU game and figure out how to rattle the Bearcats into making stupid mistakes and personal penalties. The coaching staff has to instill some discipline into the guys for the after the play fouls.

Not to mention that the special teams bailed out the team today. Record setting put and record number field goals made. It would have been a blow out if the team could have gotten the ball into the endzone though.

[Bearcat93]

Inconsistent QB play & simply junior offensive play calling have taken away a bit of my enthusiasm for this season. There’s way too much talent to be barely beating inferior teams like we are. We are a silly loss away from losing a NY6
bowl appearance due to coaching - the penalties are mind boggling at this point. For the sake of this season-and preparing for next-give Prater 10-15 plays a game to open up this team to greater potential.

[Oldtimer_UC_fan]

Inconsistent QB play & simply junior offensive play calling have taken away a bit of my enthusiasm for this season. There’s way too much talent to be barely beating inferior teams like we are. We are a silly loss away from losing a NY6
bowl appearance due to coaching - the penalties are mind boggling at this point. For the sake of this season-and preparing for next-give Prater 10-15 plays a game to open up this team to greater potential.

You might as well get behind Bryant because Prater is not going to get meaningful snaps barring injury. We do not play with intelligence at all. Stupid penalties with no thought given to game situations. Are the coaches even reminding them?

[Carin's Dad]

I think it's safe to say that Tulane jumps us in the polls. Just how many eye-test failures have we seen in the last 2 seasons?

[Greg7173]

I'm very concerned with the performance of the offense. Poor play calling and very inconsistent execution. On the defensive side
undisciplined play leading to stupid penalties undermines otherwise good play. At this point in the season, do we deserve a top 20 ranking and ny6 bowl bid?

[Lobot]

Ok, I’m home from SMU and very sunburned.

We absolutely have to clean up the 4th Qtr penalties. Aggressive and stupid are two different things. A couple of the calls were very questionable. The hands to the face call was complete BS. Our guy was being held by two SMU players on that play. The Interception that got negated by pass interference was very iffy live. Does any have a count of how 15 yarders we had in that game because it was a lot.

The 4th down call in the 1st half was a bone headed move. You can’t try a long field goal going that direction because the wind was gusting from that end of the stadium. Take a penalty and punt.

Speaking of Field Goals, Ryan Coe set a record with 5. I think only one of them was into the wind.

Nice to see the TEs get some work. Need to do more of that going forward.

Seems like most of the games we’ve played down here have more challenging than they should have been. SMU is a come from behind team. TCU jumped out to a big lead on them and they made it close in that one as well.

I’ll definitely take the W though. We probably should have lost that one.

[Lobot]

Almost forgot. Fletcher’s 1st quarter punt looked it went 95 yards for a net 75 after the touchback.

update: official distance was 85 yards. Longest punt in the country this season. Team and conference record

[bearcatbret]

To keep in mind, Jim Kelly said before the Ryan Coe blocked field goal, remember before the attempt, Kelly said that he was worried because of the wind, it was more like a 55 yard attempt and that because of the wind, Coe would have to keep it low to negate the wind and thus susceptible to being blocked. Then it was blocked. Also, Kelly said after Scott caught the onside kick, that it was a great play because Scott knew that he was going to get crushed (Kelly stated that he was on the hands team and an onside kick is always the most mental catch). The Cats should have won by 17 but because of the stupid penalties AND dropped passes which were on the receivers and not Ben. The defense mostly overcame their penalties but for the offense which often started with a 5-yard penalty because of false starts (created by the movement of the defensive line) could not overcome the penalties. Both Dan and Jim said that the wind between 20-30 mph affected the passing both with and against the wind for both teams. Look how much lower UC's defense gave up in the passing game versus SMU's average. The goal today was to control the clock. We had a lot of rushing yards but they were all on a few plays. We really never established the line of scrimmage because most of the runs were 1-3 yards. I think that SMU's game plan was to stop the run and force UC to throw. Their game plan almost worked. Also, as stated earlier, they learned from game tapes that UC could be coaxed into stupid penalties. Give credit to SMU's execution. It will get harder from here out. We had better be prepared for UCF. I am worried that the officiating from here on out will assume UC will play dirty and undisciplined and will call penalties that are really not penalties.