There are a couple of sports rumors floating around campus that students should know about that have nothing to do with a president or a library.
So how likely is it…
That head basketball coach Matt Doherty will take a job at another school after spending just one year with SMU?
Not very. Doherty spent most of the year acclimating himself to the SMU campus, the students and the faculty, all of whom have welcomed him.
Doherty has brought in a top recruiting class that could make a difference in the years to come.
The main talk has been about the South Florida job that would bring Doherty back to a top conference, the Big East. But that would be in a worse conference situation than the Mustangs are in right now with C-USA.
While the Mustangs and Bulls have matching 3-13 conference records, the Mustangs looked better in non-conference games and have a better future in the conference.
There is little that USF can do to compete with Georgetown (headed to the Final Four), Louisville, Pitt, Notre Dame…and the list goes on.
The Mustangs have a good chance of being able to catch up with Rice, which will lose top player Morris Almond, Tulsa and Southern Miss.
The other part of the rumor is that with Tubby Smith’s move from Kentucky to Minnesota, Doherty could get caught in a domino effect.
It’s not that Doherty would be off to Kentucky. But whichever coach takes the Kentucky job will leave an open spot on another school’s bench. It could get even more complicated, but we’ll just leave it at that for now.
But, as in any situation, there is always a chance.
If Doherty moves to South Florida, it would be a bigger conference and more money, but it would have to be a pretty sweet deal to get Doherty away from the Mustangs next season.
And if that isn’t enough, Doherty, in his online blog, said he wanted to coach a Final Four team…at SMU. And since that didn’t happen last season, don’t expect Doherty to go anywhere.
That the SMU football team will sport new uniforms next season?
Never bet against a new fashion trend at SMU. The Mustangs have sported quite a few different looks in the team’s history.
Going all the way back to the leather helmet days, SMU has shown uniform changes from helmet color to helmet design.
The team originally had a red helmet with white and blue stripes down the middle. Then there was a white helmet with player numbers on it, similar to what Alabama wears today. After that, the team switched to a red helmet with numbers.
Most of the 1960s saw a red helmet with a white mustang on its hind legs.This was the first appearance of the mustang on the helmet, which disappeared for a season. The mustang returned the next season in white on the red helmet, and this mustang design is the one we know today.
The ’80s is when the Mustangs got picky with their helmets, changing the colors and design nine times over 20 seasons.
The mustang has been red or blue on the white helmet with various stripes (or no stripes at all) down the middle. The introduction of the new blue helmet in 2003 sparked three changes in four years.
In 2003, the red mustang was not outlined. In 2004-05 the Mustang was outlined in silver, and this past season the mustang was outlined in white.
Sure, some of the changes have been minimal, but others have been a little bigger, moving from plain jerseys with the numbers and names to the more recent ones with trim and lines down the side.
So how realistic is it? With a new athletic director and a new head of marketing, don’t count it out. The best bet if there is a change is for some kind of retro look. It will probably change either to the blue jerseys and white helmets during the days of the Pony Express, or be a new take on a red helmet.