The third category of life sits between patience and diversity. More than luck, more than anything else, there lies undiscovered joy to drive humanity forward. Nobody ever gets a chance to notice this until the fuse dies out and night strolls in.

This is not about the Gordie Foundation or “Heaven and Hell.” This concerns the massive malignant tumor of Ford Stadium engorged with endowment money, swelling rapidly like a cyst. Something needs medical attention and it’s not track, swimming, rowing or soccer. This concerns a matter of life and death. This concerns the slow and awkward tale of the 2007 SMU Mustang Football Powderpuff Hugs and Kisses association.

Tulane came to town and stomped the Mustangs yet again. The administration should fire Bennett or at least get its Katrina check back after that little display of bad manners. The teams were evenly matched and our head coach came out complaining about lousy tackling.

The Mustang defense does not hit like a pillow because they fear contact. The ‘Stangs fall short due to a lack of inspiration. How can you follow a leader who comes from nothing but a string of failures yet still refuses to acknowledge his own incompetence? Some of the kids on the bench have sat there for five years. 2005 might have been a building year, maybe it was 2006, but that doesn’t change the fact that 2007 has been, thus far, a tremendous disappointment.

Bennett should not be fired. Instead, someone should take a memo to his office, a polite request that he step down or at least announce a plan to not return next season. The seniors on the team now were high school juniors or seniors when he first took over. In short, he’s had a massive budget, endless forgiveness and too much time to raise a stable of champions. He has, instead, razed the house that Doak built.

So 100 percent of our players graduate. Does that mean every man on the field deserves the degree? Maybe the reason none of them fail is because the team is desperate.

Go to Ford Stadium and go to the first door on your left. There’s a museum of sports memorabilia from SMU’s past. Everything from Dickerson to Sword awaits the curious. Is it fair to keep Bennett’s office within a country mile of Number 37’s helmet?

I Google-searched my name a while back to see how cool I was. I found a forum full of SMU alumni who basically aren’t famous enough for people to care about so they spend their time raging about some guy from D Magazine and, for some reason, little harmless me.

The Pony Up campaign rhymes with ‘Iraqi Quagmire.’ The logo makes little attempt to appeal to the emotions. No drama.

We need a new campaign, new images and new ideas. No more lame ‘Oh, look, a talking helmet’ billboards. The talking helmet smacks of forced cuteness and sugar-sweetened sweat beads as they roll down the magic dragon’s forehead. This is football, the game of violent man to man combat, armored gladiators smashing into each other.

Linemen kick and stomp, throwing uppercuts, swearing, shoving and twisting at the enemy. If a helmet could talk, it would speak in a gunshot. None of this quote-bubble, bedtime-story garbage.

The motto needs drama, something with a “Goal Line or Glue Factory” feel to it that reflects the nature of the sport and the desperation of our team to finally meet our challenges. SMU thirsts for the blood of victory to dribble down its chin until the fountains run red. The Mustangs need to transmute from Sapphic Diomedian Mares into a football team.

So how does that happen? First of all, we need to lose the cheerleaders. We need to kick out the band. We need to play one game in complete silence so the team can meditate. Music will inevitably lift the sprit. A losing team does not deserve that. The fans of a losing team do not deserve that. Unless the band consists of Slash, Sammy Hagar, Dweezil Zappa and Frank Sinatra, there is no reason for a bunch of nerds in silly hats to outshine the team without which they are, after all, completely extraneous anyway.

Negativity starches the spirit. If you plan for the worst you will never be disappointed, so lets look forward to a losing weekend. The Mustangs are a hopeless wreck of good steroids and bad tactics. Peruna has killed more mascots than our team has won games. In layman’s terms, Death itself has a better record than the Mustangs.

The Rice Owls, a herd of geeks from Houston, home of the Texans, is coming over to our house tomorrow night to raid our fridge and drive our cars. Ford stadium cranks up the Saturday night lights so the whole rotten city of Dallas can revel in our defeat.

I do not think our coach has it in him to make tough decisions. Full-intensity tackles, a ridiculous, if not productive, threat, reneged at the last minute means our defense has had no real physical performance changes since the Tulane Debacle.

Joe Torres-Yankees like the guy. They want him to stay. That’s why they lost. Think of every relationship with another human being where you wanted things to work so you tried your best to do that. The Yankees played to save Torres; they stopped playing baseball and they lost.

That’s the word on the street. Nobody watches the soccer team; women’s sports will always ride shotgun and this is Texas. Football rules until Armageddon. So, while the team may fight to hold on to a fast-withering dream of excellence, maybe the time has come to let go, move forward and finally show the fans of SMU football what we really have to be proud of.

Questions? Comments? Austin Rucker is a senior English major and can be reached for comment at [email protected].