The coveted Iron Skillet will be played for again tomorrow in Fort Worth. SMU visits TCU in the annual rivalry with the winner taking home the most moronic trophy ever invented. Either way I believe there is value in the Mustangs getting a very generous 17.5 SMU was hammered in the opener by Navy. Now if this happened in midseason I would go ahead and deem SMU horrid. However in the first game under a new head coach bad things usually do happen, and they did, SMU was -5 in turnovers. I am a little concerned about the rushing numbers Navy put up in that contest but no way are they as bad as that final score showed. Last week they played Texas Tech at home and played respectable losing 24-14, and also missed an extra point, a field goal, and were stopped on 4th down on the Tech 1. Now I know Tech got whipped by Ohio State, but Tech is no slouch. The Tech team returns 16 starters from a team that put up big pass numbers against some good Big 12 defenses last year. On the other side we have an experienced TCU team that lost to Cincinatti in OT in the opener when they clearly had the game in hand and whipped a bad Northwestern team. Now while TCU was impressive in both games, they did benefitfrom a +2 turnover margin against Cinci and booked 185 return yards. And against Northwestern the were +6 in turnovers. I know the recent history of the series, and I realize that TCU is a better football team. However, previous SMU coach Mike Cavan was just not a good coach. I believe Phil Bennett will get alot more out of this SMU team and believe they are improving each game, and if they don't lose the turnover battle should keep this game easily within the number.
