30 for 30 (TV Series) Pony Excess (2010) User Reviews

A Marvelous Way to End the Series

[Michael_Elliott · 12 December 2010]

30 for 30: Pony Excess (2010)

**** (out of 4)

The final entry in ESPN's 30 FOR 30 series takes us back to the early 80s when Southern Methodist University had the best record in college football. You might ask yourself how SMU could have the best record and that's because they were buying the best players in the country. After being caught twice and put on probation, the boosters continued to pay players and this led the NCAA to put a "death penalty" on them, which got rid of the football program for two years and nearly twenty-years later it's still not restored. Clocking in at just under two-hours there's no doubt that the series goes out on an incredibly high not as this documentary perfectly explains and tells you everything you'd want to know. It's funny that ESPN shows this one just shortly after Cam Newton won the Heisman considering all the stuff floating around about his father taking money. This documentary shows that paying players has been going on for a very long time and it reminds younger people that the trouble Reggie Bush got USC in isn't nearly as bad as what happened to SMU. We get interviews with their coaches, players and even a couple of the boosters who were paying people. The interesting aspect of the story is that there were two newspapers in Dallas and both of them were trying to out do the other, which led to some famous writers to try and track down and get a player to talk, which they eventually did. The shocking thing is that the Texas governor was even involved in the paying. Sports fans are going to recognize every writer that was working in Dallas at this time so that just makes this film even more special when you notice you had famous people playing, paying as well as writing about the situation. Director Matula does a marvelous job at showing the atmosphere of college football in Texas and they also make it quite clear that SMU wasn't the only school paying players. When you watch a film like this you can't help but feel that this has been going on for decades and it certainly hasn't stopped as college football is still worth a lot more money than it was in 1981. Fans of college football are going to love this documentary but it also gives a great message to anyone that there are lines that can't get crossed and even something as big as a football program can be taken away in the matter of seconds.

Interesting subject, but bad editing

[JurijFedorov · 6/10 · 17 January 2022]

As another reviewer pointed out already the editing is noisy. They have like 30 interviews they splice together. Often one guy mentions a name and then they cut to 4 other guys mentioning the name too. Especially at the start this pace is unrelenting. You really don't know what 30 for 30 will give you. At times the pace is extremely slow and boring like in the Vick episode. At other times they over-edit the hell out of the episode making it noisy. This is at least way more engaging and fun, but it's obnoxious.

The episode is about SMU university and how they paid college football players. As this is not allowed in their league they were kicked out for a year via a "death penalty" punishment. This happened short after they had 2 seasons as the best team in the country. Post that they tried to rebuild, but since they refused to even offer tickets to players no good player wanted to go there. So they rebuild with a team of short guys who were high school quality players. It took them 20 years of terrible football to finally get to a higher level right as this doc was made. Today they still seem to be going strong and have a good program.

Frankly not paying players for destroying their bodies is cruel. I support SMU and anyone else helping out poor kids needing some cash to get by. Some of them even had unemployed parents. It's disgusting that a player can give 100% and get injured for life and then not make a penny from having given his all when the university and system is making millions from him. It's a billion dollar industry where the people actually producing the product are not paid. Kinda mind-boggling. And they even punish players by shutting down programs that pay them and give them a free education. It's a very interesting story, but the format is below par. Still worth a watch for sure because this is very interesting.

Well made but too much....

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 20 February 2013]

"Pony Excess" is about the notorious rules violations committed by Southern Methodist University in the early 1980s. Many incentives (money, cars and more) were given to create the best team in college football--though they eventually got caught.

ESPN's "30 For 30" series is amazingly well made. I love the show even though I am not particularly a sports fan any more. It might sound odd, but I can appreciate the fine craftsmanship that has gone into making these films and the stories are generally very compelling. The episodes vary from about an hour to an hour and a half (give or take). "Pony Excess" is an example of a show that SHOULD have been a short episode but wasn't--clocking in at an hour and 46 minutes. Because of this, I found my interest waning after a while. Plus, I got really tired of hearing folks from SMU giving the 'everybody's doing it' excuse for the school's serious NCAA rules violations. It came off, to me, like a kid who is caught with his hand in a cookie jar and they tell their mother "I didn't do it"! Gimme a break. A decent but less than satisfying episode.

Didn't tell the whole story, and didn't consider the bigger picture

[jdurand-42175 · 3/10 · 7 July 2015]

Surprised to learn that this was the last of the 30-for-30 docs, since it did not feel especially polished.

The documentary was very "noisy" - a lot of short sound bites from various people, Skip Bayless and the like, the doc would cut away to someone else (saying the same basic thing) after every sentence. Jarring. The doc is nearly two hours long; you can do some long- form storytelling! It doesn't have to be ADD-compliant!

Didn't seem like the filmmakers uncovered anything new. They talked to a bunch of people who were involved in the scandals, or covered them at the time, and used a ton of old news footage. The scandal was old enough where I didn't really know much about it, but they didn't seem to be seeking any new information about what was going on that wasn't already in the public domain.

Related; it was implied that ALL the schools were involved in similar shenanigans; why not spend a little time looking into that? Talk to some people at Texas, or wherever. You know there were rumors about other schools; talk to some journalists who were looking into them, or see if you can find some disgruntled former players or boosters who might be willing to fill in some broader context.

The doc never asked or considered the most important question; what was so bad about what the school and the players were doing? You had kids whose families were in very tough financial circumstances; is it really problematic that they took a little money being offered to them? The NCAA is one of the most hypocritical organizations on the planet; they're right up there with FIFA. Now, you obviously should not have players getting paid under the table by boosters, but shouldn't the question at least be asked; is it appropriate for players at these schools to BE compensated in some form?

The filmmakers just seemed to implicitly assume that the NCAA's rules are unassailable, and that's just nonsense.

The documentary was "too small." It did not consider the broader questions - Texas football culture and WHY these boosters have so much power. Whether there are issues with the NCAA's rules. Really looking into how prevalent these types of payments were at other schools, in the conference and across the country. Considering why, decades later, guys like Reggie Bush were still getting paid. Has anything really changed?

Just too long

[jtukko · 5/10 · 20 May 2021]

Sometimes interesting but sometimes just too long and boring.