Who Are these guys?

[SMUguy]

Look, once and for all, stop getting so worked up over how many stars or points a kid gets from a recruiting service. The guys who do those services, like Recruiting Guru, have a large amount of knowledge, and they put in endless amounts of time watching games (on person or on tape), talking to players, talking to coaches, etc. But they are not coaches! Those services are a good guideline to look at, but until the guys get out on the field and make tackles, catch passes, block pass rushers, etc., the rankings mean NADA. For every guy who "should be a star," there's also a Chris Bordano, a Keylon Kincade, etc. -- guys who were virtually ignored by the recruiting "experts" yet went on to have very productive college careers.

[Stallion]

yeah and Chris Bordano, Ramon Flannigan, Bill Kiely and Keylon Kincade played on teams made up predominately of these same kind of sleepers. How many bowl games they play in? How many conference tittle rings do they wear and how many winning teams they play on. You can't point to 1-2 sleepers out of a class of 25 and say see recruiting doesn't matter.

[Eddie P]

Cowboy Pony-

We can all read...just responding to your obvious fascination with high school coaches over proven assistant coaches, even if they haven't "elevated" themselves to a "major" program, whatever the hell that means.

"I will continue in my belief that Dodge would have been a spectacular hire." Do your kids go to Southlake and did your dad go to UT at Austin?

[cowboypony]

NO Eddie P, I don't have a fascination with high school coaches. What I do have is a vision to go after the most positive coaching staff that can help elevate an 0-12 program from the bottom of the barrel. In combination with a creative offensive mind, it would ideally be someone who could provide our program with an instant shot in the arm as far as recruiting goes. A guy like Dodge or Art Briles is clearly the exception, in my opinion, to the general rule of not bringing on a high school coach to the OC position.

My frustration, as I've stated many times over, is hiring a coordinator who has floated around mid-major programs. If this guy from Cincy is so great, why is he not the coordinator - after all these years of success as some of you imply - at a major D1 school? Additionally - and I agree with Stallion 100% on this - we need to be able to recruit in order to turn the program around. SMU needs every conceivable recruiting advantage it can get. We just lost Johnny Ringo who was our most productive recruiter last season. While I have no opinion on the merits of Ringo on the staff, it is a fact that someone will have to replace his obvious success in recruiting. Perhaps an OC is not primarily responsible for recruiting; however, adding that element to his resume would be very helpful.

Perhaps the two guys we're about to hire have these credentials - I sure hope so. My comments are not intended to disparage these guys. I just felt this would have been a good opportunity for Bennett to make a hire that might have taken us beyond ordinary.

And finally, to address your attempt at sarcasm or humor, I don't live in Southlake, never met Dodge, and went to SMU, not UT. However, I'd be happy for the day that we could compare our football program to UT, or TCU for that matter. In the end, all we all want is to win.

[McAndless]

While I don't disagree that Todd Dodge would be a nice hire down the road, the most important, yet least mentioned information to come onto these boards is serious insider information. With some staffs, high school coaches are looked as lesser in knowledge and the least respected by the staff as a whole, while also being the favorites of players. With the current state of SMU football, this is the case, so don't realistically believe the best of the best on the high school level don't already know this. Coaching is one big fraternity and they all speak on regular terms, and there is a solid leak that Bennett's is a tough staff to work on in regards to assistant imput and game planning. Just like anyone else, coaches have egos, pride, and knowledge and would like to have some voice on the direction of the program. At times, there were some assistants who did not get that.

Dodge wouldn't have come here if he were offered more money than what he's earning at Carroll.

[VarsityShop]

re: GoRedGoBlue---"I can tell you right now if you want to continue to mislead the cheerleaders on this board about our great recruiting class"

Stallion if GoRedGoBlue is a "cheerleader" then can we assume you admit you are a "doom & gloomer" and see everything from the most negative side possible?

[FloridaMustang]

Cowboypony- Burns and Shankweiler are not out of work. I was under the impression that they are still awaiting their fate under the new Cincy HC. They were part of Minter's staff these past 2(?) seasons.

And you ask, why haven't they been hired at a Major D-1 school? Not all great coordinators get a shot at a major school.. Burns runs a wide-open passing attack and I imagine he has more freedom to employ such a system at a mid-major. Cincy's offense has been potent, despite struggles this year. Burns is an excellent coordinator, and his credentials sure as hell are more impressive than Edmondon's were at the time of his hiring.

Some excerpts from their Cincy bios:

"In his two-year tenure at Wyoming, Burns was credited with developing All-Mountain West Conference quarterback Casey Bramlet, who threw for 3,069 yards and ranked 14th in the nation in total offense (277.1 ypg) in 2001. The transformation of the offensive attack that he guided led to the Cowboys having the most improved offense in the conference in 2001.

Burns originally came to Cincinnati as part of Murphy’s first coaching staff and he helped develop the UC offense. The Bearcats ranked 30th in the nation in total offense in his final season, averaging 380.5 yards per game, the seventh-highest total in school history."


"Shankweiler's second term at East Carolina was a successful one as he helped the Pirates to appearances in the Mobile Alabama Bowl in 1999, the galleryfurniture.com Bowl in 2000 and the 2001 GMAC Bowl. ECU was the only school in C-USA that placed an offensive lineman on the all-league first team all five years here was there(1998-2002)."

<small>[ 12-24-2003, 06:53 PM: Message edited by: FloridaMustang ]</small>