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Mr. Morris came to SMU as an OC with no major college head coaching experience. He received three years of good on-the-job training. Now Arkansas gets the benefit of his OJT.

This has occurred again and again to AAC schools who spend precious resources to train coaches for very wealthy higher levels schools.

We need to transcend needing a coach to define us, and develop an independent persona so that the appearance is that it doesn’t matter who is the SMU coach, fans and recruits can expect a consistent product. Houston always has a high school sprint star RB, at least one high school sprint star receiver, and a upper classman QB primed to lead the nation in offensive yardage because they fling it. They don’t suffer an identity crisis and several years of a rebuild when they get their coaches plucked to the upper ranks. This is what we can expect to happen to us every 2-3 years from now on.

June was the right hire bc he offered the nation’s most exciting offense. Our mistake was not insisting that he hire a stable of young energetic recruiters, which he kinda did at the beginning before he gravitated to hiring his ole time buddies. We have athletes on our offense, let’s find them a QB who is accurate beyond 20 yards (not an intentional knock on Hicks but...ehhh) and recruit speed over size everywhere on the field (see what originally TCU did with its DL). Why even offer tight ends at this point, unless to convert them to other positions?

Morris made everyone feel good because he was an excellent recruiter, but I’d don’t think in the new G5 landscape that is an asset...you get pillaged when your coach leaves every 2-3 years. Much better if your recruits are tied to hungry positional coaches who will stay as long as the coach, and maybe longer if they get elevated to a coordinatorship. I think we go after a defensive-minded coach (with college head coaching experience and say “you have control over the defensive side of the ball, understand that you are going have to work with undersized positional recruits, but you have a wealth of athletes here in NTX. You’ll have Traylor who will deliver you a top 10 offense again this season and hold onto some top recruits. Can you work with this and are you on a heel-bent mission to redeem yourself, Coach Les Miles?”

And for gosh-sakes, don’t let anyone emphasize a UCF game as a measure of fan enthusiasm again!

I have always looked at Miami as a prime example of what you are saying SMUer. Miami managed to win 5 national championships in an 18 year span under 4 different coaches and actually had 5 different coaches in that span. What helped them keep their identity? It's all about the U!!! We need to really build an identity among HS kids with Texas pride, especially in the Dallas area. The U before the U works for me, but if there are fresher ideas great!

Miami has the swag chain, the 7th floor crew, and rolls into national title games in camo.

SMU has a pony and fans that complain about uniforms.

It's almost the polar opposite persona.

plus we have student-athletes not athletes who pretend to be students.

Yeah, I'm not seeing much similarity between Miami and SMU, other than the academic aspect.

I suppose we could make our slogan, "It's all about the Group...of Five."

You all missed the point! Miami built its brand despite consistent coaching changes. We can build our brand even if our coach moves on every few years.

xc- disagree. the 'U' built their system with thugs and others who were paid and never had to go to class.
totally different situation than what we have..

Not the point. The point is that we can have a winning program across different coaching regimes. We do ned to create an identity where ED, Emmanuel Sanders, Courtland Sutton all identify with the program and have unity to create a brand. For the longest time we did not have any pros but now we have a good number of pros that kids can identify with. We just need their help to sell our brand.

maybe like 'receiver U'. except we are on the receiving end of the middle finger as the coach leaves. jk

Oh for God's sake, mustangxc isn't saying to build the same brand as Miami. He's saying to build our own brand. Damn straight we have a pony. We have "pony up." We have Big D. Look what Arkansas has accomplished with a stupid pig.

haha- except big D hardly knows we exist. One of the reason we have attendance problems. Of course the lack of marketing doesn't help much with branding.

Maybe we can slap a huge D on our helmets similar to the V Fresno State has on their helmets to recognize the Valley.

why not the denver broncos do..