Morris on wth the Hardline

[LA_Mustang]

next segment.

[GiddyUp]

gotta Lock arms and hit that tree...

good to hear him on Hardline. They didn't ask the usual dumb questions.

[StallionsModelT]

" I can't wait to have you guys back here in during the fall when we are talking about the biggest turnaround in college football history."

"I can promise you its going to happen here at SMU. If I wasn't 100% certain of that I would be sitting in my living room in Clemson, South Carolina with the best quarterback in the country coming back next year."

This guy is unreal.

[Pony^]

DMN: SMU going full #Tempo on recruiting trail; Ponies land Cedar Hill CB Eric Sutton

http://collegesportsblog.dallasnews.com ... tton.html/

[Rebel10]

Coach Morris and his staff are giving it everything they have got.

[Bergermeister]

Send more money

[sciencepony08]

Make it 3 commits in one day with the addition of 3* Christian Davis https://twitter.com/C_Davi5/status/608110295764983808/photo/1

[JoeKidd]

Can't get enough of HCCM speaking about his vision for our program. Wish we could fast forward 3 years to see where we are at, but for now will settle just putting on the pads against Baylor.

[StallionsModelT]

Send more money

???

[blackoutpony]

Send more money

???

Paging mr blunt

[Puckhead48E]

Send more money

???

Paging mr blunt

He's currently busy with Dr. Greenthumb.

[smupony94]

Color photo and front page of Austin paper today

http://www.mystatesman.com/news/sports/ ... 288.735770

By Ryan Autullo - American-Statesman Staff


DALLAS —

Chad Morris is into fixing things. So when he arrived at SMU last December as the school’s new football coach, he got to work right away and convinced his bosses to cough up more than $1 million for facility upgrades.

Morris’ decorating touch can be seen throughout Gerald J. Ford Stadium, from upgraded weight room equipment to new video and audio technology, wall graphics highlighting the program’s three national titles, wood panels in place of dingy carpet, and an enhanced player’s lounge.
+ The Statesman Interview: SMU coach Chad Morris photo
LM Otero
New SMU head football coach Chad Morris claps before being introduced during a news conference at SMU last December. The former ... read more

In the coming months, the school expects to announce plans for a stand-alone football building that will house an indoor practice facility.

Morris, a Dallas native, must now try to fix the team. His predecessor, June Jones, resigned after two games in 2014, and the Mustangs started 0-11 before beating Connecticut in the season finale. SMU scored 10 or fewer points in eight games.

For years, Morris had been a hot name for job openings. He led Lake Travis to back-to-back undefeated seasons in 2008 and 2009 before becoming offensive coordinator at Tulsa. From there, he went to Clemson, where he was the nation’s highest paid public school assistant in 2012, earning $1.3 million.

He sat down with the American-Statesman to discuss where he’s been, where he is and where he’s headed:

What’s been the biggest challenge since you’ve started?

I don’t even know if it’s really a challenge, but getting everyone to believe in the vision we have. When you come here, it’s easy to sell the academics, it’s easy to sell a degree from SMU. I haven’t been able to sell the fact this team won 11 games last year or went to a BCS game two years ago or what not. One of the things you sell is we have won 10 games each of the last four years (at Clemson). Everywhere I’ve been, we’ve won. We’ve won in high school in this state. That’s what you sell. I don’t know if it’s so much a challenge as it is to be able to sell the belief. When you’re trying to sell something on a product that was 1-11, you have to change the attitude.

Not only were they 1-11, but their coach quit on them. Did you encounter a team with a broken spirit?

I don’t know if the word “broken spirit” is right. Loss of direction. I think (interim coach) Tom Mason did an outstanding job, as good of a job as anyone could have done. But when the head coach leaves, players lose the sense of direction, the sense of leadership. You get to the point where the players sense this coaching staff isn’t gonna be here so they kinda lose belief in themselves. I really think it took them six or seven games before they realized, hey, maybe we can win a game.

Because of the challenges, were you reluctant to consider the job?

Had an awesome job at Clemson. Had a six-year contract. Loved it. I’m a Texas high school coach and this is home. When this job opened up, and because of the location that it’s in, i thought OK, this is the one, this is the one that we can go and get flipped and get turned, show improvement, get this thing on the right track. June had it that way. June went to four bowl games in six years and had Garrett Gilbert not gotten hurt, he would have gone to five in six. I think if they would have put just a little bit more emphasis in recruiting the state of Texas, who knows. When you start looking back to the mid- to early-2000s, SMU and TCU were neck-and-neck. In the last 10 years you’ve seen TCU take off. Because of where I’m from and the relationships I have in this state, that’s what really caused me to believe this is the right fit. If this job had been in Florida or the Carolinas or Georgia or Virginia, I wouldn’t have taken it because I didn’t have the strong bonds and the strong relationships that I have in this state.

Can you look at TCU as a template for building your program?

There’s no question. Gary (Patterson) has done an outstanding job. You can look at Baylor and see the same thing. It can be done. There’s been an unbelievable commitment to those two schools. The commitment here is strong. They wanna win. We want to build on the momentum that (SMU basketball coach) Larry Brown has done. The city of Dallas wants SMU to be successful. There’s no doubt you can look at those two schools and see if it can be done there it can be done here.

Have you turned down head coaching jobs in past seasons?

I have. It wasn’t the right time or the right fit. My daughter just graduated high school two weeks ago. She’s going to Texas A&M. I’ve had several opportunities over the last three years to be a head coach, and I was always a dad first before I was a coach. I wanted to make sure my daughter started and finished high school at the same school.

Were there jobs you coveted that you didn’t get?

Oh yeah. Absolutely. There’s no question on that. There’s jobs the last three to four years that opened up where you thought it might have been the right one. When things don’t work out they don’t work out for a reason.

(Morris would neither confirm or deny that he was a finalist at Texas Tech after the 2012 season)

This is the first full-time coaching job for your offensive coordinator Joe Craddock. You must really like him.

I hired two graduate assistants (from Clemson). Joe was my graduate assistant and worked for me for three years. Extremely smart, cutting edge, and a go-getter. Pins his ears back and goes and gets it. Think a lot of him. He’s got a great mind. And I hired my offensive line coach Dustin Fry. Knows the offense inside and out. I always say this: Someone at some point gave you an opportunity to get in, and you’re forever grateful for it. Just as I am. Someone gave me an opportunity to get into this profession and believed in me.

Who is that person for you?

Several. Obviously, Dabo Swinney believed in me when I was one year out of high school. He hired me on a team that went 6-7 knowing another 6-7 season and they would have all been fired. Todd Graham believed in me to bring me from Lake Travis to Tulsa. Gus Malzahn. Even though I’ve never worked with Gus, he and I are great friends.

Does it help recruiting in this state having coached high school in Texas?

Absolutely. It’s all about relationships and it’s about getting these coaches to believe in this program and believe in what we’re selling and to know if they send a player to us we’re gonna take care of them.

Is (Lake Travis coach) Hank Carter gonna send you some players?

I sure hope so. I keep waiting on that.

Did you try to hire him to SMU?

Sure did. I offered him a job (as a defensive assistant). I think his kiddos were at a part in their life where the timing just want right. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen again. He’ll have a chance again.

If you were in Austin today and not working, what would you be doing?

I would start off and I’d get me some breakfast tacos. And I’d somehow make it over to Matt’s El Rancho. I might hang out at Matt’s for a while ‘cause I love Matt’s. Kick back, enjoy the music and play a little golf in the afternoon. Austin is a great place and I loved living down there.

How much did you develop as a coach in those two years at Lake Travis?

Huge. You were dealing with a program that had just won a state championship, so trying to create the balance with a new staff and to sell the community what we were all about. Developing relationships with our parents. It was a huge growing process.

And you coached Garrett Gilbert. Has he been back to SMU?

Oh yeah. Garrett’s been back. Got married recently. I wasn’t able to attend; we had spring practice on the day he got married. Garrett’s around and we welcome him with open arms. He and his family are very dear to us.

Where is the talent level on your team relative to where it needs to be?

Obviously, you always gotta recruit and you always gotta keep growing. We gotta go get speed. I firmly believe you either got speed or you’re chasing it. You don’t wanna be chasing speed. That’s not a good thing. We do have some players here. This is not a 1-11 football team. They weren’t a 1-11 football team last year. As bad as things happened for these guys, they could have won four games. They were in four or five games. I’ll tell you this: There won’t be another team in the country that plays harder than us. There won’t be another team in the country that gives more than what our guys give.

Do you have a relationship with Houston’s Tom Herman, the other new coach in this state?

Oh yeah. Tom and I go way back. We went against each other in the Orange Bowl. The Ohio State staff came down the year before we played them in the Orange Bowl and both staffs clinic-ed. Less than two months after the Orange Bowl, both offensive staffs clinic-ed.

Do you look at him as a rival?

I definitely think the schools have been a rival. Tom is a friend of mine, but when we line up (Oct. 8, in Houston) it’s all out. We’re against each other. That’s part of it, but he’s a friend of mine.

Does SMU need to get into a Power Five conference to get the program moving in the right direction?

There’s a lot of things that need to happen before we make that move. You really gotta address a stand-alone football facility, an indoor facility. You really gotta address those before you take that step, otherwise you’re really gonna be set back because now you’re in those conferences and you have to compete and recruit against them and you can’t do that once you start comparing apples and apples.

About to wrap up. Did we miss anything?

This thing is gonna get turned, we’re gonna get it flipped. I’m a Texan and we’re gonna do it with Texans. We’re gonna start with our footprint of Texas kids and we’re gonna take great pride in it. We had over 1,000 high school coaches in and out of here this spring visiting with us.

FYI: CHAD MORRIS

Age: 46. He’ll turn 47 this December — the day before the American Athletic Conference championship game.
He’s an Aggie (and has a daughter going there right now) who has coached at five Texas high schools — Lake Travis, Stephenville, Bay City, Elysian Fields and Eustace.
Before landing his first college coaching job, Morris was the nation’s highest-paid assistant when he was Clemson’s offensive coordinator. He was Tulsa’s OC before that.
He’ll make his head coaching debut Sept. 4 against Baylor; Baylor coach Art Briles also is a former head coach from Stephenville; Briles was head coach there from 1988-99, Morris from 2004-07.
His last high school coaching gig was at Lake Travis, where he led the Cavaliers to back-to-back Class 4A state championships in 2008 and 2009. His quarterback there? Garrett Gilbert, who just finished up at SMU last season.

[smupony94]

I love that finally someone had the balls to say the coach quit on the players

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

I love that finally someone had the balls to say the coach quit on the players

Cool. Thanks for sharing...

[ponyboy]

and to say this

June went to four bowl games in six years and had Garrett Gilbert not gotten hurt, he would have gone to five in six