Tom Mason's Pedigree

[couch 'em]

Really not all that impressive from what I've read. After listening to Mason's interview over on Stampede, he sounds like he is trying to sound confident, instead of being confident. Maybe I'm just reading into things. Anyone have an opinion on him prior to SMU?

[mrydel]

His teams beat our teams.

[OC Mustang]

I'll bite.

Two things:
a) Right/wrong/indifferent, Hawaii's current head coach was Coach Jones' first choice as defensive coordinator. He took the Hawaii job; therefore, SMU has Mason. He may be great; he may not. But that's why he's at SMU instead of McMackin.

b) Going with the "he may be great" part, I personally think, given his experience, he will have a lot of linebacker-oriented schemes that confuse the opposing offenses and allow linebackers to force pics. Relying on a thin and underweight (Serge withstanding) d-line to pressure the opposing QB into bad reads and busted plays (read: turnovers) doesn't make sense when there are as many linebackers on the team as there are, and he is a linebackers guy to boot.

Just MHO. Nowhere near an expert here.

[sbsmith]

June probably could have done a lot better than Mason but there isn't anyone on the planet who could do much with our defense as presently constituted. We just don't have any size or depth. We'll have to hope June and staff continue to hit the recruiting trail in search of better talent and in the interim we endure lots of blowouts/shootouts.

[jkflamebo]

June probably could have done a lot better than Mason but there isn't anyone on the planet who could do much with our defense as presently constituted. We just don't have any size or depth. We'll have to hope June and staff continue to hit the recruiting trail in search of better talent and in the interim we endure lots of blowouts/shootouts.

i thought the mason hire wasnt as good as it could have been, but as u say, we really do have bottom tier d-1A talent

[Insane_Pony_Posse]

Don't know much about Coach Mason. I guess he is dealing with some bare shelves that Coach Phil left behind. I am not saying it is Mason's fault or that Mason is not a great coach, but can any of the Hawaii guys that frequent this site comment on whether June Jones made asst coach changes often or not while he was in Hawaii? It seemed like former SMU defensive coach Eric Schumann was a good defensive coach, one of the few bright spots of the Cavan era. Didn't Schuman have SMU ranked in the Top 20 defenses in th country? With that said hopefully Coach Mason can do the same thing

[RGV Pony]

I'll tell you this...I don't think it's ever a good sign when your coordinator says in an interview after a poor performance that he's essentially going to have to "dumb it down" for his players. However you put it..."going back to fundamentals," "simplyfing things," etc...combined with the Rusty Burns quote of "we've only got about a quarter of our stuff in"...and I'm really, really concerned.

[SMUfiji43]

I'm no expert but I consider myself to be pretty knowledgeable about college football. After the hiring of June Jones and his solid recruiting class(for the time he had) I was expecting a little more of a splash as far as hiring a D-coordinator was concerned. When I heard we hired Mason, there was nothing to get excited about really. My first pick would have been Ed Orgeron who was the D-Line coach at USC and more recently head coach at Ole Miss and now D-line coach for the Saints. He was a long shot but I thought we would at least get a name guy who has had a good track record. We'll see how it pans out, but if the D keeps up this kind of mediocrity I don't see his time at SMU lasting very long.

[couch 'em]

Now I understand why we got recruiting wrapped up so early - get it done before the blowouts come....

[RGV Pony]

Now I understand why we got recruiting wrapped up so early - get it done before the blowouts come....

and hold on for dear lifie

[PerunaPunch]

Couple of things...

June said in that press conference audio clip something to the effect that they had the right schemes in place, but when you have one kid who's out of position – or something to that effect – it doesn't work. To me that sounds more like a learning issue than a personnel issue.

The other thing I think I noticed, and I wish I hadn't waited until we were up by 13 to begin taping, was that at the beginning of the game our DBs were playing tight to the line of scrimmage. By the second quarter, they were playing off ten yards (which in my book equate to a gimme first down more often than not). In fact, in one early play one of our DBs damn near took the helmet off a WR as he was trying to get off the line of scrimmage. Probably flag-able, but I was impressed.

[kull]

Mason is a Linebacker/Corner guy, and his defenses have always been engineered that way. He also employs lots of line stunts, always been his thing.

Thank god Bert Hill is working with the DL, especially the new recruits. From what I understand he reestablished the DL's fundamentals as they were 'raggety anne' when he arrived.

Mason needs two 300# mothers in the middle, and two edge rush/tweeners off the edge. He prefers cover corners as opposed to shut-down corners. He prefers tweeners at the safety position. We currently dont have enough lateral speed at the linebacker position. Some of the `08 recruits will likely start next year at Linebacker. Robert Mojica, the Mater Dei walk-on, an excellent D1 reciever prospect may end up being better than McCann at corner.

[that's great raplh]

what is this - some kind of dog show?

[kull]

what is this - some kind of dog show?

its a dog and pony show

[Garret]

can any of the Hawaii guys that frequent this site comment on whether June Jones made asst coach changes often or not while he was in Hawaii?

JJ had several defensive coordinators at Hawaii.

1999: Greg McMackin--left after one season to be Texas Tech's DC for a MUCH higher salary

2000-2002: Kevin Lempa--left to be DB coach at Boston College (he had previously coached there and said that he wanted to go "back home")

2003-2004: George Lumpkin (and I think Rich Miano was co-DC)--the D really went downhill, especially in 2004, so JJ demoted the coaches (though Lumpkin remained associate head coach) and hired Glanville

2005-2006: Jerry Glanville--left to be head coach at Portland State

2007: Greg McMackin--became Hawaii head coach in 2008

So, in most cases JJ's pick for DC ended up leaving on their own (I think that DB coach at BC paid about the same as DC for Hawaii), but in 2005 JJ did hire a new DC (both Lumpkin and Miano stayed on a defensive assistants).