Coaches

[smu01]

doesnt matter if i was born when walker was recruited....georgia is like texas....you dream of playing for the long horns or the aggies when your a kid..same as georgia its either uga or gt.......so sorry, doesnt matter if i was alive then....its common knowledge to us georgians.....and to counter your recruitment restrictions....it doesnt matter what the school publishes to the public as there requirments.....there are ways around everything......just because smu says a juco has to do this this and this to get in doesnt necessarily mean they really have to...and players dont have to go through that fustrating process...the coach will handle it for him to transfer. i know i went through it....and yes caven did recruit some juco....problem is he wasnt a good enough recruiter..thats why he didnt recruit more.....he loved getting those guys in high school with big stats...period...when kris briggs was recruited caven thought he was the second comming of jesus....and there is no way he was even on the same playing field as pipkins or phillips.......moral of the story..dont believe everything you read or hear about what programs have to do to get kids...there is a way around everything if the coach really wants him...TRUST ME this i know for sure.......

again sorry for the spelling

[Stallion]

OK in the 6 years Cavan was here or for that matter since 1989 why don't you list all those JUCOs and Division 1A transfers that SMU recruited.

[smu01]

read what i write first stallion..i said he needed to recruit more....he tried belive me..i know because i was in his office time and time when he was talking about getting juco kids..he didnt close the deal is what it came down to....brendan mcgraw was one juco kid he recruited as a running back.....tugg (as we called him) was a dam good back....problem was caven over heard a him joking about the fact he was a runner not a blocker....from that point on he never gave tugg a chance.....david page was another one...great quaterback..problem was david was married with a kid....he was more concerned about grad school the winning..but was a dam good qb.....juco kids are the way to go..a school like smu should be bringing in 5 juco kids that can play right away a year...

[Stallion]

that's right and David Page was about a 4.0 JUCO who fully qualified out of high school before going to Cal. That's the definition of a thin slice of the JUCO recruiting pool.

[smu01]

your not listening...caven tried..but could not bring them in because most juco players went elswhere..not because it was hard to get in but because other schools "offered" them things or they just didnt like caven and his staff.....80% roughly of colleges do break ncaa rules.....caven and smu do not....if smu and tcu (for example) are after a juco kid....kid normaly goes to the school that offers other things........

[Stallion]

look buddy just admit you don't know what you are talking about and stick to weight training. WE DID NOT RECRUIT JUCOS in those years except for the occassional fully qualified player with outstanding academics. SMU's name in fact never came up for a single JUCO on any Database out there and we are talking about thousands of players. We were a non-factor in JUCO recruiting period.

[gostangs]

Hey SMUone - you cannot win this arguement - Stallion's entire reason for being is built on this and you will not sway him - If he agrees with you Caven could not recruit it becomes about personal skill not "the broken system". Most of us believe it is both. You can pull off recruitin gwins in the short term bu tin the long term we need an even playing field.

I believe you about Herschel by the way - that was one guy that was not leaving Georgia - Caven made a whole career out of that one guy and he was in the bag from day one.

[McAndless]

There was an article in Sports Illustrated about recruiting a few years ago and Herschel Walker was one of the topics. It was reported that the recruitment of him was so crazy that college assistants would be in the street in front of his house at 6 AM to be there first. As Cavan was pulling up one day he saw other coaches already there and talking to Mrs. Walker, so Cavan went through the backdoor and straight into Herschel's room. I don't know how that qualifies anything other than Cavan was pretty ingenuitive, but nonetheless the recruitment of Walker was one of the craziest periods.

[Stallion]

OK list all the JUCOs and Division 1A transfers that Rossley and Gregg recruited. This is an institutional issue and those that blame the head coaches at SMU for the lack of competitive policies really lack the knowledge to offer intelligent commentary and are too lazy to discover the truth. SMU placed and STILL places institutional roadblocks to the recruitment of JUCOs and Division 1A transfers that has severely limited the ability of SMU to compete with ALL its opponents except perhaps Rice. Phil Bennett himself said that not more than 2 months ago. Now if you're going to take a shot at that statement then back it up with facts rather than making me the issue. Look folks I hate to tell you this but the Stallion plan=the Phil Bennett plan if SMU would just allow him to recruit the players he wants to. Maybe some of you should question whose side you are on.

[gostangs]

I am not asking this to make any sort of arguement either way - i really want to know:

Exactly which institutional restrictions are you referring to? If we are educated then we can help. I have heard this for a couple of years now and what I want to know is what is still in need of change that puts us at a disadvantage to our peers (except for Rice). Skip the history lesson - tell us what still needs to be done.

[Stallion]

well first let me say that as of the 2006 class I hope it is being addressed as we speak-this is certainly the first time in 20 years SMU has shown up on the recruiting Databases with JUCO players-but no SMU official that I know of has commented on whether changes have been made or are planned
but the discussion originally involved SMU's recruitment in the past and especially under Mike Cavan and the first few years under Bennett. I an August 2004 article by Calvin Watkins in the DMN:

"MOST junior college players don't take the courses required by SMU"
-Phil Bennett

""it was extremely difficult to recruit sometimes, it was almost impossible to get a few kids just from high school. Junior College kids, it was tough"
-Johnny Ringo, Recruiting Coordinator

"our recruiting standards were to the point of being absurd to our competition. Our recruiting pool was so small"
-Phil Bennett

Now these were quotes from the people with the most knowledge of SMU's self imposed institutional restrictions-not Stallion. I'm not the issue. My understanding is that under NCAA rules those limitations remain until the school has curiculm and course studies(eg. an Education Department) which will allow those courses to transfer to SMU. SMU just opened up an Education Department with no comment about how that department might affect the transfer of JUCOs and Division 1A transfers. Phil Bennett was quoted at an ALL-ACCESS interview two months ago to the effect that SMU still is recruiting from a small pool of JUCO players because they have to have hours that will transfer. That's where it stands as far as public comment on the matter to my knowledge.
Oh and as for Brendan McGrew I noticed that in the SMU Lettermans List on SMUMUSTANGS.com it listed him as attending the University of Miami Law School which is a Tier 1 university now. Pretty small slice once again.

[giacfsp]

Good god, would you listen to yourselves? There's a huge win yesterday and a five-win season you should be relishing today, not who knows more about something that happened however many years ago....

Lighten up, Francis.

[smu01]

one thing i have noticed about most of you guys by reading other post is that you rely heavily on what you read and hear during press confrenses and rivals.com or nike. com or whatever else there is out there......and i dont know how else to say it but you cant belive everything you read....just like when a player gets hurt and i s out for two weeks...chances are he broke the rules and is being punishned..not that he actually got hurt.....and again.....i do know what im talking about..all colleges try to recruit juco...even caven did..he just couldnt get them to come to smu..not because of school standards but more because of the fact we sucked!!! period...caven tried to go for the juco kids that were on the level of FSU, miami, and so on....there was no way he was getting those kids......all i can say is dont believe what you read in the paper or even what a coach says......remember its an image thing with them.....there not going to tell you that a star player is being accused of rape or something until unless the have too...they cover things up big time!!!!! same with recruiting...they tell you that schools restrictions are causing them problems with recruiting so they dont have to say "hey, we just cant get thme here, they would rather go to a better football school" no coach is going to admitt they are doing a bad job....so remember that next time you read something......and sorry...but walker was never leaving georgia...........dont believe what you read...he was crazily recruited but had already made his mind up....

[smu01]

the only thing i can really agree with stalion on is the fact smu did not have an education department in the past....that does hurt transfers who are majoring in education....cant transfer to a school that does not have your major...but that is a problem other schools have also.....not really a recruiting restriction policy. and since most college football players major in education...yes it makes it difficult....as for tug mcgraw, he was like me...i transfered in as a sophmore and lost all but 15 hours...so i had to start over...however...i saw smu as a academic school and knew it was a better education then the rinky dink school i was at...so i didnt mind basicaly starting over...same with brendon..he lost a lot of hours but started over as well.....and yes he is in law school...smart kid........but smu will take hours from other schools...however if it is in a major they dont have then they cant take it....but for a transfer football player they will bend the rules (not break them) and except as many core classes as they can...and this is from the horses mouth...i went through it..im a primary source here not a secondary one like rivals.com or the news paper

[Stallion]

so you came up with 2 names of JUCOs with the academic credentials good enough to join one of the top accounting firms in the country and another whose grades were good enough to get into a top law school out of Junior College mind you and you actually think I don't know what I'm talking about. You are about as good a debater as you were a football player. Here's a hint before you try to make a point -know your subject matter.