Gosselin: AD to find coach for worst major f.b. team in USA

[Treadway21]

I took the "overcome some things to get those kids to choose SMU" to be about convincing recruits that SMU academics aren't prohibitively difficult. It wasn't about convincing the school take the recruits, it was about convincing the recruits to take the school.

If this lines up with any of the previous arguments, it would be "we need to ensure the kids understand that we have athletically friendly majors"

My $.02 anyhow.

-CoS

^This is the correct take.

[Treadway21]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/columnists/rick-gosselin/20140923-gosselin-smu-ad-tasked-with-finding-coach-for-worst-major-college-football-team-in-america.ece

Actually not a bad take by Goose. Hart is a good representative of SMU. Hart continues to impress me.

[GoMustAAngs2007]

then you completely missed the point. Sorry this isn't about recruiting the Class President or at St. Mark's based on some high academic standard- its about recruiting in Desoto, Cedar Hill, Lancaster, Southlake, Coppell, Allen and other recruiting hotbeds for kids that can simply qualify under NCAA rules

I get the point and I agree with you, but I wouldn't complain if the new coach started landing recruits from the DFW area with competing offers from those schools. Duke, Stanford, Vandy, and NW have all cracked the top 25 in recent years. I may be in the minority here but I am not willing to completely sell our academic souls for a top 25 football team. The changes since 2008 have been positive - new admission standards, athlete friendly majors, etc and I hope to see that continue.

[SMU2007]

then you completely missed the point. Sorry this isn't about recruiting the Class President or at St. Mark's based on some high academic standard- its about recruiting in Desoto, Cedar Hill, Lancaster, Southlake, Coppell, Allen and other recruiting hotbeds for kids that can simply qualify under NCAA rules

I get the point and I agree with you, but I wouldn't complain if the new coach started landing recruits from the DFW area with competing offers from those schools. Duke, Stanford, Vandy, and NW have all cracked the top 25 in recent years. I may be in the minority here but I am not willing to completely sell our academic souls for a top 25 football team. The changes since 2008 have been positive - new admission standards, athlete friendly majors, etc and I hope to see that continue.

In no way, shape, or form, will the academic status of 90 or so players on the football team influence the overall academic prestige of a university of 10k students

[BRStang]

From Hart -
“Look around the landscape. Duke’s successful. Stanford’s successful. Vanderbilt, Northwestern … schools like us. I realize that academically we’re going to have to overcome some things to get those kids to choose SMU. But when you look at our setting in Dallas, the campus, the investments that have been made … now get a dynamic staff in here. That’s what we need.”

Looks like we still have a ways to go to reform the academic policies, imagine that.

Um, not to criticize, but...one of these things is not like the others, unfortunately. *Hint: P5 vs. outside-looking-in'ers.

I hope--hope--this situation can somehow be rectified in the future, but unfortunately it appears bleak for those on the outside.

[Stangs1970]

I wonder if they write their own article titles? I know in many papers the actual article title is written by the editors.

[StallionsModelT]

We recruited more fringe academic risks under June Jones than just about any school in the country. Anyone who still thinks academics are a major hindrance to SMU recruiting is ignoring the facts. June Jones was the hindrance to SMU recruiting. Lets see what we can do with a coaching staff that actually has a pulse.

[floridianstang]

It is as hard to get in a power conference as it was when BCS came to life. It is not getting any harder, just prove that you belong. Never lose hope.

[ghost]

So is what happened with June and SMU not better so as to get the program back on track fast with a year or two downtime or would it have been better to let the program dwindle away over another 2-5 years with less recruiting each year and just some coaches relaxing and collecting their paychecks before heading to retirement? I say this is the best thing that could happen so people outside the program could see what was really happening. Now SMU is forced to decide if it is going to be a major player in football or go a different way. Nothing wrong with being a big dog and playing Abilene Christian and Hardin Simmons as the Boulevard will still be in play and can still be D1 in basketball.
.

[leopold]

Please.

SMU committed to being a big-time program about 5 years ago. It's June Jones who checked out.


The good thing about JJ is that JJ was able to help rally the alumni, get some attention for the school, and help get more money and better admissions for the program, and leave the program in a far better place. Plus, because everybody knows it was June's fault they are going to have a much harder time blaming the school.

If the guy had only left a decent team on the field he would have done about everything we could have wanted.

[StallionsModelT]

So is what happened with June and SMU not better so as to get the program back on track fast with a year or two downtime or would it have been better to let the program dwindle away over another 2-5 years with less recruiting each year and just some coaches relaxing and collecting their paychecks before heading to retirement? I say this is the best thing that could happen so people outside the program could see what was really happening. Now SMU is forced to decide if it is going to be a major player in football or go a different way. Nothing wrong with being a big dog and playing Abilene Christian and Hardin Simmons as the Boulevard will still be in play and can still be D1 in basketball.
.

The Boulevard will be as empty as the football stadium if we decided to drop down to D1AA. It will never happen thankfully. We would kill the program before we'd ever stoop down to playing at that level.

[GoMustAAngs2007]

The Boulevard will be as empty as the football stadium if we decided to drop down to D1AA. It will never happen thankfully. We would kill the program before we'd ever stoop down to playing at that level.

Ha - I don't think so. The boulevard has become its own event and I would argue it is the most popular place to be on game day. I would estimate that greater than half of the people on the boulevard for home games don't actually go to the game. If we had SFA, SHSU, and Northwestern State on the home schedule you would still have the same number of people on the boulevard as you do now.

SMU could rake in some extra revenue by opening the boulevard for away game weekends - put the game on a giant projection screen for those who care to watch, and I bet we would still get a couple thousand people to come to campus.

Let's face it, there is a large portion of our alumni base more interested in seeing and being seen on the boulevard than at the game. The quickest way to get this group to buy tickets and attend games is to tell them that killing football means the end of the boulevard. That and finding some way to bring the atmosphere of the boulevard into the stadium.

[Stallion]

No way. If we didn't have some reputable programs on the schedule nobody is going to pay thousands of dollars for Boulevard spots. They would just stay home and watch College Football

[SMU2007]

The boulevard is independent of the game. Never have I seen the boulevard empty. The stadium, well that's a different story.

[gostangs]

the blvd is absolutely NOT independent of the game. The host of the spots on the blvd go to the games - and we will not be paying for those spots to play a bunch of DII teams. No way. There is no excitement or any energy out there without real football, whether you go to the games or not.