New Story re: SMU/Houston on ESPN insider

[fifty]

Where are we on funding for all of this? How much of the $25 -> $150million do we have pledged? How much of that do we need committed before we start construction?

[smupony94]

Where are we on funding for all of this? How much of the $25 -> $150million do we have pledged? How much of that do we need committed before we start construction?

$0.00 for non ipf items


100%

[StallionsModelT]

Where are we on funding for all of this? How much of the $25 -> $150million do we have pledged? How much of that do we need committed before we start construction?

Big name donor who we all know and love has already committed a hefty chunk of what it'll cost to build the IPF. Just like Moody they will break ground with an announcement and hope to have the funds to fully pay for the facility done by the time it is finished or shortly thereafter.

It is happening. Check your Battered Wife Syndrome at the door. Coach Morris won't have it

[fifty]

Hey, sounds good to me. I'll get my measly checkbook and shovel. Let's go

[ojaipony]

Where are we on funding for all of this? How much of the $25 -> $150million do we have pledged? How much of that do we need committed before we start construction?

Big name donor who we all know and love has already committed a hefty chunk of what it'll cost to build the IPF.

You all are very welcome. The "ojaipony IPF" is a done deal! I will be signing autographs after the groundbreaking ceremony.

[gostangs]

At some point we will have to stop talking about the difference between June and Chad, but every week that goes by it is just more and more dramatic. guess after we have had a full year we can move on. In personal relationships, coaches he attracts, effort, school pride, energy, - basically every way you can imagine.

If this guy can also manage a gameplan and really coach - then we have something more special than we ever imagined. They guy hasn't had his first down of football and I think he needs a raise.

And yes - I will feel that way even after we lose a few (or many) next year, because we have someone who has really bought into SMU. That makes you in turn want to have their back. That is the biggest thing June never understood.

[blackoutpony]

I have insider and I hate ESPN, so merry Christmas! It's a good read

There's no blueprint for this. There's no specific, detailed set of instructions on how to run a college football program, especially when it's your first time.

That's not to say that new head coaches, Houston's Tom Herman and SMU's Chad Morris among them, do not come armed with a plan. Those plans differ, naturally, because each school, program and situation is different, unique in its own positives and drawbacks.

Herman and Morris have plenty of similarities: previously successful Power 5 offensive coordinators; coaching backgrounds in Texas; beginning their college head-coaching careers at American Athletic schools in two of the largest cities in recruit-rich Texas. And yet SMU and Houston are different jobs, which means Herman and Morris have attacked their first few months in divergent ways.

HOUSTON -- Herman's initial focus centered on player culture. He arrived in mid-January, following Ohio State's national title run, to learn that his newly inherited players were too often showing up late for meetings and workouts, missing too many classes.

The players who arrived to the team's facility on Sunday, Feb. 1 found a message from the new coach: The doors were padlocked. The Houston Cougars had literally been locked out of their locker room.


Herman had met formally with the team just once at that point, and it was the day in December when he was hired. A tone was being set by last season's Broyles Award winner for the country's top college assistant.


Fresh off a national title as Ohio State's offensive coordinator, Tom Herman faces big expectations at Houston. Troy Taormina/USA TODAY Sports
"The inmates were running the asylum," Herman said. "I said, 'It needs to stop.' We told them they were no longer welcome in the locker room. We said you have to earn the right to get back in that locker room."

The players were also informed that, until further notice, they couldn't wear anything with a school logo on it. They arrived the next morning for workouts wearing whatever they had in their dorms, mostly gear from their high school years.

The strength staff then conducted 5 a.m. exercise sessions that Herman called "mostly punishment-driven." And they were expected to be flawlessly executed.

This was the 39-year-old Herman's version of Herb Brooks/Kurt Russell in the U.S. hockey team's "Miracle" -- Again! Again! -- even if Herman wasn't allowed to be present due to NCAA rules for offseason workouts.

"If they were doing up-downs, they had to be perfect up-downs," Herman said. "And if someone didn't do a perfect up-down, they'd start over. They did an hour of up-downs. They didn't get through up-downs the first day."

Despite the early struggle, Herman started to receive increasingly positive feedback from the strength staff. By that Wednesday, the players had made it through the strenuous workouts designed to get their attentions.

The Cougars were back in their locker room, back in their red and white UH gear. Order was restored. And quicker than expected.

"I thought it would take all week," Herman said. "A part of me was hoping it would take all week. I kept asking [the strength coaches], 'Are you sure they're doing everything right?' But they were. I wasn't going to make up something to force them to keep working out like that. That's a credit to them. They came together, and faster than I thought they might. That was a good sign."

Tony Levine was let go after going 21-17 in three seasons that included bowl berths in the final two years. But Houston finished fourth in the American in the two seasons after the league was formed. The school's administrators wanted more. Herman is evidently now demanding more.

"These kids, they're blue collar," he said. "They want to be successful. They thought they were working hard, but -- and I don't know if this is going to make sense -- but they didn't know what championship-hard work was.

"We said, 'If you thought you were going hard, this is what it's going to take.'"

DALLAS -- Morris' early objective was, and is, more administrative. When he took the job, he knew perceptions existed that the school's higher-ups were lukewarm on football and how resources were appropriated for the sport. Other coaches in the state assert that's always been a tug-of-war, depending on particular administrators and coaches.

But Morris, the native of East Texas, took the job. In doing so, he left Clemson, South Carolina -- an idyllic, lakeside college town where the 46-year-old Morris said he would have been content spending the rest of his career. Of note: He was already making about $1.3 million a year to be the Tigers' offensive coordinator.


Chad Morris, who previously was Clemson's offensive coordinator, takes over at SMU, which went 1-11 in 2014. Matthew Visinsky/Icon Sportswire
So Morris obviously felt pretty good about support and vision for SMU -- even if others outside the profession whispered, or wondered aloud, why Morris would start his head-coaching career at a place so seemingly low. The Mustangs, after all, did go 1-11 a year ago.

Morris said peers, including mentor and friend Gus Malzahn, understood the promise of the program. In addition to Auburn's Malzahn, Arizona State's Todd Graham, Clemson's Dabo Swinney and Texas A&M's Kevin Sumlin were encouraging about the prospects at SMU.

"That's the job, Chad," Morris said, relaying fellow coaches' thoughts. "That's the one."

Illustrating that, SMU is one of only a few, if any, schools on the Group of 5 level that could actually provide Morris a raise from his previous job. Morris is set to make about $2 million per year, a handsome figure for any spot outside the Power 5. (Herman is doing fine, too, at $1.5 million per.)

"The perception is there hasn't been a commitment -- but there has been. There is," Morris said inside a corner stadium suite that is serving as his office until a $1 million renovation of the downstairs football HQ is completed.

And that's only the beginning of the construction, which serves, as much as anything, as the commitment to which Morris referred.

During a recent visit, Morris spent the first 10 or 15 minutes picking through architect-rendered sketches of a master plan to overhaul the football facilities, including moving the offices from the northeast to northwest corner of the stadium. An indoor practice structure would be built adjacent to that end of Ford Stadium. A party deck for boosters and fans (think: Jerry World end zone), one with a view of the Dallas skyline, is also part of the plan.

If all goes well and the board approves the project, work would begin next year.

"This can be a special place," Morris said. "We're going to do something special here. I've seen it happen 20 minutes down the road [TCU] and 90 minutes down the road [Baylor]. It can be done.

"I've had chances to [be a head coach] at places with a higher winning percentage than here, but I didn't go there. I came to SMU."

Logically, recruiting is a huge piece of the puzzle for a new coaches -- especially when they are taking over programs in fertile-but-ultra-competitive spots like Texas' two major metros.

During the two weeks leading up to Christmas, the new SMU staff would assemble at 2 or 2:30 a.m. at a Holiday Inn across the freeway from campus. There, it would break down maps and school district lines. When day broke, so did SMU's staff.

Morris and the assistants planned to cover as much ground as they could in a day -- and then do it again the next day, after their usual debriefing (and maybe a little sleep) at the Holiday Inn.


Houston has a new stadium -- it opened before the 2014 season -- but the Cougars' support facilities need upgrades. AP Photo/David J. Phillip
Morris said the Mustangs were in 200 high schools in two weeks.

"In order to turn it around," Morris said, "it's going to take high school coaches believing in us."

Morris was satisfied with the quality of SMU's class, which featured 22 players from the state. During spring practice, which concluded last weekend, Morris said upward of 500 high school coaches have visited.

"It's maybe closer to 1,000, really," he said.

Herman estimated he had also seen that many coaches, indicating a similar curiosity and excitement for Houston's new product.

Those inside the UH athletic department joke that they've hired a younger, and perhaps more amicable, version of Urban Meyer. And why wouldn't Herman mimic some of the things he'd seen from Meyer, who just won his third national title since 2006?

Back in November, before the Houston job even was open, Herman felt as if staff construction -- and a unified message among everyone in the entire football support system -- was the most important trait he would eventually take from Meyer. Now on the ground in Houston, he reiterated that earlier this month.

Herman's staff consists largely of assistants he previously worked with at his various in-state stops, which include crosstown rival Rice, Sam Houston State and Texas Lutheran.

"I didn't hire these guys because they're my buddies," Herman said. "I hired them because I'd seen them work and know what they bring to the table. It was important to me to hire guys I trusted."

Facilities are on the drawing board at Houston, as well. Year-old TDECU Stadium is a perfect size and style fit for the program. Some money has recently gone into the practice fields next to the stadium. The rest of the support facilities, however, need work. The coaches' offices are barren and, frankly, depressing. A large net hangs to divide the indoor facility, so that other sports -- or school groups -- can use the space.

If Houston has designs on being a Big 12-type school one day -- and it has made that known -- those areas will need to improve. Much of that will fall on the next AD, after up-and-comer Mack Rhoades took the Missouri job. The AD hire could end up being more important than Herman's.

Assessing, and adjusting, the recruiting process is important for any new coach. Morris said his first official visitor, in December, was something of a trial run.

He admitted that he was "appalled" by what he saw.

"I called a meeting the next day," he said.

In particular, there was a lack of detail from SMU support staff. He feared a recruit would be turned off by a void of hospitality; instead, he wants universal charm to be an asset in recruiting.

Morris announced soon after that he would have an open meeting for any department that came into contact with recruits on official visits, whether that was dining or housing -- or any area of campus. About 40 employees attended what ended up being a 45-minute meeting, which included a skit in which SMU assistants demonstrated how a bad attitude from, say, a ticket-taker at a basketball game could underscore the recruiting efforts as much as any of those on the coaching staff.

"We all have to take ownership," Morris said.

Morris has also done things such as deliver Valentine's cards to the school's sororities, meet with fraternity members and cater a lunch for the stadium's custodial staff.

Morris also overhauled the video department -- or at least what predecessor June Jones considered a video department. It consisted of one camera that was nearly a decade old.

"Now we've got two freakin' drones flying around at practice," Morris said.

Most coaches suspect that both Herman and Morris will be successful at their new programs, because -- with proper administrative support, which each seems to have -- they can turn camcorders into drones.

"They're all-stars in coaching," said a coach in the state. "Those guys are going to be good for a long, long time. We didn't necessarily want to see them back."

[Stallion]

....and if you don't have 25 Million-then COMMIT to 7 x 60. Seven games-60 minutes. No matter how challenging the 2015 season is. Getting people consistently into Ford will close the deal on many of these recruits. The Coaching staff has earned an A+ in canvassing the state-now WE need too do our part in closing the deal. We probably got the Generals what we really need to turn this program around is the soldiers. We all have a part to play in this turnaround

[Digetydog]

Hey, sounds good to me. I'll get my measly checkbook and shovel. Let's go

Don't forget to put in for the "company match!" I am trying to fund the new Natatorium that way.

[MV pony]

Thanks BOP.

[skyscraper]

THX BOP.
I love hearing the party deck idea for Ford is on the drawing board.

[smupony94]

Sorority jacuzzi in the horseshoe

[gostangs]

sorority Jacuzzi, followed by Lori White leaving? coincidence? - I think not.

[ojaipony]

....and if you don't have 25 Million-then COMMIT to 7 x 60. Seven games-60 minutes. No matter how challenging the 2015 season is. Getting people consistently into Ford will close the deal on many of these recruits. The Coaching staff has earned an A+ in canvassing the state-now WE need too do our part in closing the deal. We probably got the Generals what we really need to turn this program around is the soldiers. We all have a part to play in this turnaround

ABSOLUTELY AGREE!

I'm all in. I will be bringing at least 4 with me for all seven. And I have SMU license plates and wear SMU gear everywhere.

[Stallion]

Sorority jacuzzi in the horseshoe

This AD is listening to us