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starting to sound like it is a done deal!!!

It's been quite some time since I felt the need to participate in any board discussion, at least since Men's Track disappeared into the sunset, but I think that Paul Johnson would be a great hire for SMU. He had nothing to work with at Navy, tons of recruiting rules and so forth. While he may not have great Texas ties, Bennet did- and was a great guy to boot, but couldn't get it done. I think Johnson would be smart enough to hire good assistants to help recruiting, and frankly, his track record of winning and bowls should draw some interest. He also has experience actually building and running a successful D-1 program outside of a major conference, or outside any conference for that matter. Furthermore, he is squeaky clean, which will make a lot of the administration and possibly the faculty more comfortable with him. If Orisini can land him, I think while there are certainly some concerns (because let's face our track record hasn't exactly been sterling), I think we should be able to get behind him and be very happy with this hire.

And as a further sidenote- I have to say that we should cut Orsini some slack- he has done a great deal of good for the program since he hit the ground. Sure, there is plenty of work to do (game day presentation at Moody does come immediately to mind), but this old house was in need of a lot of rennovation. He seems to be making some good headway already.

I find it interesting that ESPN updated their "coaching rumor" section just a moment ago and Johnson's name is not mentioned at all.