The U recruiting

[NickSMU17]

Staying local and working hard pays off...

No program has yielded more talent to the NFL ranks in recent years than the University of Miami.

The talent pool for the program has never been in question under Butch Davis, Larry Coker, or even Randy Shannon.

Yet, newly appointed head coach Al Golden has decided to turn the Hurricanes' recruiting dial from 10 to 11 this year as he looks to land 2012 recruits.

"You want to talk about a night-and-day difference," Miami Columbus High School coach Chris Merritt told the Miami Herald. "There's a lot more communication and texts now. Miami didn't recruit any of our kids under Shannon."

The proof is in the pudding.

Miami has already received 22 verbal commitments for 2012. Nine of the 22 are 4-star recruits. Plus, the program is still hot on the trail of numerous highly sought after prospects to still add to its upcoming class.

Miami's new coach looks to have the golden touch when it comes to communicating and landing talent while continually working as hard at Miami as he did at Temple.

[Harry0569]

Props to Golden--here's to hoping he gets the U back to where it belongs.

[NickSMU17]

Screw the U...but amazing what hard work can do...Makes even Temple a winner...

[West Coast Johnny]

Howard Schnellenberger drew a circle around a three county area in South Florida, and named it the State of Miami - and went after every top recruit from Dade, Broward & Palm Beach counties.

Its a model SMU could use, but unfortunately, local talent is largely ignored.

[NickSMU17]

You are a frog what do you know about it....How would you know about building a good football program...

Your crazy

JJ rules he is god....

[Mitch McConnell]

At first, I thought this was a thread devoted to Minnesota's recruiting. That's the only U I recognize.

[SMU 86]

Howard Schnellenberger drew a circle around a three county area in South Florida, and named it the State of Miami - and went after every top recruit from Dade, Broward & Palm Beach counties.

Its a model SMU could use, but unfortunately, local talent is largely ignored.

We are not ignoring local talent. One coach is just doing very well in California. However, local talent may not be as positive towards SMU until we win big. At this point in the program we have to go wherever we can get good talent. Granted part of TCU's success is being able to get in borderline students athletes and with athlete friendly instructors that keep them eligible (now that is a model SMU could use).

[Alaric]

Yes Nick, we'd all like SMU to work harder locally. Got your point. You've OTP'd OTP

[mustangxc]

I think it is easier beating UCLA, Arizona, Arizona State, etc. in recruiting than it is to beat TCU head to head in recruiting at this juncture. Case in point Carter Wall. I also would love for us to get all the best local athletes, but until we show some real signs of progress ie beating TCU Texas A&M etc. we will struggle in attracting top local talent. Why go to SMU when you can go to TCU get the same experience, same academics (we all know that we have left TCU in the dust academically much like TCU has left us in the dust athletically, but in the eyes of most of these recruits we are even academically), play in a BCS conference, win more games, attract more fans, and more national attention? On the other hand SMU is attractive to out of state kids because we are very different. Coming to SMU is a completely different experience, they associate Dallas with the Dallas Cowboys, don't know too much about SMU, but saw the pony excess video, know what June did at Hawaii, etc. It is a combination of many factors, but it really doesn't surprise me that we are doing we have it easier in California. Again, when a local athlete chooses SMU the question is why didn't he go to TCU?

[Stallion]

Its called salesmanship. You get the recruiter who can sell exactly why SMU is a better choice than TCU. TCU hasn't backed off from those recruits for over a decade. I can guarantee you if you only offer 2 4 stars+ in Texas like SMU this year you won't get many. Really, there is only one guy on this staff offering those types of players on the staff.

[Mitch McConnell]

Its called salesmanship. You get the recruiter who can sell exactly why SMU is a better choice than TCU. TCU hasn't backed off from those recruits for over a decade. I can guarantee you if you only offer 2 4 stars+ in Texas like SMU this year you won't get many. Really, there is only one guy on this staff offering those types of players on the staff.

Again, this goes back to my original argument here -- because we keep going round and round on this damn thing -- but the problem is SMU's issues in Texas go back to 1989 to where we have been an oh-by-the-way thing until 2009. These last two years have been nice. No question. But we need to pick it up on the big win trail if this is going to take off in this state.

This isn't about just offering Texas and kids and saying, "hey, we're better than TCU.''

TCU can look at a kid and say, "Yep, we got it started when we beat USC (I don't care what USC's situation was that year. Kids don't remember that. They just know USC is always good.) in the Sun Bowl. We won in Norman in 2005. And we constantly beat Tech with that Leach tricked up offense. Oh, we also have several bowl wins and championships.'''

SMU has ZERO skins on the wall.

Who knows? Maybe going from the outside in is going to show these Texas kids we really want to win. Someone from this state had to notice what Marks did.

[SMU 86]

We are in a situation where we need to get talent wherever we can find it. However, we are not overlooking local kids because we just got a commitment from a talented local player today in Garland HS LB Damien Neroes.