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I pose this as I'm curious as to what everyone thinks, or how things are interpreted.

Commitment. In another thread it has been noted that Dr. Turner said, "As a university, SMU is committed to football success at the highest level..."

Does this mean the university is willing to spend $3M a year for a coach, $2M, $500K, or pick a number? Is he saying that he/we are fine having SMU, as an institution, pick up the tab no matter what the number?

Or, does it mean; provided SMU can get our CoC or similar to privately fund the HC (maybe staff) salaries, then we are committed to football success at the highest level?

Should there be a qualifier in his message?

It means we are going to get the program that SMU alumni are willing to fund through donations and TICKET REVENUE-and with barely 10,000 fans that's the way its going to have to be. If some alum wants to make up the 40-45 Million PER YEAR revenue gulf between the P5 schools and SMU then go at it

The university's commitment isn't just based on salary. SMU and the athletic dept continue to invest in tutors and specialists, make adjustments to admissions, etc.

A new coach will want to know more than just salary - he'll want to know if he can get difference makers into school and help them advance toward an SMU degree.

hoop wrote:The university's commitment isn't just based on salary. SMU and the athletic dept continue to invest in tutors and specialists, make adjustments to admissions, etc.

A new coach will want to know more than just salary - he'll want to know if he can get difference makers into school and help them advance toward an SMU degree.

All that plus equipment and facilities like weight room, IPF etc.

we can get one of the guys we like for 2.5, plus assistants paid at the top of the AAC level for assistants, (further) assurances of academic support and a IPF. Hopefully they will hit the ground running on recruiting trail, plus immediately attract 5-8 transfers and 4-5 JUCO's so that help by next fall. All transfers need sick family members within 50 miles of Dallas.

Announcement to be made at end of Nov.

gostangs, are you saying we could/would pay 2.5 under the assumption that there is no private funding?
Theoretical I guess, but maybe these guys are fed up after the jj run.

We need to be all in and start building separation between us and the Rice, Tulsa, Tulane, North Texas, Texas State and Houstons of the world. We will never be in the P5 if we only just strive to be competitive in the AAC. We need to build a team and program that can compete with the best teams in the country, like Boise, UCF, TCU and Utah have done and be part of that conversation instead of just thinking 6 wins is satisfactory.

Big12, I think all on this board are all in. Which doesn't matter a lick because most here are so passive and want to believe... (you would think after 19 years and goose eggs in every category that wouldn't be the case but...)

What matters is if our university administration is all in, partially in, "6 wins a year is ok" in, etc.

I really find it hard to believe that those on this or the other boards have not started to clamour for a - "Reduced to writing statement" from this administration.

I.E., that's great what you say Dr. Turner, would you mind putting that in writing. Why not issue a statement of our goals, objectives, plan to get there, and a hold accountable acknowledgement that takes all of the bluster and ambiguity out of the equation and makes it very straightforward and simple. We said this, we did/didn't accomplish.

Public boards/shareholders hold CEO's accountable all the time, and they have a beginning of the year budget/projections to look when at years-end, they start going down the performance list to see how the company fared, and why/why not there were failures.

We are at $35M as an athletic program, which is in the upper tier of non-P5 programs, and is equal to or greater than some of the lower tier P5 organizations.

That sounds pretty good, and makes sense because we don't have the $20M coming in for TV like the P5 schools do.

Until, that is you realize that there is a reason TCU is playing with the big boys now. In 2013, TCU spent $25M on football alone, more than any other school in Texas, with a total athletics budget of $68M. They are spending like a large school, even though they are small.

IF (and it is a big IF), our football budget is 40% of the total budget, then that means we are spending about $14M on Football.

In 2013, Houston was right at about 2M for assistant coaches, Louisville around 2.5M. So, we need to budget 2 - 2.5 M for assistants to get to where we want to be as a staff.

If we pay the head coach 3.5 and the assistants another 2.5, that gives us $8M to cover:
- Operational Expenses
- Facility Improvements
- Recruiting expenses
- Weight room/training staff
- Nutritional Supplements (training table)

And that is based on an enormous assumption that 40% of our budget goes to football; I would guess that it is lower than that.

We all know that the last three items on the list above have been a joke the last few years. And most of it is on June, but we don't know if there were budget constraints either. So here are the big money thoughts:

- Is 8M enough to cover all of the above items? I would guess probably not.
- Is investing heavily in a coaching staff going to have a bigger impact on the program than not cutting corners in the other areas, if there is indeed some give-and-take there?
- Are we positioned, as a program, to be at the top of the standings against non-P5 programs with those budget restrictions?

And, taking it to another level:
- If we make the right investment with what we have available to us today, and we are investing more than most non-P5 programs on our football program, is being an above average non P5 program enough to generate interest in the program such that our attendance and dallas area investment will grow from year to year, eventually enabling us to fall into the middle of the pack from a P5 perspective on athletic budget?
- Are we okay, as alumni, with realizing that we are not going to compete with the big dogs in football until we have a 20-25M budget in football alone, and that it will take us some time to improve enough to get to that expense point?

Points of reference:
http://www.frogsowar.com/2012/12/5/3731 ... ts-and-tcu
http://collegesportsblog.dallasnews.com ... exas.html/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/aliciajesso ... -expenses/
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/ ... assistant/

Well done, JasonB. So let me ask, then, would it be out of line to expect the administration to be held accountable to a written plan that states objectives, a road map to get there and expectations for each faction involved?

78pony wrote:Well done, JasonB. So let me ask, then, would it be out of line to expect the administration to be held accountable to a written plan that states objectives, a road map to get there and expectations for each faction involved?

Good points. After the "Commitment" lie, and various smoke & mirror routines from RGT, I would feel more comfortable seeing something in writing.

I would be curious to see how booster money goes into that total figure. For example, if the boosters chipped in $4.5M each year ($2.75 for June; $1.75 for assistants), does that $4.5 go towards the $35M spent on the Athletic Department? Or are those funds calculated as basically the University "subsidy" to float the Department, and private donations to fund salary are calculated separately. Because that could be a fairly substantial swing, if, say, $4.0 - $5.0M each year of the $14M (ballparking) isn't reflected in the final number.

I don't know; my guess is that it would be accounted for in the $35M figure, because why keep it off the books.

as MC members, we are essentially stakeholders. I know we are a private U, but the board of the MC club should be able to access a P&L for the AD and a plan for execution. That shouldn't be a secret. It seems to be that there should be more transparency in all things if they want more donations and commitment from boosters. Right now it's a secret society.

SMU's budgetary numbers are skewed because they are inflated by an accounting trick adding the full cost of tuition into our alleged budget which has no real affect on our competitiveness as an athletic program in comparison to say a state school. Also, TCU numbers are deceiving because while they are transitioning into Big 12 they don't get a full share of conference revenue. I believe they get a full share next year that will give them about 10 Million more per year. TCU's numbers are also 2 years old. Where SMU falls even farther behind TCU is football game day revenue because they have sold out their season tickets in recent years-the only unpaid seats are usually visiting team allotment that go unused. We will probably be making 40-45 Million less in revenue by the time TCU gets a full Big 12 share. EVERY YEAR

Good luck getting anything in writing from Turner, the Board or anyone else pulling the strings. These guys are simply politicians telling the masses (fans,students,alumni) whatever they want to hear in order to keep the $$$$$ flowing in their direction. They have already come out with well crafted statements about 'commitment' and 'competing for championships' and that's all you'll get. This is academia and they generally view the rest of us with disdain. Probably one of the reasons they fell in love with June, two peas in a pod.

Politicians lie for money....surprise, surprise.