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This is going to be interesting to watch unfold. What we saw with basketball under Larry Brown was a coach that genuinely showed love and passion for the school, embraced its traditions and values, went to every function and media event with tremendous joy about SMU. What happened? The alumni and community rallied behind the program and we now have a quality basketball program that can put 5,500 fans in the stands to watch us play Monmouth on a Sunday night during the NFL season. I don't care who you are or what you thought but I literally never imagined a day where that was possible. From everything I know about Chad Morris we can expect the same sort of passion and relentless salesmanship of the program. I genuinely believe the SMU community has been waiting for a guy like this to lead our football program for decades. I believe once the fans/alumni see this guy and our team in action that we will start to get much better crowds at Ford.

Totally agree.

I really hope so. I personally wanted Morris ever since the ASU incident. Could not be more pleased with this hire.

StallionsModelT wrote:This is going to be interesting to watch unfold. What we saw with basketball under Larry Brown was a coach that genuinely showed love and passion for the school, embraced its traditions and values, went to every function and media event with tremendous joy about SMU. What happened? The alumni and community rallied behind the program and we now have a quality basketball program that can put 5,500 fans in the stands to watch us play Monmouth on a Sunday night during the NFL season. I don't care who you are or what you thought but I literally never imagined a day where that was possible. From everything I know about Chad Morris we can expect the same sort of passion and relentless salesmanship of the program. I genuinely believe the SMU community has been waiting for a guy like this to lead our football program for decades. I believe once the fans/alumni see this guy and our team in action that we will start to get much better crowds at Ford.

Great post, and very true. Can't wait to see what happens when we have a coach truly embrace what is great about SMU and watch it pay dividends.

It will take some time. Real team loyalty doesn't build over night.

CoxMustangFan wrote:It will take some time. Real team loyalty doesn't build over night.

It would be really great if somehow we pulled out a decent recruiting class.

CoxMustangFan wrote:It will take some time. Real team loyalty doesn't build over night.

You're right it will take some time. Remember that first year with LB? We still had crowds of 1,800 for the non-marquee home games. We have to play an exciting brand of football and we have to hold our own against the big boys. Morris isn't coming here so that this can be his last head coaching job. He wants to make us into a winner. If that happens the crowds at Ford won't be an issue.

StallionsModelT wrote:

CoxMustangFan wrote:It will take some time. Real team loyalty doesn't build over night.

You're right it will take some time. Remember that first year with LB? We still had crowds of 1,800 for the non-marquee home games. We have to play an exciting brand of football and we have to hold our own against the big boys. Morris isn't coming here so that this can be his last head coaching job. He wants to make us into a winner. If that happens the crowds at Ford won't be an issue.

IMO, SMU fans just tend to have higher expectations for quick turn-arounds. There's a whole generation of 10-18 year olds that have grown up cheering for TCU (my 11 year old's entire baseball team cheers for TCU). It will take time, but we can all play our part.

Not taking away from LB, but he was also fortunate to have Louisville, UCONN, Memphis, Cincy on the schedule with limited seats. CM will have it tougher when we play teams no one cares about and you don't have to buy season tickets to insure entry to the stadium for the few big games.

I think it will be NIGHT AND DAY better and I haven't been this excited about SMU football in a long long time.
Fantastic hire, can't wait for the future!

ponydawg wrote:Not taking away from LB, but he was also fortunate to have Louisville, UCONN, Memphis, Cincy on the schedule with limited seats. CM will have it tougher when we play teams no one cares about and you don't have to buy season tickets to insure entry to the stadium for the few big games.

I think it will be NIGHT AND DAY better and I haven't been this excited about SMU football in a long long time.
Fantastic hire, can't wait for the future!

All very true, but what did we do against UCONN, Memphis, Louisville, etc.? We won and we made the environment hell on the opponent and a blast for our fans. The same can be done for football. This community just needs something to rally behind. We've been begging for it for years. Will we ever average 35K? I don't know. But with an exciting brand of football that gives the university pride in the product there is no reason we can't average 25K. That would be a tremendous step in the right direction.

It will take a herculean sales effort and we have to WIN but it can certainly be done. I've always felt SMU is a sleeping giant and could be one of the best brands in all of college sports. Win and we will fill the seats and the airwaves. Upside is even higher in football than basketball IMHO. Get football going and bball is just the gravy.

Getting Frazier as a marquee recruit really helped and had people talk about us.

If Morris can do the same thing, that will help a lot.

Acting like you want to be here for more than just money and going to university functions and acting like you give a sh*t will go a long way too.

ojaipony wrote:It will take a herculean sales effort and we have to WIN but it can certainly be done. I've always felt SMU is a sleeping giant and could be one of the best brands in all of college sports. Win and we will fill the seats and the airwaves. Upside is even higher in football than basketball IMHO. Get football going and bball is just the gravy.

SMU brand has always been good. I totally fell for those Ron Meyers teams, plus the history . Got this LA boy to SMU, not usc or ucla.

Go Ponies!

He will get the students excited before our first game against Baylor and each game thereafter. The students won't want to disappoint someone so committed to their university.

And, I love the Red Bull video, which is outstanding, and our student will respond in kind.