Tennell Commits to OU

[Stallion]

WR Adron Tennell who plays for Irving coached by Jim Bennett committed to OU today. By the way if my calculations are correct with several added commitments today there are now 102 Texas High School players who have committed to Division 1A programs.

[KnuckleStang]

Lost another loan to DiTech.

[jkflamebo]

lol

[Billy Joe]

I really did not expect a player highly rated like him to pick SMU. After all, we have not really done much the last decade to convince any top caliber talent to come here. However, I do expect SMU to get many of the second / third tier local players. It amazes me how frequently teams like Tulsa, UTEP, Tulane, TCU, Rice, La. Tech and North Texas outrecruit us for local talent. If I can recall, I believe we got zero DISD recruits last year. This is not a good sign, especially when some of the top talent in the country comes from that school district. For the naysayers on this board, we shall see how close the North Texas game is next year. You will see how the talent gap has widened between SMU and that community college of a university. SMU has big problems that many of you fail to recognize. Maybe one win this season will open a few eyes or better yet a blow out loss to N. Texas next year may do the trick. To date: zero commitments...not a good sign folks. Lord have mercy on us all!

[Caballo]

Billy Joe,

Let's not focus solely on the DISD kids. We have a much broader pool to swim in than just that district. Let's look at the area districts that are within an hour drive of Mockingbird Lane, in rush hour traffic.

Southlake Carroll has had approximately three kids commit to D-1 schools. A wide receiver has committed to BYU, a linebacker has committed to Vanderbilt, and a safety has recently committed to Tulsa. I don't know if we were recruiting these players, but you would think that if they are good enough to be recruited by schools like Stanford, Arizona, and the above named schools, they could probably play for SMU. Also, all the schools with the above commitments are small, private schools. Our admission standards should be the same as theirs, and we are only hindering our own development by not following their lead.

Start winning and they will come. Have comparable standards as other similarly situated schools and you can recruit. You can't get a chicken without an egg, and vice versa.

[Billy Joe]

Well put Caballo. It seems Tulsa has really cleaned up in the D/FW area the last few seasons. I am sure Stallion has a more accurate view point on the success Tulsa and the aforementioned schools have had in the D/FW area. A few seasons ago, it seemed like Tulsa was one of the few schools we could point to as a likely win. However, Tulsa seems to be gaining a lot of momentum with the players they are getting. Any particular reason for this Stallion?

[DiamondM75]

Kids want to go away to go to school and Tulsa is not far. Therefore, we lose local kids to Tulsa, Baylor, Texas, OU, et al. These schools are only 2 to 4 hours from home, which is convenient when the laundry gets dirty, but is still away from home. They are also close enough that family and friends can travel on a Saturday morning and still see them compete. I think the 300 mile radius of recruiting is a great idea because we can recruit in the Houston, Austin, SA and east Texas areas to get the players that want to go away to school.

Until we start having some real athletic success, we will not be able to recruit the local area. We just have to get to the level where players want to come here, even if it is just down the road or across the street. That is exactly why I attended SMU. I wanted to be a part of a successful program, even though I was still home.

[Stallion]

DiamondM75 that is the biggest bunch of crap-used by all the same SMU apologists on this board. The job of the SMU football and Basketball coaches is to recruit these players-both Bennett and Tubbs readily admit it. That's one reason I supported in particular Tubbs and Charlie Waters. If they can't get that job done they won't be around for long. The great teams in SMU history were always filled with great players from the Metroplex. There are over 140 Division 1A prospects from DFW every year. BTW the talent level in DISD is now at probably an all-time low in Football. It is important to focus on the greater Metroplex. The reason Tulsa is recruiting so well in DFW is their assistant head coach/defensive coordinator who has coached at a Dallas area high school and West Virgina. SMU had a chance to hire the guy under Cavan but dropped the ball.

[PK]

SMU had a chance to hire the guy under Cavan but dropped the ball.

I believe that at SMU, like any other college, it is the Head Football coach who hires his assistants and coordinators...thus the correct statement would be Cavan dropped the ball. But then again, he already had a great defensive coordinator.

[Roach]

.... The job of the SMU football and Basketball coaches is to recruit these players-both Bennett and Tubbs readily admit it....

No, the job of the SMU football and basketball coaches is to win games, and to do that, you need players. But it doesn't matter if those players come from Highland Park or Highland Park, Ill., or Highland Park, Md. If Joe Sturdivant turns into the next Russell Carter, nobody's going to give a damn that he came to SMU from Georgia. If Brian Morris becomes a lottery pick, nobody's going to care that Coach Tubbs recruited a guy from Oregon instead of from Kimball or SOC.

.... The great teams in SMU history were always filled with great players from the Metroplex.

And on those great teams, the best players were from all over. Dickerson was from Sealy, James was from the Houston area, etc. If they can play, they can play. Sure, it would be nice to fill the roster with kids from Dallas County, I guess. Think of all the families who could ride their bikes to the game and whip out a picnic basket on The Boulevard. But ultimately, it doesn't matter. Admittedly, I don't read as much recruiting stuff as you do. But from what I have read, this Brock guy from west Texas could be really good, and I'm glad one of our coaches found him. I hope like hell Troy Therien comes in and breaks all sorts of sack records, and it won't bother me one iota that he's not a Texan.

.... There are over 140 Division 1A prospects from DFW every year....

Wow -- could you pick a more arbitrary number?
To Bob Stoops and Mack Brown, there might be 10. Or 20. To the coach at .... Hofstra, there might be 400 prospects in the area.
I'm not saying you're wrong. There might well be more than 140 every year. Just seems like a completely random number.

[Stallion]

Its not arbitrary at all. Texas Football has tracked these numbers for at least 20 years. Last year 137 players from the Metroplex SIGNED Division 1A scholarships. As for players in the early 1980s from the Metroplex let's take a look:

Mike Ford
Michael Carter
Ricky Bolden
Lance McIllhenney
Craig Kennington
Andrew Campbell
Scott Gibson
Don King
Cornelius Dozier
Richard Neely
Mitch Willis
Russell Washington
Larry Cox
T.D. Briggs
Darrell Reese
Eddie Radford
Rod Jones
Jeff Atkins
[deleted] Blaylock
Aaron Boulton
David Richards
Ron Morris
Brandy Brownlee
Eddie Garcia
Whitt Smith
Kit Case
Charles Waggoner
Bobby Watters
Jeffrey Jacobs

Included in that group are First Team All SWC players Ford, Garcia, McIllhenney, Bolden, Campbell, Carter, King, and Morris, players who received some Second Team All-SWC honors like King, Gibson, Kennington, Neely, Atkins, Richards, Brownlee, R. Jones, Russell Washington and NFL First Round Draft Picks Rod Jones and Michael Carter,

There were more but I'm including only highly recruited players, team leaders or multi-year starters. This group is among the creme of the crop of the DFW Metroplex. If Tubbs and Bennett don't get the job done in the Metroplex they won't be around long.

[LA_Mustang]

Let's not focus solely on the DISD kids.

Right....let's do what we have for the past 15-20 years and completely ignore the DISD kids and the Dallas community. Letting them run off to Baylor, UT, A&M, Tulsa, OU, ect. has worked wonders.
BTW, we currently have one DISD player (Darrin Johnson/North Dallas) on the entire SMU football roster.
Baylor has 9 from DISD
Tulsa has 4 from DISD
I know....we gave those kids a look but in the end we didn't need them....
Man, It's hard to imagine why Dallas doesn't embrace SMU and its athletic teams??