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Someone claiming to be a coach at Mater Dei is on the Rivals message board saying that Victor Blackwell (6'1 WR) would love to come to SMU but our coaches said they dont have the room... He said that he is an ex-SMU player. Are there even any SMU alum coaching at Mater Dei?

Offers from Cal, Tenn, UCLA, etc...

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/recruiting/player-Victor-Blackwell-87942

I would file that rumor under the highly unlikely category.

Rivals also says he's 2011 graduate.

But he does have 4.4 speed.

Being a 2011 grad I find this rumor hard to believe.

Rumor Squashed...

Doesn't Kevin Aldridge have a younger brother that was supposed to be a hot shot recruit- I think is from a different high school that kevin went to. May be a 2011 recruit.

yeah I'm pretty sure this his him-but he's a cousin-Quincy Aldridge a 2011 Safety from Whitehouse

http://rivals.yahoo.com/tamu/football/r ... idge-96719

Guy that was at SMU, not sured if he ever really played is coaching at Mater Dei. He was on the team though. Trustworthy guy, if he says it I believe it.

Victor Blackwell is a 4 star recruit on scout.

http://recruiting.scout.com/a.z?s=73&p= ... id=4397081

Me wrote:Guy that was at SMU, not sured if he ever really played is coaching at Mater Dei. He was on the team though. Trustworthy guy, if he says it I believe it.

one of these guys?

Mr. Jeffrey Diulio Social Studies Teacher/Frosh. Asst. Football Coach
Mr. David Money PE Teacher/Offensive Coordinator
Mr. Bruce Rollinson Special Assistant to the President/HC Football

This board just lives to steal pay info, and the mods don't do a thing. Presumably, b/c they are bitter that a pay site exists. Way to work together SMU!

It was from a message board...Not posted by Armen, Sam, or any Rivals employees but by a guy claiming to be a football coach at Mater Dei. If this information is correct, and there was a certain misunderstang between him and the coaches, it needs to be addressed immediately. I know for a fact that certain SMU staff visit this site and while an email has already been sent, this is a good back-up plan...

Chuck Norris wrote:It was from a message board...Not posted by Armen, Sam, or any Rivals employees but by a guy claiming to be a football coach at Mater Dei. If this information is correct, and there was a certain misunderstang between him and the coaches, it needs to be addressed immediately. I know for a fact that certain SMU staff visit this site and while an email has already been sent, this is a good back-up plan...

it's a premium message board, and several who post there, only post there, b/c it's premium. It's not just about Armen, Sam etc. Many over there are connected and don't want their info public. Look at the guys screen name, number, and connect the dots. If he's having a misunderstanding w/the staff, it'll get worked out b/c he's a great Mustang, and the kid in question is worth the effort. A public forum is never the way to get program business accomplished.

PonyDoh wrote:This board just lives to steal pay info, and the mods don't do a thing. Presumably, b/c they are bitter that a pay site exists. Way to work together SMU!

#1, both pay services courted us for 5+ years, and we turned them down repeatedly because we didn't feel they offered PonyFans enough value for the money. The additional money we'd make wasn't worth the members we'd lose. As difficult as the times have been over the past 25 years, pay sites haven't proved viable until June Jones arrived. It's no coincidence that we've been the only real coverage the Mustangs have had over the last decade. As long as we can continue to generate enough support through advertising and sponsorship, PonyFans.com will remain free to its members.

#2 Being that the ownership and management of PonyFans.com is comprised of SMU grads has its pros and cons. On the plus side, our writers' knowledge of SMU sports is unmatched. On the con side, we have to be careful about contacting recruits (because of our alumni status). So to an extent, we leave that niche to the pay sites. The pay sites are run by SMU outsiders, so they don't have to concern themselves with NCAA rules prohibiting contact by alumni.

#3, we repeatedly ask posters to post their original content on PonyFans or link to the original source. To my knowledge, THE MANAGEMENT AND MODERATORS OF THIS SITE HAVE NEVER posted premium content from another site. Linking to the other sites actually does the Rivals and Scout guys a huge favor because we have about 20 times as many members as they do. Inbound links from PonyFans.com are also hugely valuable. In fact, our policy of allowing links to those sites is hugely helpful to them from an SEO standpoint and is very detrimental to us.

In other words, posting links from our site to theirs is actually doing them a huge favor, which is what the author of this thread is doing.

Former SMU defensive tackle Joe Medlin coaches at Mater Dei, or at least he did when Robert Mojica was being recruited.

PonyDoh wrote:This board just lives to steal pay info, and the mods don't do a thing. Presumably, b/c they are bitter that a pay site exists. Way to work together SMU!

First of all, it's not a matter of "SMU" working together, since none of the sites is affiliated with SMU.

Secondly, the mods do plenty to monitor this site, in addition to our full-time jobs. No media outlet has exclusive rights over such information, so while we allow posters to list a recruit's name and height, weight, etc., we constantly remove and/or edit posts that copy quotes from the other sites.

Third, by definition we are not in competition with a pay site, and we harbor no bitterness of any kind toward either site nor their moderators and/or staff. If anything, while we appreciate a poster's willingness to speak on our behalf, we realize that we all do better when there is enough of a fan base to support more than one site, including premium and non-premium sites.