Rick Hart

[Lefty]

I think all of us who genuinely are SMU fans want to see all of the teams succeed, whether it's football and basketball or soccer and swimming. But the reality of the college athletics landscape is such that football and basketball always come first, and always will. Even with the success Larry Brown and his guys are having, football will remain first. Wasn't it Bill Self who said during the last conference realignment that Kansas was a "school without a conference" or a "school nobody wanted" because football was all that mattered?

Rick Hart, like all ADs and CEOs, has to make a lot of choices, many of which are driven by economics. I'd love to see swimming get a natatorium that was built in the last century and soccer start winning national titles every year, but reality dictates that football and basketball have to be fixed first. Rick Hart is doing a lot of things right, and we're lucky to have him.

[Lefty]

It was kinda humorous that a guy who comes from an SEC family, whose dad is an SEC Athletic Director, who wants to be an SEC Athletic Director, allegedly decided to move all the way down to Dallas just so he could be Gerald's spineless puppet and torpedo his own career.

By the way, you have more than 4800 posts, and this is your best ever: short, logical and absolutely accurate.
Cheers to you for this.

[Charleston Pony]

basketball is the "high profile" sport where you can make the fastest turnaround and SMU is well on it's way to doing that. Not sure how much credit Rick gets for that, but I agree with those who say he is a very likeable guy. I hope he succeeds and is at SMU for a long time

[blackoutpony]

I think all of us who genuinely are SMU fans want to see all of the teams succeed, whether it's football and basketball or soccer and swimming. But the reality of the college athletics landscape is such that football and basketball always come first, and always will. Even with the success Larry Brown and his guys are having, football will remain first. Wasn't it Bill Self who said during the last conference realignment that Kansas was a "school without a conference" or a "school nobody wanted" because football was all that mattered?

Glad you made this point and I totally agree. I would like all "Can bball get us to the P5?" yuppies to make notice. Cough. cough UConn anyone?

Reality is, the football program is a complete mess. If mrydel wants to say, its only been a year and a half so don't judge him, then fine, don't judge him. That means you can't say he's doing a good job either, because somehow he hasn't gotten to everything yet, which seems ridiculous to me. You'd be fired real quick in the real world if, as mrydel said, a CEO was in charge of a company for a year and a half and hadn't completed your freaking evaluation with an action plan by that time. Time is money and unfortunately, we have none. Letting hart sit around to figure it is not a luxury we have. Yes game presentation is better, yes we have beer, cool he knows what the [deleted] twitter is, but who cares if we suck and are literally back in CUSA 2.0?

Some of you battered wives are simply much more patient than I am and some of you simply don't get that time is up. We don't' have the extra year for Junes buyout. The P5 train is racing down the track faster than ever before. You think the Big XII isn't' getting ancy about not having a conference championship game? I'm not trying to sound like the sky is falling, just being realistic about how the massive hole we have to climb out of in a very short time.

[Stallion]

The premise underlying so many posts that Hart had the authority to fire June Jones when he still had 1 1/2 years on huge contract is naïve. I think criticism, if any, should be directed higher on the food chain if you are going to make that argument. SMU created Circle of Champions to finance Head Coach which means that they have to consulted on whether to finance his buyout too plus there has to be discussion between school and Circle of Champions on how to finance new head coach, if at all

[Digetydog]

It was kinda humorous that a guy who comes from an SEC family, whose dad is an SEC Athletic Director, who wants to be an SEC Athletic Director, allegedly decided to move all the way down to Dallas just so he could be Gerald's spineless puppet and torpedo his own career.

That was funny.

[mrydel]

I can only imagine the stories that would be written about SMU if we had 17 firings in 18 months. Instant gratification is an illness. If we build it right it will be stable and strong. And yes, a CEO would be given more than 18 months to complete a rebuilding program. It is not like he is doing nothing, he just has not completed everything. But as long as you have something to whine about the world will be right,

[SoCal_Pony]

Glad you made this point and I totally agree. I would like all "Can bball get us to the P5?" yuppies to make notice. Cough. cough UConn anyone?

We all agree FB drives this, although Syracuse's admission to the ACC was not exclusively FB driven.

Look at the state of Conneticut's Top 100 FB recruits. Then look, not at the state of Texas, but simply at the DFW Top 100.

If I was the ACC, I would select SMU over UConn.

In hindsight, a SMU / Coog combo makes more sense than Boston College / UConn one.

[Digetydog]

Glad you made this point and I totally agree. I would like all "Can bball get us to the P5?" yuppies to make notice. Cough. cough UConn anyone?

We all agree FB drives this, although Syracuse's admission to the ACC was not exclusively FB driven.

Look at the state of Conneticut's Top 100 FB recruits. Then look, not at the state of Texas, but simply at the DFW Top 100.

If I was the ACC, I would select SMU over UConn.

In hindsight, a SMU / Coog combo makes more sense than Boston College / UConn one.

Connecticut doesn't have a Top 100 Recruits list. Most years, less than 10 players make it to D1 FB teams. Last year, a team went pretty far in the playoffs running the Single Wing.