Qualifier Question

[Smerkins]

Let me preface this by saying I decided to put this on the football side because it has implications for both sports and more people are on the football side right now.

Today I listened to Larry Brown give a ethics lecture at school. In it, he had an anecdote about trying to get Josiah Turner in to SMU (he didn't mention him by name but the adjectives he gave made it clear it was him). Even though Josiah was a qualifier, he had to present him to Orsini and then afterwards an academic board to get him in. He said that Orisini immediately told him no based on his character issues. Larry still asked to go in front of the board and it was eventually determined that Turner would not be coming here (interesting because I'm not sure if that was ever made that public). He said that it was fine that Turner didn't get in, but that he told the board that he would be back with other kids like that and they had better be ready.

My question is: Is this something that has to be done for every recruit that is in between NCAA and SMU standards? Or is this more of an occasional thing that gets done for particular individuals like Josiah who had legal issues (and was also a transfer)?

I would tend to think the latter, but later on he mentioned that SMU is tough because our standards were higher than Duke, Stanford, Georgetown, and other similar schools and that's why we don't quite have the same athletics even though the schools are similar in terms of academics and size.

[blackoutpony]

Wow.....

[redpony]

Interesting- I would like to see what the reality of the situation is.

[couch 'em]

Anyone else have a bad feeling about a future coach quitting over admission problems?

[Rebel10]

If our standards are higher than Duke, Stanford, and Georgetown that is not good. They must have really made some exceptions to get KF into SMU.

[RebStang]

If our standards are higher than Duke, Stanford, and Georgetown that is not good. They must have really made some exceptions to get KF into SMU.

Nobody else took the chance on Josiah Turner, either. That should tell you something.

It's one thing to ask that an academically borderline kid be approved by the admissions committee. It's another entirely to ask that an academically borderline kid with a public track record of character problems (being kicked off the team at another school for what was apparently a number of drug and alcohol issues) be admitted.

[LA_Mustang]

Thanks for the post, Smerkins. That's pretty eye opening.

[Smerkins]

My heart immediately sank when I heard that. I asked my friends if I misheard him and they said no they heard the same thing.

So my hope is that he just misspoke.

It would really be nice if the school would just by completely transparent about it though. The answers Hart always gives are kind of vague or don't directly answer the question.

[leopold]

If our standards are higher than Duke, Stanford, and Georgetown that is not good. They must have really made some exceptions to get KF into SMU.

Nobody else took the chance on Josiah Turner, either. That should tell you something.

It's one thing to ask that an academically borderline kid be approved by the admissions committee. It's another entirely to ask that an academically borderline kid with a public track record of character problems (being kicked off the team at another school for what was apparently a number of drug and alcohol issues) be admitted.

'Bouta say the same thing. I'd have to know the full story behind Josiah before I start pointing fingers at the admin.

[RebStang]

My question is this: Should SMU have any standards other than what the NCAA requires?

By that, I mean should SMU admit a qualifier that was convicted of sexually assaulting his own cousin? (Tennessee did this in 2009)

Should SMU admit a kid with multiple drug arrests and a 21 on the ACT?

My take is... no. There are enough good athletes out there that aren't criminals and haven't been kicked off of other teams for drug related issues.

[SMU2007]

I'm ok with minimum academic standards for the football players but would not want to be cheering for rapists etc.

[Stallion]

We all knew all about this on the recruiting boards. He was jailed for extreme DUI and got thrown off Arizona's team after being suspended twice. June also tried to get a former 4 star RB just paroled out jail after a 5 year jail term for shooting some one. June tried to get the kids from Navy Prep in who were expelled. I have no problem with character standards for admission. Nobody else wanted to take a chance on Turner or the 4 star RB except NMSU. I of the Navy Prep kids got into Georgia Tech-the others got no other Division 1A offers. is it really shocking that SMU won't admit kids with felonies on their records and served time in jail like Turner and the RB? Come on we can do without those kids. A lot of schools passed on turner and the RB. Surprise, Turner flamed out after 2 pro opportunities.

http://tucsoncitizen.com/wildcatreport/ ... dian-team/

[03Mustang]

I agree with Stallion...we can complain all we want, but the end results are very telling in all of these cases. A non-character example would be the OL June tried to get in a few years back that later went to Oregon State and then fell off the map completely without ever playing D1 football.

Larry is right for trying, but we should have some standards. It's the same reason the GM and the coach should be different people....all interests should be considered.

[Stallion]

To answer another question anybody scoring below I believe a 900 SAT or a 2.5 GPA is reviewed by the Committee-or at least used to. I think things were changed so that President Turner is a final appeal route. The DMN published records of that Committee after June Jones second year and it showed an unprecedented passage of kids through the committee in comparison to Bennett. 25 out of 27 were admitted during a 2 year period in Football. These exceptions represented over half of these recruiting classes. After appeal to Dr. Turner, even the 2 kids that didn't get in were offered admission if they passed 2 JC/CC courses and made a C. I posted the DMN article numerous times on here-but I'll see if I can find it. (See below)Then last year according to the Provost Report for 2013 SMU admitted 8 kids below the 830 GPA level (which is equal to the old 700 SAT under Prop 48). One scored a 640 SAT. I keep waiting them to post the 2014 Report but its not online. A lot of this stuff won't make much sense unless you understand the NCAA sliding scale. In summary, we are admitting a bunch of kids I never thought we'd get into SMU and some could not have been admitted under the old Prop 48 because it had a strict minimum of 700 SAT (recentered now to 830 SAT). The SAT floor was deemphasized by the NCAA in about 2000 because of complaints by the association of minority coaches but kids scoring below the floor will have a hard time reading aand writing at the JUCO level

http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/colleg ... l-7897.ece

[RebStang]

To answer another question anybody scoring below I believe a 900 SAT or a 2.5 GPA is reviewed by the Committee-or at least used to. I think things were changed so that President Turner is a final appeal route. The DMN published records of that Committee after June Jones second year and it showed an unprecedented passage of kids through the committee in comparison to Bennett. Even the 2 kids that didn't get in were offered admission if they passed 2 JC/CC courses and made a C. Then last year according to the Provost Report for 2013 last year SMU admitted 8 kids below the 830 GPA level (which is equal to the old 700 SAT under Prop 48). One scored a 640 SAT. I keep waiting them to post the 2014 Report but its not online

To some degree, SMU does have to be very careful about admitting some of these seriously borderline academic cases.

There are legitimate questions about whether or not a kid that can't score a 900 on the SAT can handle the academic load that a school like SMU is going to put on them.

I liken it to how Georgia Tech has to be very cautious about athletes that are questionable about their aptitude for mathematics. Georgia Tech's admissions people know that every student has to take 2 semesters of calculus... even a kid majoring in English. So, is there any point in accepting a student-athlete that pretty clearly can't handle math of that level?