Football assistant coaches officially hired

[Bergermeister]

Joining Morris will be coordinators Joe Craddock (Offense) and Van Malone (Defense), as well as assistant coaches Dustin Fry (Assistant Coach/Offensive Line), Keith Gunn (Assistant Coach/Defense), Jess Loepp (Assistant Coach/Defensive Backs), Claude Mathis (Assistant Coach/Running Backs), Archie McDaniel (Assistant Coach/Linebackers), Justin Stepp (Assistant Coach/Wide Receivers) and Bill Young (Assistant Coach/Defensive Line).

[photopony]

No reason to get bogged down by titles. I bet Bill Young becomes a mentor to all of those young coaches, it's not like he will only be stuck with the DL 24 hours a day.

[EP Pony Fan]

CM is the offensive coordinator, don't kid yourself. He brought along his helper from Clemson and gave him a title.

Right. I assume Craddock is breaking down film, doing big part of opponent scouting, etc.
CM surely will run everything about the offense.

[couch 'em]

I think it is legitimate to be concerned about the lack of experience. I'll take young hungry coach's buddies to June's washed up geritol buddies, but this isn't what I thought of with all the "unlimited budget" talk

[sbsmith]

I'll take young hungry coach's buddies to June's washed up geritol buddies, but this isn't what I thought of with all the "unlimited budget" talk

Yeah, it looks a little underwhelming to say the least.

[S....M....U]

Seems a bit past due. Wonder if contracts were still being negotiated through the holidays.

[skyscraper]

I'll echo some of you guys.... glad they are ready to recruit, but very green and no special teams coach (?!)

[PonySnob]

Are assistant coaches on annual contracts?

[well travelled pony]

I'll echo some of you guys.... glad they are ready to recruit, but very green and no special teams coach (?!)

While I don't think it is perfect, I think Morris has made these choices based on his desire to generate a lot of regional excitement and set his tone. He is at SMU to rejuvenate the program. Based on all the stuff I see on Twitter, all that is happening in spades.

Go Ponies!

[Treadway21]

I'll echo some of you guys.... glad they are ready to recruit, but very green and no special teams coach (?!)

While I don't think it is perfect, I think Morris has made these choices based on his desire to generate a lot of regional excitement and set his tone. He is at SMU to rejuvenate the program. Based on all the stuff I see on Twitter, all that is happening in spades.

Go Ponies!

Agree. Let's see how they recruit. Then see how they coach. Then make a judgement. Lots of ways to skin a cat.

[Puckhead48E]

Most on here thing this team in its 2015 form will be lucky to win 4 games. With this coaching staff, do you think they will win less? Don't think HCCM would take a bunch of questions to his first HC gig...that includes the assistants. He has a plan for this...let's see what that plan is. As we all know, a collection of corpses could have out-coached last years group, or at least related more to the players. Let's give them a chance and see what they bring to the table. I, for one, am excited. Can't wait for my first weekend trip back to Dallas solely to see a game.

[JasonB]

The inexperience of the staff is certainly going to be used against us in recruiting. That is concerning.

We also don't have a head coach in waiting if Morris leaves at some point, so that is concerning as well.

We have coordinators who don't have experience being coordinators, so that is an additional concern.

But all of that is to be expected to a certain extent when you hire a guy who hasn't been a head coach before - he doesn't have legions of other coaches in his tree willing to follow him.

Every great coach has to start their coaching tree somewhere, and I hope Morris does it here at SMU. Everything I have read about Morris is that he isn't just an administrator, he is a very good coach. And very good coaches can usually sniff out bad coaches pretty quickly.

Despite all of those concerns, Morris had enough coaching vacancies offered to him that I if there were monetary restrictions on hiring assistants, he would not have taken the job. The staff of (hopefully) up-and-comers is by choice, not by constraint.

[smupony94]

We have what most schools don't have - boosters willing to pay coaches to come here

[smupony94]

The inexperience of the staff is certainly going to be used against us in recruiting. That is concerning.

We also don't have a head coach in waiting if Morris leaves at some point, so that is concerning as well.

We have coordinators who don't have experience being coordinators, so that is an additional concern.

But all of that is to be expected to a certain extent when you hire a guy who hasn't been a head coach before - he doesn't have legions of other coaches in his tree willing to follow him.

Every great coach has to start their coaching tree somewhere, and I hope Morris does it here at SMU. Everything I have read about Morris is that he isn't just an administrator, he is a very good coach. And very good coaches can usually sniff out bad coaches pretty quickly.

Despite all of those concerns, Morris had enough coaching vacancies offered to him that I if there were monetary restrictions on hiring assistants, he would not have taken the job. The staff of (hopefully) up-and-comers is by choice, not by constraint.

He chose those coaches. I live near the Lake Travis coach and even he I talking up SMU now. Former Westlake AD is excited too

[Stallion]

Look its a week BEFORE the Dead Period ends and we've got a coaching staff working their asses off contacting recruits instead of on vacation break or strolling the fairways barefoot in Hawaii. That looks almost like a Defensive Staff recruiting meeting-maybe even a Recruiting Board with slotted recruits or at least a depth chart to figure out what recruits to sign -but its been so long I can't remember

https://twitter.com/AthleticOffice/stat ... 25/photo/1