Recruiting Roundup

[mavsrage311]

Can we please get a recap from someone that went? Any really good highlights? Anything that stuck out?

thanks

[Mexmustang]

Overall I enjoyed myself. I thought the presentation was very professional, highlights, Phil's presentation, etc. A good turnout, but unfortunately not a number of young alumns. I would imagine that our record on the field in the last 20 years accounts for the lack of interest.
Phil mentioned, I beleive, that at least one set of parents and one signee was present. I felt the crowd was expecting him to introduce them to the audience and let them cheer etc. Which could have added some excitement to the event. On the otherhand Phil was pressed for time with the basketball game's start time.

The highlight films were well done, each player receiving about three to four plays. As a good number of players were offensive lineman, it was difficult to get excited about the individual plays vs. passing and running by the few offensive ball handlers we signed.

The crowd loved the plays by our light, but fast defensive end (Yenga)against Texas' top recruit.

The group I happened to sit with were old the faithful alumns, that I recognized from the stadium club and long-time season ticket holders. In fact, all were going to the basketball game.

The concensus of the group, was that this class was better, larger, faster, but still not what we expect from the program. "C+". But then, the group knows what the program should have been all along!

Everyone was pleased with the progress that basketball was finally taking. Two men said that we should have never allowed Pye to kill basketball too. Had we concentrated on basketball we could have been far more successful than most of the old SWC and Big Eight schools and just maybe been a candidate for inclusion in the Big Twelve (wishfull thinking, etc.). But, it does give you some idea how high these alumns think the bar should be raised. "Top Twenty-five", BS!, "Top Ten" was their target!

[BUS]

I believe the fact is we were invited into the BIG 12. Then Dr. PYE gave the BIG 12 this...
SMU will join the Big 12 and we can all accept the admission standards that SMU currently has.

WHAT - ?????

ring ring - Hello Baylor, would you like to come play with us in the BIG 12

Yep. woulda, coulda.

[The PonyGrad]

Whoa, that is new to me... is that true?

[Stallion]

I don't care what anybody says-Ken Pye's buffoonary as SWC President talking about raising SWC academic standards when UT and A&M were annually getting drilled by Big 8 and other conferences was a telling reason that those schools realized this wasn't going to work anymore. The losing schools got what they deserved especially Rice, SMU and TCU who had been riding on the financial coattails of the Big state schools for years.

[Mexmustang]

Pye was a strange "bird", I used to think he was the fat kid on the playground that the junior high teams used to tease by pulling his underpants up in the back "wedgee", but I have never heard that before!

[EastStang]

I had always heard that it was UT and A&M that got the offer to join the Big 8 and then Ann Richards and Bullock got into the act and made them add Baylor and TT. Now Pye might have made UT and A&M want to leave by bellyaching about admission standards in the SWC. But I'm sure that was like a proverbial gas pass in the wind at the meetings. The other presidents probably said, yeah thank you Ken, now is the bar open yet? The story I always heard was that the AD told Pye that UT and A&M were thinking of leaving and that Pye kind of said, "no they would have told me" and never tried to stop it from happening until the ship had sailed.

[friarwolf]

I have heard that story and never knew whether to believe it or not. The version I heard was that after Texas and A&M had decided to go, the Big 8 realized they needed 2 other teams to create 2 divisions and thus a championship game for more bucks. The Big 8 wanted Dallas (SMU) for it's top 10 media market ranking and whoever else. Pye pulled his stunt thus paving the way for Tech and Baylor......................

[Mexmustang]

Let's kill this topic...all it does is [deleted] me off!

[EastStang]

Maybe that's why the Frogs keep claiming that except for Richards and Bullock they were going to get the 12th spot.

[Stallion]

any real TCU fan knows that their program was run by a lot of [deleted] fools too almost as bad as SMU. The difference is TCU immediately did something about it. SMU, TCU and Rice were living in nana fantasy land-and all have had to make financial commitments that should have been made years ago when it might have made a difference. Based upon the world as we knew it in 1994 there is very little dispute Baylor deserved the pick.

[Mexmustang]

Stallion, pls. see prior post!

[Longtime]

There has been much documentation, in the form of anniversary stories and such, about the founding of the Big 12. Ann Richards had nothing to do with the Big 12 forming. It was Bob Bullock and other members of the state legislature with ties to Tech and Baylor (Bullock was a Baylor alum and I believe had ties to Tech and/or West Texas) who got their schools in.

Here's the story: UT and A&M were leaving. UT was looking at the Pac-10, while A&M was almost dead-set on going to the SEC. When the Big 8 offer came, they were convinced to leave together. The state officials with ties to Baylor and Tech got wind of it and threatened to cut off funding to A&M and UT unless their alma maters were invited, too. One of the bargaining chips was funding for A&M's Reed Arena. The Aggies got approval for it in exchange for supporting Tech and Baylor's admission to the Big 12.

TCU was never in the discussion. Had the SWC breakup occured just a few years from when it did, TCU would have had the alums in power at the time instead of Baylor. SMU was also never in the discussion, as much as we like to think we were screwed over. This was all about politics. We weren't screwed over, Tech and Baylor were lucky.

And Stallion is right about TCU. Once the breakup came, they got their act together and started pouring money and resources into athletics. They realized that their school's image was tied to athletics. Like it or not, TCU realized that if you're not competing at the highest levels in athletics, there's a perception of second-class status, especially by donors who are accustomed to SWC membership.

SMU's attitude has been that as long as athletics isn't bringing negative publicity to the school through NCAA violations, there's no need to spend the money necessary to create the infrastructure for a legitimate, BCS-level athletic department. We can get by with less.

By the way, the architect of TCU's athletic revival, and in fact the entire school's resurgence, is an SMU alum: Bill Koehler. He was the provost who got things going at TCU when Windegger and the chancellor were in a fog. Smart man.

Wish he could have done the same things for SMU athletics, but I don't think SMU at that time would have allowed him to do what was necessary. However, many of the changes Koehler inspired at TCU are now being done by Orsini. Let's hope that in 10 years we can look back and see that Orsini was our Koehler.

[Ponymon]

This was all about politics. We weren't screwed over, Tech and Baylor were lucky.

Baylor was REAL lucky, however, don't expect them ever to win the Big 12. The question than becomes how lucky they really are?