Coaching vs recruiting

[Dwan]

You are right.... I always hear that that best places to recruit are Texas, California, Flordia, Ohio, and Hawaii. In addition to the insane amount of talent on the islands, when you couple in the fact that the facilities at The University of Hawaii are so bad that don't have soap in the football locker room and so bad that June Jones left for SMU....I don't understand with all that Talent in Hawaii, the quality of a UH education, and their facilites....why they dont have as many national titles as Notre Dame and USC

[Dwan]

oh, I was at the airport in Maui last week and I saw Jim Tressell, Mack Brown, Urban Meyer, and Nick Saban.

Look, HFVictory aka Corky from Life Goes on...there is talent in Hawaii. On average there are probably 12 division one players in the state, 4 of which are BCS level players, 5 of which are WAC level players, and 3 of which are top 200 high school players in the nation. Of those 12 players....50% of them will qualify academically.

[Dwan]

"Wow, so a chain of islands 4,000 miles off the mainland isn't considered a captured recruiting base? Please explain."

University of the Midway Islands is a sleeping giant in college football!

[TheBestAvailable]

The past several years many blamed Bennett's coaching ability for our failures.....but Stallion consistently said our lack of talent and recruiting, not the coaching were the problems.

Well, we brought in the coaching savior and we're about to go winless against D1-A schools with basically the same team. Shouldn't JJ have been able to coach us to at least one win? Or was Stallion right - the coach has never been the problem....we just don't have the talent? The college game is all about recruiting.

IMO, JJ is a very good offensive coach but he sometimes lets his pride get in the way of smart decisions (starting Mitchell instead of redshirting him).....and I think he is surprised by how difficult it is to recruit kids to SMU, particularly local kids. Maybe he should have given Bennett and Cavan a call.

As far as this being the same team Bennett had you're dead wrong. Bennett didn't lose his job due to last seasons failure.

Bennett's job was lost Romo's senior year and JW's Redshirt freshman year when we had experienced teams with a fair amount of upperclassmen.

Those teams came close to having winning records but played below their potential.

This team on the field under JJ is not even close in talent to the team that came 1 yard from a bowl game against Rice.

[SMU 86]

Was it recuiting or coaching that has held us back in the the past? The answer is probably a bit of both. Let's give JJ 3 recruitng classes to get his players in place.

[Pony Soup]

The past several years many blamed Bennett's coaching ability for our failures.....but Stallion consistently said our lack of talent and recruiting, not the coaching were the problems.

Dont feed the monkeys, sir. I obviously blamed bennett for our failures....ON THE FIELD. I never said our recruiting wasn't a problem, but in-season you have to play with the deck you have. Yeah, blame us not scoring from 1st and Goal from the 4 (at rice when TD = Bowl Game) on bad recruiting. Give me a break. We should have won 4-5 more games last year except that we repeatedly made extremely poor decisions - both from coaches and players.

It is obvious that we must improve recruiting, as Stallion has pointed out about 14,632 times now. But dont kid yourself and try to think Bennett should be here, not June. He is basically working with the deck Phil handed him so give him a break. He is playing the guys he needs to play to build a program. And yeah, that might mean 1-11 this year. I will take that if it means we start heading in the right direction.

You think these guys don't HATE losing every week? I can't imagine much worse. I, for one, LOVE how pissed June is over the attitude and commitment problems and support the suspensions. But if you want to break their spirits and let this ship sail off into oblivion, give up on them. We can do this, but it is going to take time - more time than I'd care to wait, really. So keep showing up, keep writing that check, and keep rooting for these guys - It's the least you can do since your superstar college days are done.

[LA_Mustang]

But dont kid yourself and try to think Bennett should be here, not June.

I never said Bennett should still be here. He is a very good defensive coordinator, but he's not a head coach. I'm just saying that when we lost close games under Bennett we blamed his coaching.....we've lost close games this year and we are blaming it on a lack of talent. IMO, JJ has made some very questionable gametime decisions and he is not above criticism.

[Pony Soup]

But dont kid yourself and try to think Bennett should be here, not June.

I never said Bennett should still be here. He is a very good defensive coordinator, but he's not a head coach. I'm just saying that when we lost close games under Bennett we blamed his coaching.....we've lost close games this year and we are blaming it on a lack of talent. IMO, JJ has made some very questionable gametime decisions and he is not above criticism.

I wasn't talking to you directly there, sorry! Goooooooooo PONIES

[Wuba]

Bennett would have won at least 5 games this year.

That is a pretty bold statement considering our ... his defensive players. And we can only guess what his recruiting class would have looked like. So what makes you think that?

Not so bold, but think the offense under Willis would have been better (definitely less turnovers) and scored as many points as this years team, but the D would have been much better.

So fewer turnovers
Equal points on offense
Less points given up

4 more wins at least.

It is possible SMU would have had fewer turnovers, but I am curious why you think it is definite. Last year Willis had 18 interceptions and 7 fumbles lost for a total of 25 turnovers. Now, in 2006 Willis was better with just 6 interceptions, but he also lost 6 fumbles (and another 9 that SMU recovered).

BLM is currently at 19 interceptions and 2 fumbles lost. That projects to about 23 interceptions and 2 or 3 fumbles lost for a total of 25 or 26.

Granted BLM has come out of a couple of games so maybe it would be a little higher if he had not missed time, but I do not see a massive uptick in turnovers from the qb position since last year. Care to enlighten us as to why you think turnovers would definitely have been fewer?

[PlanoStang]

and five wins after six years in office won't cut it. and it won't for jj either.

5 or 6 wins didn't cut it for Rossley, and it didn't cut it for Cavan, and it
didn't cut it for Bennett, and it won't cut it for JJ, thus we are stuck in
this horrible sine wave forever

[asphalt cowboy]

Lets take an objective look at our situation. The reason we have lost so many games is because we are not good enough to win. This is a result of poor coaching, recruiting, conditioning and game preparation and adjustments. Watching the spring "game" many of these faults were being corrected. Current coaches are teachers and not screamers. The lack of discipline has resulted in our suspensions. I have been watching since 1949. I have seen many wins and losses under various coaches. PB was not a good head coach. JJ is in the process of correcting the many problems he has inherited. This is not "instant coffee". We need to give more support and less whinning, moaning and groaning. These young men will eventually make us very proud. In life and in their athletic accomplishments. GIVE ME PATIENCE AND I MEAN RIGHT NOW!