The U

[03Mustang]

Anyone else watch this on ESPN tonight?

MANY parallels to their program in the 1970s to those we have dealt with in the last 25 years. I'm not a Miami fan, but this is a great documentary and well worth the time.

As an SMU fan, the first 10 minutes will feel very, very familiar to what you have all dealt with for a very long time. Obviously there are some key differences, but the rebirth story translates well, I think.

[expony18]

yeah i thought it ws pretty good...

[ontheedgeofmyseat]

ONLY parallel I saw was the power / impact of a strong coach / leader.

[Stallion]

small private schools with poor attendance and historically weak records in a major metropolitan areas rebuilding programs based on local talent base which are considered recruiting goldmines

[Silk]

Thad's movie is going to be better!

[George S. Patton]

Missed it. Anyone know when it will be replayed?

[ponyfan84]

Pretty good flick. It's hard not to hate Miami back in the 80s. Now I see where "Thug U" comes from...but it's too bad no more dancing/showboating allowed in college ball, mainly due to those guys.

[FWMustang]

I can't help but wonder how it is that all of that was going on at the exact same time as SMU indiscretions and .....nothin'. Were they afraid of or threatened with yet another riot if they shut their program down?

That being said, it brought back good memories of watching and playing football in MS & HS during that time. Even us white private school kids were trying the imitate the brashness they had on the field.

I also love the point some of the former players made about the administration loving the money they brought in while ignoring all of the "thug-ness" for ten years. AND then telling them they had to tone it down.

[Pony94]

That was my thought exactly....how did they not cheat to get that good. Sounds like it was a program out of control.

Second thing...how DRUNK was Bernie Kosar for his interviews?

[ponysig96]

Miami was in criminal trouble. SMU was in NCAA trouble. Sadly, they are very different. The cops can't shut your football program down, the NCAA can.

[OR-See-Nee]

It was a terrific show.

And it wasn't just "criminal" activity by the players. It discussed NCAA violations--paying players by boosters, specifically. The comments from 2 Live Crew's Luther Campbell come to mind, who said he never gave any players money (while laughing while saying it) because it would be against NCAA rules, and then he'd talk about how the players didn't have enough weekend money to buy food. He clearly gave some of the players money.

The turnaround for Miami happened when Schnellenberger recruited locally and went into parts of town that no coach previously went into. He developed a pro-style offense and had the team ranked in the top 25 in his third year (I believe that is correct).

The program was so bad prior to Schnellenberger, that the administration thought about dropping the program to a lower level or giving up on it all together.

I thought a lot about Thad while watching it--I'm looking forward to his final product.

[ponyscott]

BTW its on right now on ESPN and the program is called '30 for 30' and its interesting. Bernie Kosar looks like he has seen better days. The bad boy image is personified big time at the U and the players and the whole City of Miami didn't care, especially at the time ...the early 80's was a time of change for the City and the timing was perfect for both Shellenberger and Jimmy Johnson to catch the wave and a program was created at the U. Nothing like that can happen here except for what Stallion said above about the big city etc. We would have to get every player out of Lincoln, Carter,SOC, Skyline, and I mean every D-1 player like they did in those days, because it was unreal what they did there in the 80's.

[Pony_Fan]

I remember when UT got clobbered. It was crazy.
They were definitely thugs. Bunch of losers. by the way, their enrollment is 15,000.

[Mestengo]

Just finished watching it B+

[RGV Pony]

The U was a decent story, decent film. The film from Thaddeus will be much better, because Thaddeus is a better filmMAKER than those that put together the U. The U had a lot of clips, a linear story, and a beginning and and end. The ups and downs of filmmaking and storytelling combined with good score and camera work will clearly differentiate a fairly pedestrian (if not entertaining) film like The U and what we're in store for from Thaddeus. Count on it.