The SMU Football Blog Speaks!

[Dooby]

So I ran into the SMU Football Blog over the weekend at a bar on a riverboat in Shreveport. In between Appletini's followed by Jaeger shots and clove cigarettes, he muttered the following after throwing up on the bartender intentionally for refusing to let him dance on the bar like Coyote Ugly. What follows is a rough transcript I scribbled on a c0cktail napkin using a golf pencil with John 3:16 etched on it, which he had stolen from Legendary Golf on Hilton Head Island.
******
There are two things we know about Turner. We know them both very well. Those that follow SMU as a whole (not just athletics) see it every day.

First, Turner is a good-to-great fundraiser. He is not certifiably great. Until the Centennial Campaign, his fundraising campaigns have historically benefitted from very favorable economic times. The Capital Campaign benefited from the tech-boom and outraised even the boldest projections. The Centennial Campaign is not so lucky; we will have to wait and see what the end result is. That being said, he knows how to do it and better than most, and certainly better than his predecessor.

Second, Turner, in an apparent contradiction to the first trait, is administratively reactive rather than proactive. That is the nice way of putting it. The less-than-nice way of saying it is that Turner is lazy. He isn’t “lazy” lazy; he is administratively lazy. He doesn’t do things until he is pressed to. Once pressed, he does fine. Until then, however, he tends to avoid rocking the boat. There are about 1,000 examples of this over the years. A lot of Turner as President is about keeping up appearances, which relates back to the first point. It isn’t that he disagrees or has a different position, it is that he hasn’t been forced to act. Maybe, he has been too focused on fundraising, Bush Library cr@p and land acquisitions, or maybe it really is laziness. However, reading some kind of malevolence or animosity towards athletics into what he has done or not done is a mistake. And that is where some people here have erred.

With those two thoughts in mind, it is easy to follow the history of SMU athletics over the last many years. Pye wrecked athletics and (we tend to forget) wrecked a lot of other things, too. Pye strangely wanted to create a small Northeastern liberal arts college located in North Texas. Turner was hired to fix a number of things that were broken. He repaired a lot of relationships, but a lot of administrative things went undone. The changes to athletics, whether administrative or facility-wise, were the result of pushes and pulls, but not driving-Turner reacted to the complaints of those that matter (not us) after each incremental change failed to yield results (I think this one sentence sums up 1995-2005 quite well).

So we come to the dawn of the “Orsini” era. No better name for it, because it predates June Jones, though I am not thrilled with giving Orsini this much credit, but I digress. Turner has a number of problems, including, but not limited to: (i) he has a Centennial Campaign about to be kicked off; (ii) he has a dwindling and aging population of donors, with a overall donor population as a percentage far below SMU’s peer institutions; (iii) the preceding relatively small percentage of donors relative to alumni base was negatively affecting SMU’s ranking in US News and World Report; (iv) he is actively campaigning to build the Presidential Library of a very unpopular president, which while popular with key alumni was causing some friction with the community, faculty and a portion of the alumni base and generating negative press.

Turner realized there were few things that were going to address all issues and create positive momentum for SMU. One of those things is athletics. Frankly, I am not sure anything else would work.

And with this, SMU has its wake up moment. TCU likes to say it had its moment when the SWC broke up, but wasn’t as straight forward as that. Let’s not forget TCU’s football between 94 and 97: 7 wins (SWC); 6 wins (SWC); 4 wins (WAC); 1 win (WAC). TCU in 1997 fired its AD and fired its head coach. TCU hired the AD from Miami (Ohio) and hired Franchione away from fellow WAC institution New Mexico. There was more to it, than that, of course. The difference between SMU and TCU is only that there is more to do and farther to go.

SMU hires Orsini away from fellow CUSA institution Central Florida and hires June Jones to a monumental contract. Do not look at these hires as outcomes, but rather as evidence. Evidence that SMU (and Turner) finally does, in fact, “get it.”

So, then, how did we wind up with the morass of the past few weeks? Re-read the third and fourth paragraphs. There is still, unfortunately, more to do. Those that thought there was a fix it all “switch” were mistaken, regardless of who is President. For the same reason, the transfer hours change took years to fix. For the same reason, there is no sports management or kinesiology degree today.

Obviously, there was a massive miscommunication between June Jones and the Administration/Admissions. I have seen several offer letters (but I concede not SMU’s) and I have seen a form letter of intent. I know that every offer, every signed NLI (SMU or otherwise) is contingent on admission to the institution. What I don’t know is how that was communicated to Jones and his Assistants and how they communicated that message to recruits. Presumably, Jones was told as a condition to coming here, he could recruit who he wanted. That, obviously, was not quite accurate. Without knowing (and knowing would require a breach of privacy in violation of federal law), my gut says the two reported were missing a passing grade for a class that is required for admission to SMU, such as foreign language. However, even the foreign language requirement appears to be flexible.

In case you were wondering:

NCAA/SMU
4 years English/4 years English
3 years Math (at least one year of algebra)/ 3 years Math (algebra I, II, geometry)
2 years Social Science/3 years Social Science
2 years Physical Science (1 year must be a lab course)/ 3 years Physical Science (2 years must be a lab course)
1 year Additional year of English, math, or physical science/See Above
4 years Additional Academic Year (any above area or foreign language, philosophy, or non doctrinal religion)/2 Year foreign language (of the same language).

SMU says it is “flexible” and there is no absolute requirement, but you see the differences. You can see where a kid can meet the NCAA standards and just not have the classes. This is different than “the grades” or “the test scores.” If there was/is confusion, I suspect it lies there. The general rule, from what I am told, is that if you don’t have the above SMU requirements, you need to have them by the end of the first year. My guess is admissions looked at these two kids’ transcripts and determined there was no way these kids would be able to go to practice and “fill out the requirements” for admission.

I do know that once the decision was made to decline admission to two recruits, that decision was irreversible. Indeed, I assume SMU was more concerned most with facing NCAA questions in the event it reversed its decision. For that reason, a reversal was never going to happen. It was foolish to believe otherwise.

Once the decision was made and got out, it was handled poorly. For some reason, SMU just doesn’t handle crisis management well. It tends to wait too late; wait for Katie KGB to ask the question and issue a statement, as if those on this board, the internets and social media really don’t have an impact (there is a reason that some fortune 500 companies pay people to surf the web and MySpace and Facebook all day looking for customer complaints). Again, it is very reactive. But, hey, that is second guessing and the fact is that very few institutions handle it well. If it were me, I would have gone scorched earth on the kids saying they knew the NLI was contingent on admission and they knew the requirements for admission and didn’t fulfill them, but I am a nut like that. Of course, I don’t know what these kids were actually told, but I will get to that.

I will note this is the second administration policy that bit June Jones in the tail. Recall, Jones booted a number of kids after the 2008 season. He said he had his reasons and went by the NCAA rules-scholarships are year to year. But SMU has an appeals process for loss of financial aid and Jones had to keep some kids on scholarship at the expense of others kids that Jones felt deserved them more.

And now we have a Committee!!!! I love committees. Committees make recommendations, but lack accountability for the implementation of its recommendations. Those that accept and implement recommendations get to behind the advice of a committee to avoid culpability. That being said, SMU couldn’t come out and say it was standing by its decision in this case, but was going to just let anybody in that can run a sub-4.4 forty from this day forward.

The committee can only reach two possible conclusions. First, SMU can realize that it has paid employees representing the university with apparent authority offering scholarships to kids that are not yet admitted to the school. These paid employees are called “assistant coaches.” Accordingly, the school has to accept the fact that these coaches represent the school and have the ability to make SMU look good or bad and force itself to trust these coaches’ judgment. Then, you hold those head coaches responsible for those kids’ performance, while providing the coaches and the kids with every possible tool available to help the kid get through SMU on SMU’s terms. And if the kids don’t perform, you flunk them and admonish the coach for a poor graduation rate. That is the way it is supposed to work. The second possible conclusion is “anything else.” I am going with #1. I am also betting we may never hear about it, even if the change is made.

As for Jones, I bet he is PO'd. Jones does that. I think very little of it. He might finagle his outrage and his unsigned extension into a commitment to a policy change or a commitment to build a practice facility with a poison pill like Doherty had, and if so, I support it. But I for one have no fear that Jones is going to leave anytime soon. Nor do I believe Turner is trying to sabotage this thing.

[jtstang]

I agree that Turner has no desire to sabotage athletics...the issue is it appears he has no willingness to prevent the faculty (read: admissions committee) from doing it. If he did not make that clear to Jones when he came, the communications problem was on Turner's part.

[NickSMU17]

None of that explains this....

23 times in a row athletes initially denied admission were accepted after appeal...the last two have been denied after appeal...Including a kid accepted into Penn...

or...

Even though you described Turner as lazy, he has time to call meetings with JJ all the time, and keep inside the AD office at all times....Not to mention the plant stories to the DMN the last 2 weeks to hush the crowd after all the controversy...

or...

The fact that this is not just dealing with the admission issue but other major issues within the Athletic/administration departments...


I agree that Turner will respond, but only due to the fact that 2 Circle of Champion members had no idea any of this was going on until the outrage broke...and you are correct in saying turner only re-acts, esp. when certain boosters get upset...

I am hopeful he stays but I wouldn't be so open in telling everyone to calm down, I think we need to do the exact opposite, the more pressure we put on turner the better this turns out...

[RE Tycoon]

I'm glad you reconnected with the Blogster, I just wish it was under happier circumstances.

[Stallion]

Category C isn't an appeal-its a Category that requires additional scrutiny. Category A & B are streamlined admission categories. Category C goes in front of a Committee that takes a closer look at transcripts and test schools. They make a determination on admission which can then be appealed.

If Hall has all 4 required NCAA English core courses as required to pass the NCAA Clearinghouse-and he passed the NCAA Clearinghouse- why was it stated that he was not admitted because of a low SAT score on the English portion which led to the conclusion that he would have difficulty handling first year English requirements? Wouldn't the stated reason be that he didn't meet SMU's core requirements. Doesn't seem to match with Hall. Don't know much about Jackson.

[PerunaPunch]

I more or less buy into everything Blog said until the last paragraph.

As for Jones, I bet he is PO'd. Jones does that. I think very little of it. He might finagle his outrage and his unsigned extension into a commitment to a policy change or a commitment to build a practice facility with a poison pill like Doherty had, and if so, I support it. But I for one have no fear that Jones is going to leave anytime soon.

The reason I don't buy that, and I think the reason PonyFans have some cause for concern, is purely because Jones is such a stand-up guy. Follow the train of logic.

1) Jones told Hawaii administrators that series of changes needed to be made or he was leaving.

2) Hawaii called his bluff, but too late figured out it wasn't a bluff. I get a feeling like Jones doesn't bluff.

3) Fortunately for us, everybody Orsini talked to turned him down (well, not really everybody, but all the "A" candidates did).

4) Jones needed a situation; SMU had a situation. Boom, a perfect fit. Promises were made, gifts exchanged, high-5s all around.

So what happens if SMU reneges on those promises? Are we putting Jones back in the same situation as Hawaii where he feels like he has to leave to make a point? As much love and support as the community has shown Jones, for him Dallas ain't Hawaii. This walk will be much easier to take.

So while I don't think it will happen (Jones leaving early), it doesn't mean that there shouldn't be some cause for concern.

[PonyKai]

Lest we forget that Jones does in fact have an ego. A large one. This does not preclude him from being a "stand-up guy" and a great mentor/teacher/coach. However, like many who are as successful as he is in their craft, he possesses a sizable ego and supreme confidence in his system and his way of doing business. I suspect that this has reared its head at least once during this process.

There's a pattern of tactical and strategic decisions on his part that supports this. When he left Hawai'i, yes he stated on many occasions to a media outlet that it was to force positive change to take place at Manoa, but Jones also happened to leave on his own terms. He left the islands on his schedule, with a wallet full of a lot of money, when he wanted to; he had become bigger than the University of Hawai'i, and he knew it. He was practically a demi-god there. The school actually held a press conference to apologize for letting a single employee walk. The Governor of the state tried to intervene on and get him to stay. Here at SMU, he decided to start true freshman Mitchell over established starter Willis, a decision that was an obvious sacrifice of instant gratification for a statement of, "this is how I do it, this is how I will do it, I will not reverse my decision, and if you don't like it, go pound sand".

I'll probably get all sorts of mud slung at me for daring to 'tarnish' the radiant image of Mr. Jones, but it's not to do that, it's just an important part of the human element that needs to be recognized. I pretty firmly believe that Jones has a markedly different way of handling his business with administrators and officials then he does with players, coaches, and people who support the team.

[NickSMU17]

I don't disagree....but I want his ego running the football program without turner's ego....

When someone is really good at what they do, you put up with the BS...i.e. geldings, ect..

[Cardinal Puff]

Outstanding work by Dooby channeling the SMU Football Blog. Clearly we have specific areas which have to be addressed, but we need to step back from the edge in the rants.

[Stallion]

Since the NCAA went to 16 core courses(up from 13 and 14) I personally doubt SMU has more core requirements now-but admit I don't know for sure. The reason I doubt it is that I think alot higher number of our marginal commits would be in the "qualifier/not admitted" category. We got a bunch who look to have minimal transcripts and I think a very high percentage of the lower qualifiers would try to sneak by with the minimum 16 core courses. And we would have probably known a lot earlier if their core wasn't what it needed to be.If it is true then it could be a significant disadvantage. It definitely was true for many years and it has foreclosed a significant percentage of recruitable recruits from getting into SMU when the NCAA required less core courses than SMU. Don't see why this type of profile information couldn't be released since it is SMU's standard not the NCAAs and does not directly disclose student information.

[NickSMU17]

We don't release it because it is different than what we promised JJ when we hired him...

[Stallion]

This SMU site answers some of the questions we've been discussing. For example you can combine highest English SAT with Highest Math SAT score to get blended SAT score. If you take both SAT and ACT they will accept highest comparable score. Also, 17-18 core courses are "strongly recommended" but it isn't stated as a requirement. I doubt that is rigidly applied to athletes, since at least 65% of our recruits are exceptions and don't have the "strongly recommended" SAT or GPA to get into SMU anyway. 15 core courses are specifically listed but perhaps the biggest difference from the NCAA requirements(see below) is that two of those credits are foreign language but big deal SMU states they can be taken during first year at SMU-so really there are 13 absolutely required core courses. When you add in the 5 elective NCAA core courses-it would be hard not come up with the core for SMU because those electives have to be a combination English, Math and science, foreign language anyway(ie. NCAA: "1 additional year of English, Math or Science plus 4 years of any of the above") About the only way this should be a problem is if there was a lack of communication between recruit and the school or a kid that SMU jumps on too late to do anything about it). Can't get credit for correspondence courses and must be an accredited school-which I applaud. I'm sure June doesn't.

SMU Requirements:

http://smu.edu/admission/apply_first_faqs.asp#minimum

NCAA Requirements

https://web1.ncaa.org/eligibilitycenter ... ndards.pdf

[Mexmustang]

Obviously there is a problem at SMU.

First--The rules are not transparent. No one knows what they are, unlike the NCAA rules,they are not published.
Second--No consistency of interpretation. Unlike the NCAA rules, which are complicated, but in writing, the rules at SMU appear to be subject to debate.
Third--Application of the rules is subjective--a committee makes a decision, but based upon criteria which is also not in writing.

This isn't what the athletic department understood would be the situation. Most people, boosters, fans, coaches and obviously two students, thought the requirement was NCAA eligibilty--not some "super secret" interpretation of aditional rules by a committee.

Obviously a student-athlete is not held to the same admitance requirements of an average student. But, that shouldn't prevent these rules to be clear. Rather than make an exception so that two students wouldn't be singled out, embarrassed and perhaps without a scholarship alternative, our CEO ducks the issue and will form a committee at some future date. This is not leadership. These two students were qualifiers, it would have been much simpler if they weren't--two years at juco and we would have been done with it. But they fell between the cracks, not their fault, but the university's. Exceptions should have been made, a committee formed to close and define the inconsistencies in our policy and that would have been it.

SMU has a number of other problems, most of which involve the lack of co ordination amongst departments. Many of which have and do effect the athletic department. A major concession was just made to increase the number of athletic tutors. This was a major "win". But why should this have been so difficult? It is funded. We are still afraid of academic "fraud" (tutors doing the homework) that might occur, putting SMU on probation again--it is far time we move beyond that. Other major universies have figured out how to provide asssitance and avoid fraud. Another is something as simple as keeping a cafeteria open 30 minutes longer during spring and fall practices, so that afternoon practices can be scehduled so the student athlete has an opportunity to have dinner. These are "family" squables that a strong leader would "bang some heads" and make it work. My problem is simply that too many little problems endup making a big problem. A university that acts "small" is "small".

[redpony]

MexM- good response. The most obvious item is the complete lack of leadership demonstrated by Turner. No, he does not need to micro-manage but he should be proactive enough to control and correct situations like what has recently happened.

GO PONIES!!!
MUSTANG MANIA LIVES

[Stallion]

I completely and vehemently disagree. Admissions to a large degree should be subject to discretion. Can Jim Bob read or write or was he just passed along in high school to win games. Does Bubba's long criminal record make him unsuitable. Does Jimmie Joe's reading disability mean that he can handle the course work with accommodations. Is there suspicious indicators of fraud in a recruits transcript. June Jones wasn't hired as Admission Director or Mascot Selection Director. Allowing any football coach to dictate and run all aspects of the program as it relates to areas that are the province of the University is the first step toward Lack of Institutional Control