Dallas Business Journal article

[jtstang]

Tells how TCU is doing it right.
http://dallas.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2004/07/12/story3.html

[Johnny Rock]

The article cites one example of TCU'S commitment to Division 1-A success. The article fails to show TCU'S efforts to work with prospective recruits to admit them into the school. TCU does not impose additional academic standards on their athletes like SMU. TCU understands how to compete in Division 1-A. SMU does not or, simply, refuses to do so. When will SMU upgrade its basketball facilities? Will it take another few disgraceful seasons? Or will not making the NCAA tournament for several more years (a tournament 64 other teams make) do it? Wake up SMU before its too late!!!!! Maybe we should all rethink SMU'S place in Division 1-A. Division II or Division 1-AA may not be such a bad alternative given SMU'S lack of commitment to winning and, more importantly, competing. I guess SMU could always eliminate another sports program like track until we are left with only a losing football and basketball team.

[PerunaPunch]

1. We don't apply additional standards on our athletes. 'Additional' implies that our athletes have to meet tougher standards than SMU's regular students, which simply isn't true. TCU has lower admissions standards across the board, and even lower admissions requirements for their athletes. That's always been the case. SMU wants athletes who stand a good chance of graduating from the university, and I for one applaud that.

2. If that article held any validity, the first thing TCU would have done is upgrade that toilet they call a football stadium. Football is, after all, Texas schools' most visible sport and largest revenue stream in college athletics. Looking simply at the money invested, I don't think TCU's "commitment" hold a candle to THE Commitment.

3. SMU's B-ball woes have been taken care of with the hiring of Tubbs. And in basketball, you can radically improve – and quickly – with a few good recruits. I haven't heard an update on the Moody renovation, but isn't that still in the works? Anybody heard anything??[/u]

[jtstang]

2. If that article held any validity, the first thing TCU would have done is upgrade that toilet they call a football stadium. Football is, after all, Texas schools' most visible sport and largest revenue stream in college athletics. Looking simply at the money invested, I don't think TCU's "commitment" hold a candle to THE Commitment.

I take it then you think the article has no validity? What sunshine. The validity of what's going on over in cowtown and its far superior results speaks for itself.

[Water Pony]

Remember folks than JR is a troll. Every post is assumes the negative. Don't feed his ego by responding. He is as pro-SMU as the TCU Booster Club.

[Johnny Rock]

Correct, most of my posts are negative. What do you expect given the last ten years of SMU revenue sports? I applaud the soccer program for what its worth. I post truths and reality. I do not post on this board to gain acceptance from others. I would love to be able to post positive things regarding the revenue sports at SMU. However, SMU makes it hard to do that. Doesn't it concern anyone that we only have one verbal commitment in football (who is wavering) while our fellow Texas universities have almost complete recruiting classes signed up? Where is the progress from the good old Pye days? In basketball, Tubbs cannot even get a look from the top local talent (at least so far). Some of that has to be our outdated facilities. I am tired of the rah rah from the athletic department, and university for that matter, without action. The Commitment was a lie. Since the Commitment we have gotten worse in revenue sports, not better. Wake up people! Do not let the incompetent decision makers at SMU ruin what is left of a Division 1 program. Hey Ford...do you wish you had that 20 million back?

[jtstang]

I don't disagree with many of the things you write, but I think your assessment of Jimmy Tubbs' effort is premature, and likely to prove erroneous in the long run.

[PK]

Wake up people! Do not let the incompetent decision makers at SMU ruin what is left of a Division 1 program.

So what is the plan of attack here JR? How do you suggest we prevent the demise of our Div 1 program ? You can vent here until you are blue in the face, but how is that going to change anything? What do you have in mind?

BTW, most of the other schools you mention are not even close to a full recruiting class at this time. Hyperbola only lessens your credibility.

It's pretty scary when everyone gets excited about recruiting a high school junior before he has even played a game in his senior year. There are probably some kids out their who are great as juniors and will be even greater as seniors, but there are also some "great" juniors who will not get any better in their senior year. It can get pretty risky to offer early just to say you are keeping up with all the other schools.

The reality you so desparately want to embrace includes the fact that UT and aTm will always get really good to great recruiting classes, no matter when they start making their offers. Most, not all, but most kids are going to wait to see if the mighty UT or aTm are going to offer before they commit to other schools. The fact we don't have a bunch of early commitments does not mean we won't get some great recruits. There are more than just 40 to 50 great recruits in the state.

[PerunaPunch]

2. If that article held any validity, the first thing TCU would have done is upgrade that toilet they call a football stadium. Football is, after all, Texas schools' most visible sport and largest revenue stream in college athletics. Looking simply at the money invested, I don't think TCU's "commitment" hold a candle to THE Commitment.

I take it then you think the article has no validity? What sunshine. The validity of what's going on over in cowtown and its far superior results speaks for itself.

No, what I'm saying is that according to Johnny Troll's arguement, if it were all about commitment and dollars we should have been in the Sugar Bowl last year. Example: TCU put up $35 million several years ago, hired coach Fran, etc., and now they're reaping the benefit. We put up $50 million, built a first class stadium, and hired Bennett.

I believe that we're now on the way up too.

Johnny the Troll would have us believe that TCU is so wonderful because of this great commitment they were willing to make toward D1A, where in fact, TCU's commitment was paltry compared to what Copeland has accomplished on the Hilltop. The ONLY difference is that there ARE differences in the kind a athletes we want versus what TCU will take, and that TCU started their commitment years before SMU committed to making a serious effort to building a top notch D1A program.

The only really impressive thing about TCU is that they made "the commitment" early and haven't wavered since.

The amusing thing about Johnny Troll's post is that the essence of this article is about TCU's 1 win season and how they rebounded from that to become the success they are today. So rather than the program bashing he intended, we should all be encouraged because we're finally doing the same thing TCU did – only we're doing it better.

[jtstang]

I believe that we're now on the way up too.

Okay, if you say so, but I take it your evidence of this is not reflected in our collective revenue sports' records last year.

[Stallion]

It does appear though that the increasing trend is to offer the best athletes earlier and earlier each year. I'm really not that surprised we are having trouble getting commitments-I've predicted it for over a year-the program took a major hit in regressing to 0-12. But those singing the refrain that it really doesn't matter because its only July-- consider the recruiting situation at defensive lineman - a high priority for SMU. (Let me preface this by saying that with the exception of really ONE year since the DP we haven't really got the kids we wanted at defensive lineman anyway so this isn't really a shot at just Bennett). But SMU had a great opportunity this year with an unusal number of outstanding defensive linemen from the DFW area ALL of which expressed at least early interest in SMU-including Marcus Shavers, Demarcus Granger, Donald Horton, Vincent Williams, and Trey Bryant. All of these players have now committed elsewhere or appear to have excluded SMU from consideration. Again, I'm not really surprised nor do I wish to lay blame in a perpetual problem in this program, BUT it does clearly demonstrate that you can't explain this away by saying "Its only July-we got 7 months until signing date". These were our real targets this year at defensive tackle and we appear to have struck out with some players you know the coaching staff was focusing on. We may recover but until SMU can sign players of this caliber then we ain't competing with the TCU's, Tech's and mid level top programs. Quite frankly if we can't compete with Rice, UTEP, Tulsa, Tulane and even UH in the new CUSA West then our program really is pitiful.

[RGV Pony]

The plan should be to do exactly what we did in the late seventies and early eighties...almost. We need to hire someone with experience working with GW Bush's fundraising team, put them in charge of the Mustang Club, and legally pipeline all that $$ that would've otherwise been illegally spent. Send that fundraising guru around Dallas, then watch $$ at work. The guy could stand a few sitdown meetings with Mark Cuban and Mavs brass too...they went from 500 people in the stands at R.A., called it 6k with a straight face, and now they sell out the place. That would be a plan.

[PlanoStang]

Yeah, maybe something like the Mustang Mania marketing that Russ Potts did. It was Hyman that put up all the billboards all around FW that declared "TCU, FW's HOME TEAM!".

Maybe we could trade Copeland for Hyman plus a couple million a year, the donor to be named later.

[EastStang]

Until we start winning, Dallas will not embrace us. We have to compete for entertainment attention and dollars, and 0-12 gets you a footnote in the DMN.

[Stallion]

actually Russ Potts proved you wrong EastStang. We captured Dallas' attention with Mustang Mania several years before we had anthing close to a winning football team-in fact 3 years to be exact. Mustang Mania fueled a return to recruiting success.