Time to panic yet?

[Stallion]

Yes I ignored your ridiculous question. Make your own point.

[smudubs]

I come to this board because I care about SMU athletics not to fight. That being said, I believe any objective reader on this board understands my point. Stated plainly, I think ultimately we will be fine with recruiting. Would I love to see the coaches recruiting and signing more local talent? Absolutely. I think it would help us put more butts in the seats and generate local interest. Personally, however, I don't care about from where a recruit comes or how many stars he has by his name as long as the kid can play and the team continues to win. At the end of the day, I think we all want the same thing.

[NickSMU17]

Not sure fine cuts it at 2.75 million a season...

[Junior]

I come to this board because I care about SMU athletics not to fight. That being said, I believe any objective reader on this board understands my point. Stated plainly, I think ultimately we will be fine with recruiting. Would I love to see the coaches recruiting and signing more local talent? Absolutely. I think it would help us put more butts in the seats and generate local interest. Personally, however, I don't care about from where a recruit comes or how many stars he has by his name as long as the kid can play and the team continues to win. At the end of the day, I think we all want the same thing.

Have to agree here. Dubs asked a legit question that everyone chose not to answer.

[stc9]

We are all passionate about the success of SMU Football, but we need a voice of reason to step forward here. Since no one else wants to do it, I will give it a try.

I love the passion people have on the board, but we are getting too jumpy during the turnaround processs and we are in for the long haul. If we get too jumpy at this stage in the process, then we are in real trouble when we stumble.

There are two immutable truths to turning around SMU Football. 1) We will face setbacks. Any turnaround takes time to rebuild/reposition/recapitalize. The staff is doing these things, maybe not to the satisfaction of pony fans, but it is being accomplished. We will have good days and bad. 2) The process is going to take longer than anybody thinks it would or should. That is just a fact of life. We can worry that we are getting players from the wrong zip codes or our staff relies on AK too much. In the end, we are still just a program that is trying to return to prominence. We will all know when it happens or our forward progress has halted. Until then, let's cool our passion a little. We don't need to jump on each other or go crazy when one WR recruit de-commits 8 months before signing day.

The one aspect I would criticize the current staff/University about is their communication with the Alumni/boosters. I get at least two e-mails per week from the Univeristy asking for $$$s. Not one of them is from the Athletic Dept. The Athletic Department needs to do a better job of building a relationship with Alumni, especially non-Dallas Alumni. How many of these panic attacks would go away if the staff/University communicated more effectively with the non major money boosters. Even spam e-mails are better than nothing.

[2ndandlong]

The one aspect I would criticize the current staff/University about is their communication with the Alumni/boosters. I get at least two e-mails per week from the Univeristy asking for $$$s. Not one of them is from the Athletic Dept. The Athletic Department needs to do a better job of building a relationship with Alumni, especially non-Dallas Alumni. How many of these panic attacks would go away if the staff/University communicated more effectively with the non major money boosters. Even spam e-mails are better than nothing.

We rely heavily on social media to accomplish this. Set up a twitter account or facebook account and follow or like SMU Mustangs, June Jones, or one of several other SMU profiles. Although, I would note that PP, DanFrieberger, Alex Lifeson, etc are pretty good about getting that info over here pretty quick.

[ClickClack]

I have been wondering why no one has been talking about the linebacker commit from Munich, Germany...that one is a real head scratcher.

[One Trick Pony]

If we don't bowl and win i'll go south on the coaching staff my loyalty stays with winners. Until then I stay half full.

[Charleston Pony]

although the final record didn't show it, I will call last season an improvement over the previous year simply because we played in the CUSA Championship game. As long as this program continues to improve year over year, I'm not going to worry about what percentage of our guys come from Texas or how early they commit.

I will define improvement this year as a return trip to the CUSA Championship game and either a bowl win or a win against A&M , TCU or UCF

[AusTxPony]

I do believe we are treading water a little this year. Perhaps the coaches believe they can snag some of these "bigger" players and not have to "settle". I hope so. Or maybe losing the Bowl game had a more negative impact than we thought? What do those with more info or insight feel?

[ponyboy]

I'm ok with the treading water statement, but based on what data do you make that statement, AusTxPony?

[AusTxPony]

Comparing us to Tech, Baylor, TCU and Houston all of whom we are in direct competition with. According to TexasFootball.com we trail all of them in number of recruits and quality. Any other sources that imply differently?

[PK]

Don't know enough about recruiting to know if what I am about to say makes sense, but maybe because TexasFootball concentrates on Texas football it has a hard time evaluating the value of players from other parts of the country. Just throwing that out there...FWIW.

[mathman]

Sorry PK. That makes too much sense.

[Hey June]

Ha! Well done, PK.

Then again, the argument also could be made that more out-of-state offers were made early because not many out-of-state players are likely to come to SMU's camps, so like in other years, several Texas players will be offered after camp.