LA_Mustang wrote:jpe747 wrote:Do I dare assume from his comments that Stallion thinks loosing is the better way to get good recruits?
First off, I grant you that we lost some good players. But, except for one or two cases, we seem to be getting players about as good to replace them. Until we are competing for four and five star players we are not going to be the kind of team that I hope we become. To do that we have to win for a number of years. BE will help, but, not if we don't win games. We had a spell of loosing for 20+ years. We are considered LOSERS by Texas kids. I know they do around my community because I've heard them laugh when SMU and football is mentioned in the same sentence. We've tried recruiting in Texas for 20+ years and we've recruited in California for several years. You've got some bad coaches getting the kind of talent we need. Why? Because of their record.
Your question to Stallion make no sense to me but you saying we're replacing the decommits with equal, or near equal players to totally false. We've lost several high 3 stars, a 4 star in this class and a likely very high 4 star in next years class. The guys we are going after now are 2 stars and a couple of low 3 stars. Those are just facts. And yes, ranking recruits is an inexact science but go back and look, they are right way more than wrong.
As for the perception of SMU football, I think it has completely changed in the past few years, for the positive. I can't speak for your community but I believe a majority of area and state high school athletes look positively at what's going on at SMU. Two bowl wins in three years, joining the Big East, beat TCU this year, dominating a reputable school in Pitt this year. We need passionate recruiters selling SMU to these area kids. I believe Phillips will be a big help but I'd like two more of him. JJ deserves a lot of credit for the turnaround, it was on his watch, but he is not above criticism. And he deserves his fair share for the recruiting meltdown in the past month. I think it is kind of funny seeing him NOW travel all over the state trying salvage the class. Something he should be doing all the time, not just the last few weeks before signing day. If he decided to start devoting this much time and energy to recruiting these kids early with Phillips, imagine the upgrade in recruiting we would have.....
Have to agree with you LA. Recruits currently are nothing special, and we will probably get hit pretty badly in around '14,'15. However, if the coaches can truly take mediocre to good, then we will be okay. We just need to be patient waiting for the Big East money to come in to get some marketing up. We should be able to out recruit teams like Baylor and Tech in Texas (again we should).
Perception is totally changing, thanks to S.O. and RGT doing their own marketing. First is to change the hearts and minds of students then hopefully go after DFW market. With so many out of state students, if we can get them to go along with program they can be powerful tools to spread the name around the country. Also if the Big East can get a great TV deal, that can only help us out.
Sum up on my end current recruiting isnt good, future outlook looks positive.