The Career of the Infamous Darryl Jackson May Be Over

[Stallion]

Ha! Mexmustang is losing it. Wants to start another bonfire to run Turner out of town with his buddies snakesnarrows, ponydoh etc. I'm sure Turner is really worried and shaking in his boots. I got a little truth for you. Not one single player who was denied admission at SMU because of academic admission standards has played a single down of Division 1A College Football. Poor June. What a disadvantage the Messiah has had to endure. He better be more concerned how "his players" perform on the next APR Report that should be released very soon. Scattershooting while wondering why 4 and 3 star recruits like Darryl Jackson and Davon Moreland and Hall can't get another Division 1A offer for full admission when they get turned down by SMU without going back to get more academic credits.

[Junior]

I thought Stallion's comments were pretty innocuous as well.

[PoconoPony]

My vague recollection of the matter was that he did not have the prerequsite high school core courses to meet SMU admissions standards. SMU offered him the option to attend a JUCO for one semester to take the missing required courses. He refused and headed back to California. Shortly thereafter he was offered by UCLA and accepted which appeared to be a good deal as it was very close to his home and accomodated some other personel matters. UCLA then declined his admission as he was missing the same high school requirement courses required by SMU. UCLA offered him the same deal to attend a JUCO to make up the missing course(s) then be immediately accepted to UCLA. I lost track of him after the UCLA declination and he ended up at OSU.

[Mitch McConnell]

Stallion, did you like to pull the wings off butterflies as a kid? What gives you the right to label anyone "imfamous", especially a minor. Was he busted for drugs? Knock off a few 7-11's? Father three children with three underage children?

If I recall, he meet the NCAA's prescribed minimums, came to SMU on his own dollar from the West Coast for the summer to be part of our team and was rejected in July by an admittance committee that decided to be arbitrary. I also recall the head of that committee was reasigned shortly thereafter to what is the equivalent to a senior secretary in the Perkins School of Divinity. As a result, President Turner had to form a task force to reevaluate our admissions policies. As a 17-18 year old he had the self confidence to go directly to President Turner and ask for an appointment to make his case. Pretty impressive given his age and economic and minority background. Don't you think you need to accomplish as much in your life before you start being so judgemental? I can only speak for myself, I grew up attending one of the best high schools in the country, in an upperclass community, to an upper middleclass family with three generations of college graduates, and at that age didn't possess one tenth of this young man's moxie!

Just why you find joy in some young man's physical injuries is beyond me. It says a lot about you and living you life on the internet instead of interacting with challenging people.

I guess you can't teach class, you either have it or you don't!

What mex was really saying....

[Mexmustang]

Poco, you may be right. But, the key issue was that we had been promised that our admissions standards would be at the same "level" with other schools--NCAA minimum standards. "SMU qualified" was not the same. As a result there was some serious discussions held with the administration as they seemed to have waivered in this promise. There were several admitted that year under similar circumstances. The young man was assured that he qualified under the NCAA guidelines and was then turned down for admission and very late in the process. When he met with President Turner, he compromised suggesting the recruit attend a JC for one semester, make reasonable grades and return in January.

There were a number of errors "committed" all around:
Perhaps he shouldn't have been turned down at all? Other kids were admitted under similar circumstances--between the two standards.
The decision came very late. But, maybe he had to re-take his ACT's, so perhaps he personally contributed to the problem, but this year I believed the decision was unusually late.
Based upon his understanding and other cases a former coach made the assurance he would be admitted. An assistant coach shouldn't speculate on admitance for "close calls".
The admittance committee made a decision based on their feeling (or pressure) that we had already admitted too many players that were between the SMU and NCAA guidelines and drew a line with this recruit.

As a result we all looked bad. It made us look like we didn't understand the economic circumstances of some of these kids (they simply don't have the money to go to a JC without aid and need to work). The young man did go to another D-I school, and I don't believe he ever went to JC. Under pressure, President Turner did form a Blue Ribbon committee to review the circumstances and make a recommendation as to providing a level playing field for admission of athletes.

Then of course, the NCAA raised its minimum qualifying standards, maybe even in the next recruiting year.

But, I still don't feel that calling an 18 year old 'damaged goods' is appropriate.

[Stallion]

Yes he most certainly did attend community college in Los Angeles because UCLA said he needed to make a C average on 12 hours of courses to get in. The exact same agreement as Turner offered for SMU. We don't really know why he changed his commitment to OSU-he might have been rejected by UCLA. Bottom Line-again-not one qualified player who was rejected by SMU has ever played a down of Division 1A Football*

*Caveat-we don't really know whether the 5 year felon RB was ever admitted to SMU because he committed to NMSU before SMU cleared him-but that's a different deal and an extreme case as I think he only had a GED and a criminal record. Mountain out of a Molehill that has had no effect on SMU's competitiveness. The extra scholarship probably went to someone like the DB Randall Joyner who has and will made an impact on the field

[PoconoPony]

Poco, you may be right. But, the key issue was that we had been promised that our admissions standards would be at the same "level" with other schools--NCAA minimum standards. "SMU qualified" was not the same. As a result there was some serious discussions held with the administration as they seemed to have waivered in this promise. There were several admitted that year under similar circumstances. The young man was assured that he qualified under the NCAA guidelines and was then turned down for admission and very late in the process. When he met with President Turner, he compromised suggesting the recruit attend a JC for one semester, make reasonable grades and return in January.

There were a number of errors "committed" all around:
Perhaps he shouldn't have been turned down at all? Other kids were admitted under similar circumstances--between the two standards.
The decision came very late. But, maybe he had to re-take his ACT's, so perhaps he personally contributed to the problem, but this year I believed the decision was unusually late.
Based upon his understanding and other cases a former coach made the assurance he would be admitted. An assistant coach shouldn't speculate on admitance for "close calls".
The admittance committee made a decision based on their feeling (or pressure) that we had already admitted too many players that were between the SMU and NCAA guidelines and drew a line with this recruit.

As a result we all looked bad. It made us look like we didn't understand the economic circumstances of some of these kids (they simply don't have the money to go to a JC without aid and need to work). The young man did go to another D-I school, and I don't believe he ever went to JC. Under pressure, President Turner did form a Blue Ribbon committee to review the circumstances and make a recommendation as to providing a level playing field for admission of athletes.

Then of course, the NCAA raised its minimum qualifying standards, maybe even in the next recruiting year.

But, I still don't feel that calling an 18 year old 'damaged goods' is appropriate.

I think our admissions standards we are very close to other schools. I do not think we were wrong in denying him admission as his transcript was very incomplete. I can cite UCLA as a great example as they denied him admission for exactly the same reasons. I think the biggest problem is that he made too many assumptions about enrollment and/or someone on the coaching staff mis-lead him believing he had a better transcript than ultimately presented.

[Junior]

Can we move on from this? It's irrelevant at this point.