SMU commit makes Texas Top 100

[Grant Carter]

I am sick and tired of the coaching staff being blamed for their "inability" to recruit blue-chip players. It's not easy selling a program where often there are 1,000's of empty seats in a 32,000-seat venue. I've had it with the thousands of SMU grads who live in the Metroplex who never buy tickets; to paraphrase, if you don't vote, you can't complain.
If you want to criticize the coaches, buy season tickets - then you can whine and snivel all you want.
My two cents from a vacation in Amsterdam, which has great "coffee" shops.

Basketball has had to deal with an empty arena as well but they're recruiting just fine. The difference between the two is that basketball has a staff that knows how to recruit and football doesn't.

I would agree with this and just add that brown is a much more accomplished coach than June which helps with both recruiting and being able to hire a top notch staff.

[SMU2007]

I am sick and tired of the coaching staff being blamed for their "inability" to recruit blue-chip players. It's not easy selling a program where often there are 1,000's of empty seats in a 32,000-seat venue. I've had it with the thousands of SMU grads who live in the Metroplex who never buy tickets; to paraphrase, if you don't vote, you can't complain.
If you want to criticize the coaches, buy season tickets - then you can whine and snivel all you want.
My two cents from a vacation in Amsterdam, which has great "coffee" shops.

We're not asking for blue chip recruits. If dont think it's too much to ask that the majority of our recruits have other d1 offers...

[sbsmith]

I'm loving LB and all he is doing but I'm sick to death of people whining that JJ should be doing more. Enjoy LB, but don't ignorantly use him as a weapon against JJ.

June should be doing more (winning most of your recruiting battles against nobody or Sun Belt teams isn't the way to build a real program). No one is using Brown as a weapon against June, the only weapon being used against June is his own recruiting ineptitude (that's what you should be sick to death of).

[Rebel10]

Nonsense. Coach Brown has done an amazing job but he has more resources and an easier product to sell than JJ. One great player can turn an average team into a really good team. It only takes 7500 to fill Moody. Texas is a football state and it will be easier to establish SMU as a local BB powerhouse than football.

And then there is the practicality of recruiting. LB is a household name and has coached in the pros within the last 5 years. He also has a staff of 19 to help him. That is 19 people running a roster of 13 players right now.

JJ has a staff of 24 for 120+ players and does not have quite as much cache as LB. His pro coaching was a long time back and he never won a superbowl.

I'm loving LB and all he is doing but I'm sick to death of people whining that JJ should be doing more. Enjoy LB, but don't ignorantly use him as a weapon against JJ.

OOOOOOOOOOh so Coach Brown has an easier product to sell. Well why haven't other coaches taken advantage of that easy product to sell. Let's see as you hard core June Jones supporters say that SMU has been to 4 bowl games in a row. So shouldn't we be getting much better recruits in year 5. Basketball team has been to the NCAA tournament in close to 20 years. Coach Brown's first year he gets a highly rated kid out of Kimball and a good bit of that had to do with Coach Maligi's connections. Year 5 for Coach Jones and we have not had 1 recruit enroll from Skyline. Only 3 coaches can be on the road at one time in basketball no matter how many assistants you have. The Chicago kids had a lot to with Coach Howard and Coach Snow's connections. It is all about the staff that you hire. Even the hard core JJ supporters say that they would like to see better recruiting from the football team to win and we are excited about everyone the basketball team is bring to SMU. So don't backhand compliment Coach Brown while trying to justify Coach Jones recruiting staff. But Coach Jones is making changes to do better.

[Donnell88]

Sorry, I keep forgetting that Coach Jones has only recruited Zach Line, Taylor Reed, Taylor Thompson, Ja'Garad Davis, Darius Johnson, Richard Crawford, Sterling Moore, Stephon Sanders and some guy named Margus Hunt. (My apologies to those I have overlooked).

[Rebel10]

Sorry, I keep forgetting that Coach Jones has only recruited Zach Line, Taylor Reed, Taylor Thompson, Ja'Garad Davis, Darius Johnson, Richard Crawford, Sterling Moore, Stephon Sanders and some guy named Margus Hunt. (My apologies to those I have overlooked).

No problem. So why have we had depth issues for 5 years? But I guess at SMU we only look at starters.

[sbsmith]

Sorry, I keep forgetting that Coach Jones has only recruited Zach Line, Taylor Reed, Taylor Thompson, Ja'Garad Davis, Darius Johnson, Richard Crawford, Sterling Moore, Stephon Sanders and some guy named Margus Hunt. (My apologies to those I have overlooked).

Good group of players but didn't win much here outside of three third-tier bowls (0 conference titles, 0 weeks ranked, 0 wins against Texas AQ opponents). No All-American teams or major awards won either.

[Rebel10]

To be honest I am encouraged by the new staff editions in football. If we don't do better it might be a while before we go to a BCS game under Coach Jones. Our incoming freshmen need to make an impact and this next class needs to be solid.

[mustangxc]

Turning around a basketball program is much easier than turning around a football program, especially the conference we are in which is arguably the 3rd or 4th best basketball conference in the country (I have it as 4th or 5th) whereas we are in the 6th or 7th best football conference in the country. That said, Larry Brown has really elevated the talent level at SMU and June Jones should be doing much better in recruiting. I still want to see results on the field as we did have a losing record in basketball last year and made our 4th consecutive bowl game last year.

[smusic 00]

When we hired JJ, he was a household name who, supposedly, lots of kids wanted to play for because of his history in the game and connections at the next level, a la LB. Just turns out that he put no effort into selling himself or the program and, instead, waited for the flocks of 4 star Texas talent to beat down his office door.

[mustangxc]

If JJ somehow manages to lead this team to the conference title and a BCS bowl bid this year then I think he will have accomplished what he came to do. So far he has met my expectations of reaching a bowl at some point by the end of his 5th season here. That said, I do not expect a BCS bowl bid and am disappointed that we are not trending upwards, and have flatlined instead. Hopefully the new coaches can help us get back to our climb. Wasn't the name of the show the first year or so "The Climb"? We need to get back on track.

[Grant Carter]

When we hired JJ, he was a household name who, supposedly, lots of kids wanted to play for because of his history in the game and connections at the next level, a la LB. Just turns out that he put no effort into selling himself or the program and, instead, waited for the flocks of 4 star Texas talent to beat down his office door.

June was a household name but he was not nearly as highly regarded as Larry Brown, there is no comparison. That does not take away from the fact that June is a poor recruiter.

[SMU2007]

If JJ somehow manages to lead this team to the conference title and a BCS bowl bid this year then I think he will have accomplished what he came to do. So far he has met my expectations of reaching a bowl at some point by the end of his 5th season here. That said, I do not expect a BCS bowl bid and am disappointed that we are not trending upwards, and have flatlined instead. Hopefully the new coaches can help us get back to our climb. Wasn't the name of the show the first year or so "The Climb"? We need to get back on track.

Your expectation was to make a bowl after 5 years? Wow. I'd like to work for you. No way to underachieve!

[Rebel10]

I think people are really discounting the work the LB's staff did to get those recruits. Howard got Crandall Head, Jank got Nic Moore, Snow and Howard got Sterling Brown, Howard got Ben Moore, and Maligi got Frazier. Coach Brown had not been doing college recruiting in years but he surrounded himself with high level recruiters. Guys that have a record of recruiting at a high level. Kind of like What Stoops is doing at Kentucky in football.

[mustangxc]

If JJ somehow manages to lead this team to the conference title and a BCS bowl bid this year then I think he will have accomplished what he came to do. So far he has met my expectations of reaching a bowl at some point by the end of his 5th season here. That said, I do not expect a BCS bowl bid and am disappointed that we are not trending upwards, and have flatlined instead. Hopefully the new coaches can help us get back to our climb. Wasn't the name of the show the first year or so "The Climb"? We need to get back on track.

Your expectation was to make a bowl after 5 years? Wow. I'd like to work for you. No way to underachieve!

After 20+ seasons of not going to any bowl games I think any coach we hired deserved the opportunity to turn it around with his own players. That requires a full 5 year cycle. Of course, based on the quick turn-around a Hawaii, I was hoping we would do much better than we did in year one, if not go bowling. I think years 2 and 3 were amazing and year 4 was going great up until we played at home agains UCF which is when JJ kind of checked out. The last 2 seasons we have maintained our level, but have lost the excitement surrounding our climb. That said, once he managed to take us bowling in year 2 I do agree that expectations were raised and he has yet to meet them. He has a chance this season and deservedly so.