Mark Hudspeth

[PonySnob]

At this point how many solid ( BCS offers) 3* do we have like one or two...

Who do have 3 players who all were on scholarship at UT.........

[Stallion]

Hudspeth loads up with Miss JCs and players who aren't qualified on signing date. He's taking advantage of the SEC rule about no-oversigning. Last year he got burned some, as probably 2/3 of the top of his class didn't qualify; but the prior year it worked (and it still worked some last year).

something to think about and probably very true. SMU can get just about every full qualifier in-heck we've gotten about 3 non-qualifiers in the last 2 years in Basketball, but there is an advantage that state schools have that SMU can't do-NOT because Turner hates athletics-but because of NCAA rules. A non-qualifier that is admitted to a state school can walk on by paying in-state tuition and if he performs satisfactorily in first year can join the team after sitting out first year. This is a big advantage for state schools in Louisiana, Mississippi with high concentration of poor academically performing students. Not Turners fault because tuition is $57,000

[SMU_Alumni11]

The NCAA needs to make an exemption for private schools. It's not fair that state schools an subsidize their football programs with taxpayer money an also get the rules in their favor. The least they could do for us after the death penalty is allow students to transfer freely to smu without having to do something stupid like this or go to a community college. I mean heck if they want to act like academics are #1 then let kids go to a good institution not a community college.

[BenW]

Hudspeth loads up with Miss JCs and players who aren't qualified on signing date. He's taking advantage of the SEC rule about no-oversigning. Last year he got burned some, as probably 2/3 of the top of his class didn't qualify; but the prior year it worked (and it still worked some last year).

something to think about and probably very true. SMU can get just about every full qualifier in-heck we've gotten about 3 non-qualifiers in the last 2 years in Basketball, but there is an advantage that state schools have that SMU can't do-NOT because Turner hates athletics-but because of NCAA rules. A non-qualifier that is admitted to a state school can walk on by paying in-state tuition and if he performs satisfactorily in first year can join the team after sitting out first year. This is a big advantage for state schools in Louisiana, Mississippi with high concentration of poor academically performing students. Not Turners fault because tuition is $57,000

What he's really trying to do is sign them in February and hope they qualify by August. He's losing a good number of those who don't qualify by August to JCs, where he'll never hear from them again. Now some do stick with ULL and pay their way, but not that many (after all, they could do the same for, say, FSU, although the tuition is really cheap in Louisiana).
TCU and Patterson did this a bit, especially in his last few years in C-USA and early in the MWC; he'd sign players OSU were all over, but who weren't qualified, and hope they qualified by August. Hudspeth also has a ton of Miss ties, and he's taking advantage of a beleaguered USM, whose recruiting hit a big downturn before Fedora left.
But if you look at traditional high school recruiting in Louisiana - signing players who have qualified on that first Tuesday of February - Hudspeth's recruiting isn't anything special. But his finding niches and recruiting them is special.

[Stallion]

nothing wrong with late qualifiers as long as they have realistic chance of admission and aren't manfacturing transcripts. SMU has had a bunch since 2008. I'd bet 85% of schools do that. The more odious practice is when a school has such low standards that they admit the non-qualifier anyway EVEN when he doesn't qualify. They generrally belong in a Junior College unless we are talking about some of those foreign student requirements or maybe a single missing credit

[BenW]

The other problem is that while SMU coaches may be free to recruit minimal qualifiers, they still have to pass the SMU classes. I'm not a SMU guy, but I can reasonably assume that there are few completely BS classes at SMU. So the coaches probably do have to screen those with the minimal qualifications and find out which ones they think are really smarter than their ACT and can handle the curriculum. Some schools use things like BYU correspondence courses to keep players eligible (I'm hearing Liberty is getting into that business as well), but I doubt SMU sinks that low.
Hudspeth has a much freer reign at ULL.

[ponypatrick]

I am for a proven coach at any cost. But I don't write the checks. If we have to go up and comer, what about Hudspeth? Currently at ULaLa. Great winning percentage.

good choice. Polar opposite of JJ. Hudspeth is a hard worker and really promotes the ULL program !

[ReedFrawg]

IMO 3*s with a couple of BCS offers are the 'bottom of the barrell'. We need to aim much higher and hopefully we will get a coach who agrees and can really step up our recruiting.

Most of our current players play hard and to the best of their ability but they are just outclassed when you try to compete with BCS schools ala TT, TCU, Baylor and A$M.

We only get a couple or maybe a handful of 4 star guys each year. And i certainly don't think 3 star guys with bcs offers is bottom of the barrel. SMU needs to quit signing guys with zero quality offers.

[Stallion]

that's what its about for SMU right now. Not necessarily signing 5 stars (National Top 35) or 4 Stars (Texas Top 40). We need 65-70% of our recruits to be kids who got quality BCS offers-TCU was able to do this over an extended period of time. They were one of the Top 1-2 non-BCS recruiting schools over a decade. Recruiting well relative to your competition. TCU had better talent that about 9-10 of the 12 schools in their conference every year and that's reflected in their record. Too many "experts" claimed they got kids (BCS) schools didn't want-but they always got better recruits relative to the vast majority of schools on their schedule

[Fresno Mustang]

Saw Hudpseth's winning percentage on espn today too and thought the same thing. Theres lots of other mid major coaches that are making way less than june and are winning a lot that we should look at imo. I get incredibly frustrated seeing teams like lafayette, or san jose last year, that are winning more than smu with coaches at a fraction of the price.

[SMU_Alumni11]

At this point taking any coach that actually competes if not beats some P5 teams should be listed in a smu committee discussion. Cause I will lose it if we lose to the f-ing NTCC team and sadly they look better than us right now. When JJ was trying to leave he should have been dismissed and not paid further and have our smu lawyers settle it out and get someone who could take us when we were in an upward trend. We are crashing back to when JJ first came here if not worst given the football landscape.

[gomemphistigers1]

You guys should hire him...he's done really well at UL-L.

[MustangStealth]

Before we get too high on him, let's keep in mind a few things.

His only 3 wins against non-conference FBS teams with winning records are in the 3 New Orleans Bowl games (0-7 in the regular season)
24 of his 30 wins at Ul-Laf are against Sunbelt or FCS teams
0-7 against the P5

Go ahead and dog pile me, since I know it's coming, but we should aim higher than "best coach in the Sunbelt".

[sbsmith]

Before we get too high on him, let's keep in mind a few things.

His only 3 wins against non-conference FBS teams with winning records are in the 3 New Orleans Bowl games (0-7 in the regular season)
24 of his 30 wins at Ul-Laf are against Sunbelt or FCS teams
0-7 against the P5

Go ahead and dog pile me, since I know it's coming, but we should aim higher than "best coach in the Sunbelt".

No dog piling here, it's good that someone took the time to dissect Hudspeth's record. We don't have a shot at him anyway since his next stop is the P5.

[smumustang1980]

The other problem is that while SMU coaches may be free to recruit minimal qualifiers, they still have to pass the SMU classes. I'm not a SMU guy, but I can reasonably assume that there are few completely BS classes at SMU. So the coaches probably do have to screen those with the minimal qualifications and find out which ones they think are really smarter than their ACT and can handle the curriculum. Some schools use things like BYU correspondence courses to keep players eligible (I'm hearing Liberty is getting into that business as well), but I doubt SMU sinks that low.
Hudspeth has a much freer reign at ULL.

I doubt there are many if any so-called b.s. classes at SMU.