DMN's Sherrington on JJ and the SMU situation

[feelthehorsepower]

I'd love to enlighten you FTHP. For one, the conference we played in. That would bring fans from other teams. And more importantly, there was a lot less to compete for fans attention back then. You didn't have 9 billion games every weekend streamed into your pocket in HD.

Why pay good money to go to watch SMU play Temple when I could watch LSU and Alabama duke it out on my recliner with an ice cold beer in my hands in my climate controlled house? Hell, even if it's free, it's just a lot easier to sit on your couch and nurse your hangover.

Attendance is down across all of college football which is why Mustang Mania would not work today. Are there things that we could do to maybe help here and there? Sure, but you're not going to see some massive increase in attendance because of billboards. And especially focusing them at just UP and HP as you suggested. Yes, you had some clever plays on words, I'll give you that, but we don't need to increase the perception that we are a park cities team and not dallas team anymore than we are already stereotyped.

- sorry for feeding him guys

I suggested UP and HP billboards because you could play with the words. We can find out some more for Dallas.
But we need to educate people about our program. Lots of people don't even know we play in Div 1 FBS.
And our games aren't that expensive...not right now at least. And our season tickets are very reasonably priced.

But almost everyone that didn't go to SMU would rather watch UT, A&M, BU, TCU, TT, Bama, LSU, Florida, OSU, Michigan, OU, OSU, USC, UCLA, Stanford, Florida State..... you get the picture. They'd rather watch other things on a giant TV on their couch. It's not about cost, it's about the product. You can only sell so much of a crappy product.

If we had wifi in our stadium, they could watch them from their laptop/ipad/phone or keep track...all within Ford Stadium. It's what a lot of people at TCU games do

Stop being negative man, let's try to make it better!

And yes our product is currently sucking...but we will get better!

[blackoutpony]

I'm not being negative, I'm being realistic. If the realistic thing happens to be negative, tough [deleted].

What do you want me to say? "Oh yeah, all the former aggies and bevos will come out and sit on our metal bleachers instead of sitting on their couch and watch better games from their ipad while SMU plays Tulane in the background. This is how we'll pack Ford!". Pull your head out of your @ss

[feelthehorsepower]

I'm not being negative, I'm being realistic. If the realistic thing happens to be negative, tough [deleted].

What do you want me to say? "Oh yeah, all the former aggies and bevos will come out and sit on our metal bleachers instead of sitting on their couch and watch better games from their ipad while SMU plays Tulane in the background. This is how we'll pack Ford!". Pull your head out of your @ss

Not everyone is an aggy/bevo fan...there are NFL fans that don't have a specific CFB team. There's 5 million and a huge market to grow into.

[Grant Carter]

I personally spoke with one of our current players today, regarding June and his status. Among other things, he indicated that June has called an 8:30am meeting with the entire team for Monday, 12/16/13 - during which he suspects June will announce resolution of his status as coach of SMU, one way or the other.

Well, that's interesting.... Let's hope it's that he's leaving. It's a little odd that a coach would have to hold a team meeting to announce he's coming back

Not saying he is coming back, but with all the discussion it seems reasonable to speak with them directly either way.

[sjackson]

I personally spoke with one of our current players today, regarding June and his status. Among other things, he indicated that June has called an 8:30am meeting with the entire team for Monday, 12/16/13 - during which he suspects June will announce resolution of his status as coach of SMU, one way or the other.

Well, that's interesting.... Let's hope it's that he's leaving. It's a little odd that a coach would have to hold a team meeting to announce he's coming back

True enough...but June is an odd bird and drama queen. Same player mentioned that June called a similar meeting last year - during which he announced to the team that he was returning for 2013, and all was full-steam ahead.

The Monday morning meeting could be more of the same...though I hope to hell not. The main point behind my post was moreso that we should hopefully have some resolution by sometime on Monday/Tuesday of next week.

[mrydel]

Not unusual to have a team meeting at the end of the season to tell everyone to act right, keep up your studies, etc. Usually it is after a bowl game but no reason to wait this year.

[sjackson]

Not unusual to have a team meeting at the end of the season to tell everyone to act right, keep up your studies, etc. Usually it is after a bowl game but no reason to wait this year.

Agreed...that's the logical explanation. I just hope that it's to announce his departure, instead - making legions of us much happier next week.

Likely wishful thinking, though - cannot envision a scenario in which June walks away from one red cent.

[coloradoStang]

Not unusual to have a team meeting at the end of the season to tell everyone to act right, keep up your studies, etc. Usually it is after a bowl game but no reason to wait this year.

Agreed...that's the logical explanation. I just hope that it's to announce his departure, instead - making legions of us much happier next week.

Likely wishful thinking, though - cannot envision a scenario in which June walks away from one red cent.

During finals? That's weird to me. I'd be madder then anything if a coach called a meeting just to say "hey keep your studies up, and especially for the test you have later today that your now not studying for because your listening to me..."

[PonySnob]

I personally spoke with one of our current players today, regarding June and his status. Among other things, he indicated that June has called an 8:30am meeting with the entire team for Monday, 12/16/13 - during which he suspects June will announce resolution of his status as coach of SMU, one way or the other.

Don't finals go through 12/18? Probably just to wish everybody a great holiday season before he heads off to a nice long Christmas vacation in Hawaii..............

[coloradoStang]

I personally spoke with one of our current players today, regarding June and his status. Among other things, he indicated that June has called an 8:30am meeting with the entire team for Monday, 12/16/13 - during which he suspects June will announce resolution of his status as coach of SMU, one way or the other.

Don't finals go through 12/18? Probably just to wish everybody a great holiday season before he heads off to a nice long Christmas vacation in Hawaii..............

Yeah but there's finals starting at 8, 11:20 and 3. I'd be mad and probably wouldnt go if I had a required meeting before my 1130 final meeting. But I'm an engineer I'm told we are weird about that kinda stuff

[sjackson]

I personally spoke with one of our current players today, regarding June and his status. Among other things, he indicated that June has called an 8:30am meeting with the entire team for Monday, 12/16/13 - during which he suspects June will announce resolution of his status as coach of SMU, one way or the other.

Don't finals go through 12/18? Probably just to wish everybody a great holiday season before he heads off to a nice long Christmas vacation in Hawaii..............

Yeah but there's finals starting at 8, 11:20 and 3. I'd be mad and probably wouldnt go if I had a required meeting before my 1130 final meeting. But I'm an engineer I'm told we are weird about that kinda stuff

Well, considering that, I am now going to put on rose-colored glasses, and think positive thoughts...that June will be announcing his exit...

[leopold]

Seems like he is saying SMU cannot do better than June. Which I think is total BS.

Pitiful attendance when the entire city is shut down because of icy treacherous conditions and tons without power (me included)? What do you expect?

What concessions? Are we back to the idiot athlete course load and keeping kids in school without failing? I am so tired of this. Other, more elite private schools are competing that have more stringent standards.

He's not saying SMU can't do better than June, he's saying we have a proven commodity and simply firing him is a gamble and isn't going to be the magic bullet some on this board think it will be. Say what you want about June, he has proven he can coach and win at schools that don't have the massive budgets and facilities other schools around us have. Southern Miss tried fired a proven commodity, got one good season (which may have happened with Bower anyway) and then got dumped and failed massively on their next attempt, wiping out years of gains brought about by winning.

As far as the other points, the attendance issue obviously predates the UCF game. It's always been an issue and it always will be, especially with small private schools. Cavan once said he knew Franchione was leaving when we played an undeafeted TCU game on their homecoming when they had LT and they were trying to crash the BCS and their stadium was half full. It took them a decade of expecting to win to build a fanbase - it will take the same from us.

Concessions from the school specifically mean more sacrifices financially and organizationally. The elite privates schools we are referring to - Stanford, Vandy, Northwestern, Wake, Miami - are in major conferences and in a position to throw money at the situation. Vandy now pays Franklin almost twice what we pay June. Rumor is Washington called him and the conversation went like this:
UW: We would like to talk to you about our job opening.
JF: I'll make this quick: I make 3.5 here. Will you pay me more?
UW: Thanks for your time.

These school have absolutely joined the arms race of college athletics and did it a lot sooner than we did. Don't forget - Larry Brown fell into our lap because he couldn't find a job in the NBA and major college programs passed on him. We didn't outbid anyone, we got lucky.

As far as Rice and Tulane are concerned, they went through decades of losing, got together a good team and found themselves in a weaker CUSA. Does anybody think they are really built to last? Maybe Tulane is finally making an effort, but I questioned their HC hire a few years ago and genuinely believe they simply got lucky. Time will tell.

[feelthehorsepower]

Seems like he is saying SMU cannot do better than June. Which I think is total BS.

Pitiful attendance when the entire city is shut down because of icy treacherous conditions and tons without power (me included)? What do you expect?

What concessions? Are we back to the idiot athlete course load and keeping kids in school without failing? I am so tired of this. Other, more elite private schools are competing that have more stringent standards.

He's not saying SMU can't do better than June, he's saying we have a proven commodity and simply firing him is a gamble and isn't going to be the magic bullet some on this board think it will be. Say what you want about June, he has proven he can coach and win at schools that don't have the massive budgets and facilities other schools around us have.

As far as the other points, the attendance issue obviously predates the UCF game. It's always been an issue and it always will be, especially with small private schools. Cavan once said he knew Franchione was leaving when we played an undeafeted TCU game on their homecoming when they had LT and they were trying to crash the BCS and their stadium was half full. It took them a decade of expecting to win to build a fanbase - it will take the same from us.

Concessions from the school specifically mean more sacrifices financially and organizationally. The elite privates schools we are referring to - Stanford, Vandy, Northwestern, Wake, Miami - are in major conferences and in a position to throw money at the situation. Vandy now pays Franklin almost twice what we pay June. Rumor is Washington called him and the conversation went like this:
UW: We would like to talk to you about our job opening.
JF: I'll make this quick: I make 3.5 here. Will you pay me more?
UW: Thanks for your time.

These school have absolutely joined the arms race of college athletics and did it a lot sooner than we did. Don't forget - Larry Brown fell into our lap because he couldn't find a job in the NBA and major college programs passed on him. We didn't outbid anyone, we got lucky.

As far as Rice and Tulane are concerned, they went through decades of losing, got together a good team and found themselves in a weaker CUSA. Does anybody think they are really built to last? Maybe Tulane is finally making an effort, but I questioned their HC hire a few years ago and genuinely believe they simply got lucky. Time will tell.

True...it's a work in progress and we should start the momentum now! It fits in perfectly for the next Grant of Rights/Conference realignment.

[Topper]

The "elite private schools" that come to mind are Duke, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Notre Dame, University of Miami....every one of them is in a P5 conference. Makes their road tones easier. Not disagreeing with what you are getting at. Can you think of an elite private school out there that is competing that is not in a P5 conference? There are probably some, just can't think of them off the top of my head.

Rice, Tulsa, and Tulane are not elite athletically by any means but we still lose to them more often than not. Our first hurdle is to leapfrog these types of schools.

[birddogger]

[quote]Rice, Tulsa, and Tulane are not elite athletically by any means but we still lose to them more often than not. Our first hurdle is to leapfrog these types of schools.

We ARE that type of school. That's why we need energetic recruiters. Tulane has one now.