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Mac Brown and UT used to have it down. Go after most impressive physical specimens early in high school careers and then have them visit camp summer before junior year. then before their senior year offer the top junior players at their junior day. Get your 20 committs and then just keep in close contact with their parents, high school coach and send them handwritten personalized notes after each of their high school fb games. Then schedule official visit to campus, have them and the parents over to Mac and Sallys house (after all we are family) and somewhere in there Bruce Chambers chauefers Mac to the recruits high school where Mac visits with the head coach asking for advice on certain aspects of the 'Horns offense, defense or special teams making the high school coach feel real important so he can tell everyone that Mac asked for his help. Then over to the high school to visit and take photos with teachers, principals and all the students who ask(including future potential recruits). Do you think after all that any recruit is gonna change his committment? The only thing I have heard different this year is they are offering earlier rather than waiting for junior days. Oh and another thing...the recruits and parents have Mac and position coach cell phone numbers. SMU coaches??????

Took six posts to get to the rant AusTxPony said he was not looking for. Pretty good.

This is one of those tough things to figure out how to do it right and a lot of it has to do with the personality of the coach. Ron Meyer had tons of personality and loved to recruit and was a heck of a coach as well. I think JJ is more professoral and introverted, and thus hates to go out on the road to recruit. When he talks, he's so mellow and matter of fact whether we win or lose. Perhaps, JJ knows that recruiting is best done by him in small doses. He's not a salesman, he's a coach. And thus, he relies more on his salesmen personality coaches than himself. So, is he lazy or just not really good at gladhanding people? As Clint Eastwood said, "A man's got to know his limitations".

That's unfortunate because half the job description of a successful Division 1A Head Coach is Salesman/Face of Program. Get out your list of Top 25 programs and tell me how I am wrong. You can barely find any top coach in the college ranks that doesn't fit that description

EastStang wrote:This is one of those tough things to figure out how to do it right and a lot of it has to do with the personality of the coach. Ron Meyer had tons of personality and loved to recruit and was a heck of a coach as well. I think JJ is more professoral and introverted, and thus hates to go out on the road to recruit. When he talks, he's so mellow and matter of fact whether we win or lose. Perhaps, JJ knows that recruiting is best done by him in small doses. He's not a salesman, he's a coach. And thus, he relies more on his salesmen personality coaches than himself. So, is he lazy or just not really good at gladhanding people? As Clint Eastwood said, "A man's got to know his limitations".

That is an interesting take. I have always said that I do not think he is lazy, he is doing the best he can and it is just not as good as it needs to be.

Certainly at a minimum you would expect someone who was going to rely on his salesman personality coaches to focus on hiring the best ones of those he could find. Does not seem to be the case here.

Funny, Kevin Sumlin is probably one of the biggest jerks I've ever met.

Can I have a job that pays me millions and over-looks or hires around my serious professional limitations? Sweet gig!

EastStang wrote:This is one of those tough things to figure out how to do it right and a lot of it has to do with the personality of the coach. Ron Meyer had tons of personality and loved to recruit and was a heck of a coach as well. I think JJ is more professoral and introverted, and thus hates to go out on the road to recruit. When he talks, he's so mellow and matter of fact whether we win or lose. Perhaps, JJ knows that recruiting is best done by him in small doses. He's not a salesman, he's a coach. And thus, he relies more on his salesmen personality coaches than himself. So, is he lazy or just not really good at gladhanding people? As Clint Eastwood said, "A man's got to know his limitations".

Tough to figure out? Not in my books. It's part of the job, a huge part and you either learn how to do it or find a different line of work ( or back to the NFL). In fact, I would say just showing up, smiling a lot and having an assistant carry the talking load would, more times than not, suffice. At least your presence says I care enough about you kid to get off my rear end and show up.

JJ hates to go on the road because that's not the kind of work he "wants" to do. In almost every job there are more enjoyable facets, yet most of us have to bite the bullet and cover the whole spectrum. JJ is not lazy when it comes to the enjoyable components of his job (his opinion). He is completely lazy when it comes to the parts he doesn't like, which is why until just recently (when I contend some external force or pressure has smacked him right across the face), he simply didn't do it.

And finally, if I'm SMU/CoC and pay him $2M a year, and it becomes clear that he falls short in the interpersonal skills category, why in the blue blazes am I not investing another $2-$5K in a personal trainer/coach to help polish him up? This isn't nuclear physics.

EastStang wrote:This is one of those tough things to figure out how to do it right and a lot of it has to do with the personality of the coach. Ron Meyer had tons of personality and loved to recruit and was a heck of a coach as well. I think JJ is more professoral and introverted, and thus hates to go out on the road to recruit. When he talks, he's so mellow and matter of fact whether we win or lose. Perhaps, JJ knows that recruiting is best done by him in small doses. He's not a salesman, he's a coach. And thus, he relies more on his salesmen personality coaches than himself. So, is he lazy or just not really good at gladhanding people? As Clint Eastwood said, "A man's got to know his limitations".

Then he shouldn't be coaching college football.
What am I missing?

The fact that we don't deserve better.

This will, as suggested before, become a bigger issue now that the NCAA is proposing a change that would allow more coaches to visit recruits off campus. We will be going to the showdown at high noon with two empty chambers.

I appreciate JJ for his ability to forcibly move SMU out of the dungheap and into mediocrity...I'm just tired of the stay in mediocrity. There has to be more, higher up.

Apparently (per SuperPrep, via google) JJ and Phillips visited stud DeSoto QB/athlete DeMarcus Ayers (offers include Arizona State, Arkansas, Cal, Washington, Washington State, Tennessee, West Virginia), who says SMU now is in his top 3.

I appreciate the effort everyone seems to be putting forth right now but if that is all it took for us to jump into his top 3 this late in the game just think where we would be if we were going after him hard the whole time.

Considering Desoto played several playoff games at ford, the opportunity was there to see some of the best talent in the nation. The Desoto qb was fantastic but prob going to be a super fast slot if he can catch. Fans making fun of smu when i was there for the Allen-Desoto game what with very little police helping the parking situation and people out in traffice going nowhere for 1-2hours and missing the first half. A chance for SMU to showcase itself again and instead they blow it. Not only that, since many didn't know where to park, they parked in the surrounding neighborhoods where people had scheduled xmas parties that went bad because their guests couldn't park. What should be a top destination for student-athletes is sabotaged again.

I think parking is way down the list of concerns for recruits. If it were that important lsu would be off everyone's list.