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The biggest negative I see is that he has not been at an elite program or at a program long enough to prove he can win at an elite level. Louisiana Tech and Cal were both trending in the right direction save his last season at Cal. I preferred others but definitely think this can work out very well for us. Morris has not proven himself as being able to win any more than Dykes so I see no reason for any of our fans to jump ship. From the reports it looks like Kevin Sumlin needs some time off so it is simply a matter of timing. I haven't heard anything as to why we did not get Todd Graham, but Phx fan said that he poured his heart and soul into the ASU job and would need time to recover.

So...he goes 6-6 next year, 7-5 the next and Tech fires wonderboy, we are back where we started from when he bolts to Lubbock..

SMU_Alum11 wrote:HeΓÇÖs a great fit as an analyst for TCU. No coaching. Just analyzing. TCU helping us out again...

SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! Don't tell Gary.

While it looks like he recruiting class ranks at Cal were okay based on rank by offers in the 30s. However being in a P5, I believe they would get higher points than G5 teams. Sadly, I dont see anything before 2013 on Rank by Offers.

LA Tech - 247 Sports
2012 - #98 his 9-3 year.
2011 - #113 his 8-5 year.
2010 - #81 his first year

Wow, that's awesome!

To be fair, I'll put Cal's, but they have things that SMU can't offer: P5 which we know the value of that since we've been chasing it.

2013 - #41
2014 - #55
2015 - #34
2016 - #31

I still look LA Tech as being more of our comparison given we are both G5 schools. While AAC is better than CUSA, it's still a step down from the P5 big boys. If he has Texas ties, you would think it would have been easy to get east texas recruits to LA Tech.

sail420s wrote:His history of a bottom 10 defense at Cal...not the side of the ball we wanted to keep rolling as is.

To my knowledge Cal has never had a a good defense.

Spike's offense will be as good if not better than Chad's and the defense can't really get any worse. If we aren't willing to give Traylor a shot then Spike is the best available to us in my opinion.

Meant Sonny not Spike, but in reality it is Spike's offense and Spike was one of the originators of the spread offense.

It's very hard to judge him at Cal. Cal is #1,2,3 an academic school. Somehow they have a hard time with sports. For some reason, Stanford can do it, but not Cal. It's like, if we have a good FB team it somehow devalues academics. So it would be very difficult to coach at Cal. It's kinda like, we can't let FB overshadow, in any way our academics. It's just the mentality of the school. So don't read to much into his Cal record. They have this belief that USC, Stanford, UA, ASU, Ore. don't have.

I guess I am supporter. As others have said, not my first choice but not a bad one. I think he has the potential to win here. I remember him at La Tech and we would have all wanted him back then. But then his reputation was ruined at a stint in Cal that even CM would have the same record or worse there. I am concerned about him flirting with so many other openings but I take it that a diminishing budget, a new AD administration after the guy that hired you was fired, away from his recruiting ties, would make that happen.

Charleston Pony wrote:I'm fine with this choice as we will be getting a guy with Texas ties and also experience as a HC. Those who knock his success at Cal need to understand who he was competing against and the uneven playing field he was dealing with. Just a word of warning, though...the naysayers will be out in droves next year because looking at our schedule, I would not be shocked to see this team sink to as low as a 2-10 record. If Dykes can come in here and get this team to 6-6 next year, he will have proven to me that he and his staff were much better than Chad and his. I think Chad was more desperate to bail on SMU than most of us realize.

Nothing like lowering expectations, haha. Stallion says next year is the breakout year, with all the talent Morris accumulated with his awesome recruiting. Also have his record setting QB, Hicks returning.

Don't you worry, Stallion is never wrong.

I donΓÇÖt see where Stallion said awesome recruiting but he did not leave the school in shambles like a June did. Got to give the team a year to get accustomed to the new system. 4 to 6 wins would be good next year.

Has Dykes been named head coach?

Stallion said it was a miracle Morris was able to sign the classes he did coming off 1, 2, and 5 win seasons.

ThatΓÇÖs not saying they were awesome. Just that he did the best he could with the situation that he was in at the time.

Phxfan wrote:It's very hard to judge him at Cal. Cal is #1,2,3 an academic school.

I wish our president thought this way.

Rebel10 wrote:ThatΓÇÖs not saying they were awesome. Just that he did the best he could with the situation that he was in at the time.

His word was 'incredible', accompanied by his standard qualifying excuse that you apparently can't recruit well until you reach a 6-7 win threshold.

QB returns, 2 of the best AAC receivers, A stable of the best backs in the AAC, OLine with more experience and a bunch of highly rated recruits. Only question is the D, which can't really get any worse. Get rid of Van and it automatically becomes better, regardless of the players.

Must be a really bad hire if the expectation is the new coach and his system is going to be responsible for the team going backwards from 7 wins, to somewhere around 2-6?

Wow