(03-28-2022 09:31 PM)Side.Show.Joe Wrote: (03-28-2022 11:15 AM)mustangxc Wrote: The makeup of the conference going forward doesn't help with hiring coaches, but that is on the ADs and/or Presidents. Who thought it was a good idea to add 6 teams from CUSA? Our ADs and presidents, so it is on them. Until SMUs board of trustees starts caring about SMU and gets us a president with vision and a competent AD, SMU will be stuck in mediocrity.
The C-USA6 didn't hire Lanier for SMU.
You try to blame the new additions and label them as beneath you, yet SMU's first choice was a coach at a C-USA6 program. And, that C-USA6 coach turned down the SMU job.
The C-USA6 are not the source of SMU's problems. The Ponies problems are completely internal.
I've heard SMU is trying to elevate their athletics in hopes of moving to the Big12. I'm not convinced Lanier is going to help SMU achieve that goal.
Every school in the conference is different, and it's hard to compare them, but there seem to be some possible similarities between this hire and Temple's hire of a MAC Coach to take over their football program, which whey came to regret soon afterward.
The first similarity is of the "uncanny" type. Just like SMU began by offering the job to UNT's HC who turned it down, Temple began in Dec., 2018 by offering their FB HC job to Manny Diaz, who turned it down.
The second similarity is that just like SMU's AD responded almost immediately by offering the job to GA State's HC (who promptly said yes), Temple's AD similarly responded almost immediately by offering their FB HC job, to former NIU HC "R.C." (who promptly said yes). In both cases, there really wasn't enough time for the AD's to do the kind of in-depth research known as "due diligence" that is usually expected to be done before making an important hire.
The third similarity is that, in both cases, the candidate who agreed to take the job turned out to have such a weak resume that it would have been possible to fully analyze and confirm the gaps in the candidate's resume after only doing 1-2 hours of due diligence. The gaps in the candidates' resumes were so obvious that even an initial glance at the candidates' coaching record, alone, would have been enough to set off some alarm bells.
Whether or not there are any other similarities between the two events may remain to be determined. In Temple's case there were suggestions or hints that the Athletic Director had either partially bungled the hiring process or might have "farmed it out" to subordinates who had bungled it, and had failed to catch their errors. In a seemingly unrelated development, In Temple's case, the AD took a position at another university less than 6 months after the hiring fiasco was completed, and there had been suggestions around the time that Diaz was offered the job that the AD had already begun looking into seeking a position at another university at around the time that he led the search for a replacement for Temple's departing HC, Matt Rhule. Some have suggested that the job search may have made it more difficult for him to do the kind of due diligence that is ordinarilly expected when hiring a new FB Head Coach. Regardless, the move by Temple's AD was understood to have been "a move up," and not to have been made under duress.
That may be where the "apparent parallels" end.
NOTE: There has, fortunately, been a complete change of Temple's leadership at both the Presidential and AD levels since the 2018-19 FB HC hiring fiasco. Temple's new President has been widely acclaimed and has made a very positive impression to date. He appears to have the kinds of qualities that one often associates with an outstanding university president, and in addition, he's a former Stanford athlete with a keen interest in Temple's athletic programs. Temple's new AD arrived on campus in November, replacing an interim Director, and one of his first duties was to oversee the replacement of Temple's former FB HC. He has been praised for the way that he handled the replacement process, and most observers of the football program have given the new HC and his staff positive reviews. So the story has a happy ending, and there is an encouraging amount of optimism about the future trajectory of Temple's FB and BB programs.