Eric Dickerson on the situation at SMU

[Fred Dowler]

"I talked to four former players yesterday, and we all said if they don't want to do anything, just kill the program," Dickerson told 105.3 KRLD-FM in Dallas on Tuesday. "Just stick to academics and basketball and kill that program.

"It's a tough question," Dickerson said Tuesday about the Mustangs' future. "The main thing is getting the help there, and I think June has been frustrated the last couple of years with not getting the help that he needed from upper management in the university."

http://espn.go.com/dallas/college-footb ... ll-program

[tpstulane]

There you go. Private non P5 schools are at a crossroads.

[jonathanjoseph]

There you go. Private non P5 schools are at a crossroads.

Uh, no. Schools that do not commit to a successful program are at a crossroads. Private non-P5s who do end up as P5s. See TCU.

Please stop excusing our university's leadership decisions. We have to acknowledge mistakes if we are to correct or reverse them.

[jonathanjoseph]

If SMU needs an example to model itself after, Dickerson suggests looking across town at TCU, which has grown into a top program playing for a Power 5 conference.

"I look at TCU, and TCU is a great school. I look at TCU and SMU. ... TCU has got it," Dickerson told the radio station. "They have fans coming to the games and made the total 360, and we're just still sitting on our hands like we don't get it.

"We're still sitting there talking about the death penalty that happened 30 years ago. It's time to get over that."

It's the exact same thing. We're still crying about leaving the SEC instead of doing something about it. And we clearly don't "get it".

[tpstulane]

There you go. Private non P5 schools are at a crossroads.

Uh, no. Schools that do not commit to a successful program are at a crossroads. Private non-P5s who do end up as P5s. See TCU.

Please stop excusing our university's leadership decisions. We have to acknowledge mistakes if we are to correct or reverse them.

I think that boat (P5) has sailed and TCU made it out safely. The rest of the privates don't generate enough interest these days. Tulane can't even get a front page story in the TP anymore. If CJ can't turn this around we are going to be facing the same fate as SMU in a year or so. I wish I felt otherwise but after following Tulane for 45 years I don't see anything more changing than what we now have. It's been that same culture for decades now. They want to be "in" but only "in" and there is no commitment as to want to win national championships (that's why Bowden left) He wanted a chance to win a national championship and he said it could not be done at Tulane..

[jonathanjoseph]

There you go. Private non P5 schools are at a crossroads.

Uh, no. Schools that do not commit to a successful program are at a crossroads. Private non-P5s who do end up as P5s. See TCU.

Please stop excusing our university's leadership decisions. We have to acknowledge mistakes if we are to correct or reverse them.

I think that boat (P5) has sailed and TCU made it out safely. The rest of the privates don't generate enough interest these days. Tulane can't even get a front page story in the TP anymore. If CJ can't turn this around we are going to be facing the same fate as SMU in a year or so.

Ok then. So are you also in favor of shutting it down? Because if it's shut it down or continue to be a laughing stock, we've got a tough decision to make.

Meanwhile, "we" just dropped $100M on facilities that will be white elephants if we shut it down. So did we just spend $100M to remain a laughing stock?

I realize those are circular questions, but why is it that no one has asked them before spending $100M?

[jonathanjoseph]

I don't agree at all that the window is closed. In fact, I think the window will get bigger. Follow the money.

ESPN just gave a TV contract to a football league that doesn't exist yet. SMU and Tulane don't suffer from being private schools. They suffer from not putting out a product that people want to watch.

[tpstulane]

There you go. Private non P5 schools are at a crossroads.

Uh, no. Schools that do not commit to a successful program are at a crossroads. Private non-P5s who do end up as P5s. See TCU.

Please stop excusing our university's leadership decisions. We have to acknowledge mistakes if we are to correct or reverse them.

I think that boat (P5) has sailed and TCU made it out safely. The rest of the privates don't generate enough interest these days. Tulane can't even get a front page story in the TP anymore. If CJ can't turn this around we are going to be facing the same fate as SMU in a year or so.

Ok then. So are you also in favor of shutting it down? Because if it's shut it down or continue to be a laughing stock, we've got a tough decision to make.

Meanwhile, "we" just dropped $100M on facilities that will be white elephants if we shut it down. So did we just spend $100M to remain a laughing stock?

I realize those are circular questions, but why is it that no one has asked them before spending $100M?

I'm not excusing anyone just stating history. No I don't want it shutdown, but the realist in me says that we may get lucky once every 10 years or so and have some success (1998, 2002, 2013) but beyond that I can't see it happening on a regular basis. Our only hope is to hire a pro-active athletic president. Fitts is not going to push or hold back athletics. It will "exist" under his watch. He's got better fish to fry with the fall in academics and fund raising.
Unless CJ can do it, we'll soon be back at square one trying to hire a new coach. Doing the same thing once again. The ones we want won't be interested because they are not interested in losing.
It's a circle of failure that never seems to end. That's why I'm am pulling for CJ and I'm not ready to run him off this soon. Why do people think changing coaches will have any different results? This scenario has played out time and time again at Tulane.

[jonathanjoseph]

I'm not excusing anyone just stating history. No I don't want it shutdown, but the realist in me says that we may get lucky once every 10 years or so and have some success (1998, 2002, 2013) but beyond that I can't see it happening on a regular basis. Our only hope is to hire a pro-active athletic president. Fitts is not going to push or hold back athletics. It will "exist" under his watch. He's got better fish to fry with the fall in academics and fund raising.
Unless CJ can do it, we'll soon be back at square one trying to hire a new coach. Doing the same thing once again. The ones we want won't be interested because they are not interested in losing.
It's a circle of failure that never seems to end. That's why I'm am pulling for CJ and I'm not ready to run him off this soon. Why do people think changing coaches will have any different results? This scenario has played out time and time again at Tulane.

I agree with what you are saying but trying to push for the logical conclusion. Hoping for luck once every decade is not a strategy for success. And athletics "existing" is a furthering of the Cowen strategy which has badly failed. There is a reason that other universities are investing 9-figures into their athletic programs and it absolutely has to do with academics and fundraising.

At some point, someone at Tulane needs to be held accountable. That goes to the Board, the President and certainly Rick Dickson. The strategy to just "exist" does not work, and I seriously doubt that Yulman, Benson and Hertz invested that money to just "exist".

A strategy for success and accountability are not some unattainable goal. They are baseline expectations for successful organizations. At what point are the alumni and stakeholders, which includes everyone who lives in NOLA, going to stop allowing this cancerous, disastrous situation to continue "existing". This isn't a charity, these folks are collecting large paychecks. There are legitimate legal issues involved with allowing this to continue.

Again, the alternative is that Tulane University will cease to exist.

[jonathanjoseph]

DirecTV and the NFL just renewed their contract at a 50% increase in annual price. The value of football is skyrocketing. Is Tulane investing in their product?

[wavefan03]

Tulane has a low alumni giving rate which is why I think Cowen has done a 180 and started to invest in on campus athletic facilities.

The only thing I could find on SMU was a post from 2005 http://smufootballblog.blogspot.com/200 ... iving.html stating SMU is at 14% alumni giving rate. I don't have access to the US News data but from memory I thought I read somewhere TU was below 10%.

[tpstulane]

Tulane has a low alumni giving rate which is why I think Cowen has done a 180 and started to invest in on campus athletic facilities.

The only thing I could find on SMU was a post from 2005 http://smufootballblog.blogspot.com/200 ... iving.html stating SMU is at 14% alumni giving rate. I don't have access to the US News data but from memory I thought I read somewhere TU was below 10%.

That's because Tulane has failed to invest in athletics which today is the face of many institutions. Alabama is killing it with % of alums giving. That's directly related to their success on the football field.

[Fred Dowler]

I'm not excusing anyone just stating history. No I don't want it shutdown, but the realist in me says that we may get lucky once every 10 years or so and have some success (1998, 2002, 2013) but beyond that I can't see it happening on a regular basis. Our only hope is to hire a pro-active athletic president. Fitts is not going to push or hold back athletics. It will "exist" under his watch. He's got better fish to fry with the fall in academics and fund raising.
Unless CJ can do it, we'll soon be back at square one trying to hire a new coach. Doing the same thing once again. The ones we want won't be interested because they are not interested in losing.
It's a circle of failure that never seems to end. That's why I'm am pulling for CJ and I'm not ready to run him off this soon. Why do people think changing coaches will have any different results? This scenario has played out time and time again at Tulane.

I agree with what you are saying but trying to push for the logical conclusion. Hoping for luck once every decade is not a strategy for success. And athletics "existing" is a furthering of the Cowen strategy which has badly failed. There is a reason that other universities are investing 9-figures into their athletic programs and it absolutely has to do with academics and fundraising.

At some point, someone at Tulane needs to be held accountable. That goes to the Board, the President and certainly Rick Dickson. The strategy to just "exist" does not work, and I seriously doubt that Yulman, Benson and Hertz invested that money to just "exist".

A strategy for success and accountability are not some unattainable goal. They are baseline expectations for successful organizations. At what point are the alumni and stakeholders, which includes everyone who lives in NOLA, going to stop allowing this cancerous, disastrous situation to continue "existing". This isn't a charity, these folks are collecting large paychecks. There are legitimate legal issues involved with allowing this to continue.

Again, the alternative is that Tulane University will cease to exist.

The situation sounds pretty rough at SMU -- and it would seem that this story is fairly ominous for the TU following, given the overall eperience and situation being pretty similar between the two institutions except for a few wrinkles. Both insitutions of course private and in urban areas in the south and in heavy-duty college football country but where the flagship state university's program(s) cast a large shadow. TU had a brief period of football success during the late 1970s-early 1980s while SMU's program hit its peak in that time and was strong nationally. TU, right after the mid 1980s scandals, voluntarily imposed "following our own model" on itself while SMU eventually received the death penalty. Apparently there are lingering doubts about administration support of the program at SMU just as at TU.

It's been my impression SMU had ratcheted up their level of commitment a while back though maybe that's not quite the case.

They had built their own new-but-smaller stadium more than a decade ago but seem to have had attendance issues when their opponent hasn't been TCU. I think that there's something there for TU to take note, i.e. the novelty of a new venue can go away quickly when you aren't tearing things up on the field.

What Eric Dickerson is saying sounds somewhat like what Dave Dixon was saying back in 2003 about TU's situation and somewhat what I believe in in that you either have to commit all the way, fix the issues with the program thoroughly from top to bottom or else just forget about it.

[jonathanjoseph]

Tulane has a low alumni giving rate which is why I think Cowen has done a 180 and started to invest in on campus athletic facilities.

The only thing I could find on SMU was a post from 2005 http://smufootballblog.blogspot.com/200 ... iving.html stating SMU is at 14% alumni giving rate. I don't have access to the US News data but from memory I thought I read somewhere TU was below 10%.

That's because Tulane has failed to invest in athletics which today is the face of many institutions. Alabama is killing it with % of alums giving. That's directly related to their success on the football field.

As this becomes more and more and more clear with the data as proof, Tulane's ongoing strategy to employ the exact opposite strategy looks less like an acceptable opinion and more like willful negligence. Why is no one saying anything?

[wavefan03]

I just googled it June Jones was pulling in 2.1 million annually. I remember reading on here the basketball coach has a high salary and the football stadium is fairly new (like last decade). What else does Dickerson want?

Looking at Jones' record he had them above 500 most seasons and the first bowl games in quite a while. I think Dickerson has unrealistic expectations and his talk does more negative for the school as it tries to find a coaching replacement.

[Fred Dowler]

I just googled it June Jones was pulling in 2.1 million annually. I remember reading on here the basketball coach has a high salary and the football stadium is fairly new (like last decade). What else does Dickerson want?

Looking at Jones' record he had them above 500 most seasons and the first bowl games in quite a while. I think Dickerson has unrealistic expectations and his talk does more negative for the school as it tries to find a coaching replacement.

What is SMU not doing and should be doing? It could be many things. Assistant coach salaries, recruiting budgets, practice facilities, academics issues. I had had the impression that when SMU had first re-instituted their football program that they were following a similar model as TU and of course getting similar poor results, and then later on had made some changes out of frustration. I would not say that there was anything particularly unrealistic in what Dickerson said. He did say something along the lines of that if SMU wasn't up to making a complete fix, as he sees as being necessary, of the situation then they should just concentrate on basketball, thus he did seem to recognizing the possibility that getting the football program to be competitive at a high level just may not be within the realm of possibility. What is definitely an unrealistic expectation to me is the notion that you can be competitive at a high level in football without an all-out all-aspects commitment to it.

[tpstulane]

I just googled it June Jones was pulling in 2.1 million annually. I remember reading on here the basketball coach has a high salary and the football stadium is fairly new (like last decade). What else does Dickerson want?

Looking at Jones' record he had them above 500 most seasons and the first bowl games in quite a while. I think Dickerson has unrealistic expectations and his talk does more negative for the school as it tries to find a coaching replacement.

What is SMU not doing and should be doing? It could be many things. Assistant coach salaries, recruiting budgets, practice facilities, academics issues. I had had the impression that when SMU had first re-instituted their football program that they were following a similar model as TU and of course getting similar poor results, and then later on had made some changes out of frustration. I would not say that there was anything particularly unrealistic in what Dickerson said. He did say something along the lines of that if SMU wasn't up to making a complete fix, as he sees as being necessary, of the situation then they should just concentrate on basketball, thus he did seem to recognizing the possibility that getting the football program to be competitive at a high level just may not be within the realm of possibility. What is definitely an unrealistic expectation to me is the notion that you can be competitive at a high level in football without an all-out all-aspects commitment to it.

The level of competition for recruits in Texas is much more difficult than it is in Louisiana. There are many D1 schools that SMU has to recruit against.

[Fred Dowler]

I just googled it June Jones was pulling in 2.1 million annually. I remember reading on here the basketball coach has a high salary and the football stadium is fairly new (like last decade). What else does Dickerson want?

Looking at Jones' record he had them above 500 most seasons and the first bowl games in quite a while. I think Dickerson has unrealistic expectations and his talk does more negative for the school as it tries to find a coaching replacement.

What is SMU not doing and should be doing? It could be many things. Assistant coach salaries, recruiting budgets, practice facilities, academics issues. I had had the impression that when SMU had first re-instituted their football program that they were following a similar model as TU and of course getting similar poor results, and then later on had made some changes out of frustration. I would not say that there was anything particularly unrealistic in what Dickerson said. He did say something along the lines of that if SMU wasn't up to making a complete fix, as he sees as being necessary, of the situation then they should just concentrate on basketball, thus he did seem to recognizing the possibility that getting the football program to be competitive at a high level just may not be within the realm of possibility. What is definitely an unrealistic expectation to me is the notion that you can be competitive at a high level in football without an all-out all-aspects commitment to it.

The level of competition for recruits in Texas is much more difficult than it is in Louisiana. There are many D1 schools that SMU has to recruit against.

Texas also has the second highest population of any state and traditionally very vibrant high school football. If Texas is not the leading destination, among all of the states, of college football program recruiters then it's easily second or third. Plus, at one time of course SMU was bringing in the top recruits. To me, they got singled out and punished and it's very easy to casually label what they once were as a sort of outlaw program and then quietly sweep a lot of other stuff under the rug that very many of the major programs still carry on with today and with near-impunity. But...to me that's just how it is with college football. If you want to run with the pack of the major programs then you'd best be well prepared to do as they do and don't complain about anything or try to be goody two shoes.

[tpstulane]

Fred you made my point everyone recruits Texas.

[Fred Dowler]

Fred you made my point everyone recruits Texas.

And they do and have long been doing it because Texas is where the population is and the thriving high school football scene is. And at one time SMU was right there running hard, knocking heads and so on with the competition as much as anyone and doing so effectively and getting results on the field. Is, say, Arkansas, in a better position than any of the Texas programs because they're in the less-populated state? I sure wouldn't say so. What I'm getting at is that I suspect that there's some validity to the thought that SMU, aside from that they were willing and able to throw some big money out there and bring June Jones in, is operating with a similar model to the one that TU follows. Maybe that's actually not the case, however I suspect that to a certain degree it is, as in that the current school leadership at SMU is not one who's a wholehearted believer in competing to win in high level college sports.

[tpstulane]

They only got good when they decided to cheat.

[golfnut69]

Fred you made my point everyone recruits Texas.

just look at the rosters of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.... I think the state of Texas should just "annex" Oklahoma @ the rate they recruit

[Fred Dowler]

Fred you made my point everyone recruits Texas.

just look at the rosters of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.... I think the state of Texas should just "annex" Oklahoma @ the rate they recruit

Yes. And they're not suffering on account of all of the competition for recruits from different programs recruiting in Texas. And then TCU now seems to be back on the map.