Can Smu Football Ever Ne Good Again
By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist
Football game fans know that Fridays and Sundays are a done deal in Dallas during the autumn. High school rules the terminate of the calendar week, and the Cowboys are the only thing that matters at the end of the weekend.
"But there's a gap in the middle," Southern Methodist University linebacker Delano Robinson told me this week. "That'southward what we're trying to fill."
Robinson is a fifth-year senior at SMU, i of the more intriguing college programs in the land, with benefits and difficulties similar few others.
On the plus side, it is situated in the middle of Dallas, where football runs as deep in the blood as anywhere. On the tricky side … information technology is situated in the middle of Dallas … where, you might accept noticed, there is plenty of competition for your football game and entertainment attention.
Nearly four decades removed from when the Pony Limited saw Eric Dickerson and Craig James in full menses, followed past the infamous "death penalization" NCAA sanctions for recruiting violations, SMU is trying to punch its style back to relevance.
"The most disappointing matter near information technology was how long information technology took for the plan to recover," Kansas City Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt, who played soccer for SMU in the 1980s and is a key donor, told me. "We didn't wait information technology would exist decades to bounce back. Information technology is bully to encounter things looking up and with new aspirations. Dallas is a great football town, but Dallas likes a winner. It is important for the school to promote itself."
Hunt believes SMU'due south history and location give it the potential to be a regular top-twenty squad, with the kind of big-city feel you get when USC or UCLA is going through a gold patch.
Given that Dallas doesn't do small, SMU's approach in the lead-up to the new entrada has been unapologetically bold. The school took out a giant billboard in Times Square to get some national buzz and backed that up with a series of similar signs in local communities.
SMU has too recruited luminaries such as Troy Aikman and Mark Cuban for promotional radio spots in the Dallas area, trying to get into the hearts and minds of both fans and potential recruits.
The schoolhouse faces a awe-inspiring boxing for a generous slice of the pie, with the scene dominated by the organized religion of Texas high school football and, yes, those ever-present Cowboys, guaranteed to brand news whether they are thriving or nose-diving. But rather than be swallowed upwards by those collective forces, SMU aims to stand alongside them as part of the overall Texas football feel and has specifically targeted its recruiting policy to tap into the talent-packed local puddle.
"We have to exist fighting to go noticed," head coach Sonny Dykes told me. "At that place is a lot going on in Dallas. People in Dallas can spend their money in a lot of means, and we are fighting to be an pick. To do that, we accept to exist consistently putting a adept product on the field."
The "Built-in and Raised" marketing pattern that tries to become elite players to stay home instead of trekking to flashier programs elsewhere, or welcome them dorsum through the transfer portal, appealed to Robinson, who is hoping to land in the NFL in one case this flavor is done.
"Being able to be shut to my roots was a strong thing," Robinson said. "For the Dallas players, we tin can be the men of the urban center right here. Why become somewhere to endeavour to get that feeling?"
It is a method Dykes, the sometime head motorbus at Cal and Louisiana Tech, regards as a core function of SMU's futurity.
"We figured out how to recruit Dallas," Dykes added. "We needed to be in our own lawn. I tried to take a holistic approach, building relationships with the loftier school coaches. Once they trust me, they will send me their players.
"We hit the Dallas-Fort Worth area hard. Then sometimes we become a 2nd get at information technology with the transfer portal, showing these young men they have an opportunity to come up back home and thrive."
Amid the movers, quarterback Tanner Mordecai hails from Waco and transferred from Oklahoma. Kicker Blake Mazza was starting at Washington State but moved to SMU largely due to family unit considerations. Cornerback Jahari Rogers transferred from Florida following his freshman season.
The current season began with a 56-nine walloping of Abilene Christian but will ultimately be judged on how things fare in the American Able-bodied Briefing, where Cincinnati is the reigning power.
After a 7-three run last season, playing for a conference championship this time would be a dream, albeit the kind of dream Dykes wants to plow into reality.
"Nosotros are doing some good things, playing some good football, and the players are having fun," Dykes said. "What nosotros really want? To be Dallas' higher football team."
Martin Rogers is a columnist for Fob Sports and the author of the Play tricks Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here .
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Source: https://www.foxsports.com/stories/college-football/smu-mustangs-college-football-tanner-mordecai-sonny-dykes-martin-rogers-newsletter
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