Since arriving on SMU’s campus in November 2014, head coach Chad Morris has seen three National Signing Days come and go. Of the 63 high school prospects that have signed on to become Mustangs as part of SMU’s 2015, 2016 and 2017 classes, every single one hails from Texas, which was a point of pride Morris noted during a press conference at the Texas High School Coaches Convention.
“Every one of our kids that we’ve signed on signing day each of the last three years has been a Texas high school product,” Morris said. “To be able to recruit our state and understand there’s some great ball outside out state, and don’t get me wrong, I’ve recruited all over the country, but our footprint is the state of Texas and we’re going to be really cautious before we cross over. If I can find the same caliber player in our state then that’s the default. We’re going to get that first.“
Of course, Morris and his staff are far from the only major program recruiting the fertile football soil that is Texas, but despite first-year coaches in Tom Herman at Texas, Matt Rhule at Baylor, Major Applewhite at Houston and even Frank Wilson at UTSA, Morris said the recruiting landscape within the state hasn’t changed much this cycle.
The reason for such is largely due to the sheer number of Division I talent within the state.
“I think when you look at the state of Texas in general, you know, 200, 250, 300 DI athletes in this state, the borders are open so much to outside colleges coming into our state of Texas,” Morris said. “We understand we’re the landmark and the landscape of that, so what we’ve got to make sure we do; we’re not going to come in and out-recruit somebody. But we’re going to come in and out-evaluate somebody and so we as a staff have to do a phenomenal job of evaluating talent to see where it fits and maybe where we are in building our program, cause you know, you start dealing with 18-year-old kids and 18-year-old kids buys with his eyes, make no mistake about that.”
What exactly does ‘buys with his eyes’ mean?
Well, as Morris pointed out, recruits want to know what a program can offer in terms of uniforms and things like ping pong tables in the player’s lounge; that’s what earns signatures.
“They may sit it your office with his parents and talk all the education they want to talk, but the moment the parents walk out, he wants to know how many helmets and shoes and gloves and uniforms and tell me where the player’s lounge is how many ping pong tables you got and that’s the life and that’s the world we’re in,” Morris said. “So we’ve got to do a great job of taking that and evaluating the talent across our state and seeing how they fit us at SMU.”
If you look at the numbers, Morris and his staff seem to be doing just fine in their efforts to find talent that fits them at SMU. To date, SMU’s 2018 class consists of 15 pledges and as expected, all 15 hail from the state of Texas.
As Morris said, “If I can find the same caliber player in our state then that’s the default. We’re going to get that first.“
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