RIP Larry Smith

Good coach. Wore his heart right out there. Had a little Jim Mora in him. The Rodney Peete squads never quite fulfilled their potential, but they were fun to watch.

 

Smith was a pretty nice guy, but what he said after the Freedom Bowl was exactly the wrong thing for USC fans to hear.
And the then-SID at UofA said that he never told his players he was leaving for USC. They had to find out from the media. He left on somewhat bad terms.

 

Sadly, Google Images failed to come through on the old "Our maids went to Fresno State" T-shirts.

 

Which is hard to imagine, when you consider Stull had two future NFL head coaches (Andy Reid and Marty Mornhinweg) and a future Pac-10 head coach (Dirk Koetter) on his staff during those years. Makes you appreciate even more what Larry Smith was able to do in Columbia.

 

god, talk about hell. from a couple pac-10 schools to missouri. ick.

 

I went into my closet and pulled a tape of said Freedom Bowl. I was happy as hell to watch USC get punked when it happened, but felt sorry for Smith, because he looked like a guy who had no control over what was taking place on the field. It wasn't even a game. Fresno kicked their asses up and down the field.

MileHigh, I love the quote Smith said about SC. Just because you wearing a big-name school on your jersey, doesn't mean shit if you don't play like one.

 

The fifth-down game basically killed what was a decent building job Stull was doing. Took the steam right out of the program. And Smith basically lucked out in having the gutsiest quarterback I have ever seen in Corby Jones. Gave Mizzou several wins they had no business getting. He disguised the fact that Mizzou still wasn't getting good recruits, a situation that in the last couple of years Pinkel has finally reversed.

 

Lucked into Corby? Stull put Corby's dad on the payroll. That's not luck. That's purchasing power.

Also didn't help Smith any that the two QBs who were supposed to follow Corby (Kirk Farmer and Kurt Propst) went down with severe injuries. Oh, and Jimmie Dougherty, who last I checked was coaching at USD and was there when they had that nice run under Harbaugh, or even Darius Outlaw.

 

I remember the tie with all-freshman SMU. Well, maybe I don't, but I was there. The nadir of all nadirs for Stull. Pathetic isn't the word.

A nonconductor of electricity if God ever made one.

 

Whatever. My point still stands. The presence of Corby Jones masked a lot of weakness in Larry Smith's overall program. And you just cited a whole lotta fail between Jones and Brad Smith. Don't forget Sonny Riccio or Brandon Corso, either.

 

Or Tony Sands.