Firing Moorhead was a mistake.

[BigDawg0074]

Moorhead didn’t field a team that was good at anything, aside from an inherited defense his first year. MSU never improved a bit through two years. This team can throw the ball even if players fumble and find ways to lose. This team has improved over the last 10 games. Moorhead got blew out in the first quarter against Auburn two years ago. That team was an embarrassment. That team had a QB miss a game because he got knocked out by his own teammate.

 

[STLDawg]

Moorhead year 4 with Schrader would have us in a better position than we are now.

 

[BigDawg0074]

Moorhead year 4 with Schrader would have us in a better position than we are now.

Nothing about his two years makes me believe that to be true. They did not look better at the end of the second season, they were collapsing.

 

[Bill Shankly]

Nothing about his two years makes me believe that to be true. They did not look better at the end of the second season, they were collapsing.

Kind of like now, and our recruiting pool isn't air raid stuff. Firing Joe, whether he was a good fit or not, was disaster. The way we did it with a guy with a winning record basically forced us to overpay for a clown. We are done in football for several years.

 

[Dawgg]

Downvote away, but provide an objective, fact-based counter-argument. In what areas of Moorhead’s weaknesses are we improved?

And don’t give me, “Firing Moorhead was right, hiring Leach was wrong.” If you can’t hire a better coach, we would have been better off giving the guy with a winning record a third year.

I get it. It sucks to watch us lose a game we should have won, but you need some Midol and a nap.

 

[olblue.sixpack]

We should’ve hire Sam Pittman

Or at the very least shouldn’t have made so much fun of Arkansas when they did.

 

[olblue.sixpack]

I’m not sure you know what objective means. “Our locker room culture is better” is not an objective argument.

Neither is ‘we never should have fired Moorhead” but you be you.

 

[goodknight]

Quincy we don’t have players fighting each other. Team discipline off the field was nonexistent. Like it or not his offense wasn’t working. Team always seemed unpreparedness for games.

 

[Drebin]

Downvote away, but provide an objective, fact-based counter-argument. In what areas of Moorhead’s weaknesses are we improved?

And don’t give me, “Firing Moorhead was right, hiring Leach was wrong.” If you can’t hire a better coach, we would have been better off giving the guy with a winning record a third year.

Your post was a mistake.

 

[Drebin]

Kind of like now, and our recruiting pool isn't air raid stuff. Firing Joe, whether he was a good fit or not, was disaster. The way we did it with a guy with a winning record basically forced us to overpay for a clown. We are done in football for several years.

Stupid stuff like this is what's frustrating to read. It's idiotic, really. How are we done in football? We've got a bunch of young guys out there making young guy mistakes. But we're not going into games thinking we aren't going to be competitive, either. We've been better against everyone we've played thus far but couldn't overcome our own mistakes in the last two. Despite all their talent, LSU didn't come in here and push us around. We dominated a team that beat Clemson yesterday.

Is our QB play frustrating? Sure.
Is our recruiting concerning at this point? Sure.
Has our special teams play been bad? Sure.
Is it reasonable to debate whether Leach's system will work in the SEC? Absolutely.

There are also areas of improvement easily seen. This is the best group of WRs we've ever had at State. Our defense is going to keep us in most games. Our OL seems to take a step forward every week. We are scoring points. There's a better culture in place. S&C is better.

It's okay to be negative and gripe about stupid stuff on the field. I do it all the time. But our program is done? We should've kept Moorhead? Our coach is a clown? Some of you people need a break, or you need to find a new hobby.

 

[Quincy A. Wagstaff]

Neither is ‘we never should have fired Moorhead” but you be you.

Regular season record of 5-9 (3-8 ) is objectively worse than 14-10 (7-9).

 

[Ralph Cramden]

Thank God someone posted something reasonable. Very good reply sir. The improvement is obvious if you actually watch. AND we ran the ball AND completed some nice deep balls. Shoulda won but these guys ARE very young. Its frustratingly slow coming but its coming

 

[Quincy A. Wagstaff]

No football facts matter, not that I can name any in favor of JoMo. The key fact is that After the post Egg Bowl press conference, JoMo lost most of the fan base. After the bowl game he had practically nobody on his side. It was bad and getting worse. And prior to that presser I was firmly in the gotta give a third year camp.

So it wasn’t a football decision, it was a political/ hurt feelings decision? That at least explains the lack of on-field benefit.

 

[anonymous.sixpack]

Regular season record of 5-9 (3-8 ) is objectively worse than 14-10 (7-9).

Who inherited a better roster? I’ll hang up and listen.

 

[TrueMaroonGrind]

Regular season record of 5-9 (3-8 ) is objectively worse than 14-10 (7-9).

Look deeper than numbers out of context. You are being silly and blind to what happened under Moorhead.

 

[Cooterpoot]

So it wasn’t a football decision, it was a political/ hurt feelings decision? That at least explains the lack of on-field benefit.

Moorhead lost control of the team. There was no discipline. The offense was horrible but he had a top 10 defense left to him one year. He pissed it away. Players busted for cheating, players beating each other up, his attacking fans, and just sucking are why he's gone. Now, if you want to say Leach sucks too, I won't argue with you. But because of Moorhead, he's here for 4 years barring complete collapse or scandal.

 

[Quincy A. Wagstaff]

Who inherited a better roster? I’ll hang up and listen.

According to 247, our 2018 roster ranked #23 in the country, #10 in the SEC. our 2020 roster ranked #23 in the country, #9 in the SEC.

2018 had more NFL talent, so I’ll say Moorhead inherited more. He also won more games.

The reality the anti-Moorhead fans have to deal with: We eventually have to win more than the guy we fired.

 

[anonymous.sixpack]

According to 247, our 2018 roster ranked #23 in the country, #10 in the SEC. our 2020 roster ranked #23 in the country, #9 in the SEC.

2018 had more NFL talent, so I’ll say Moorhead inherited more. He also won more games.

The reality the anti-Moorhead fans have to deal with: We eventually have to win more than the guy we fired.

If you want to try and make a point by being a cherry-picking stat boy, it’s your free time. I will stick with NFL depth charts and SEC record books. Thanks for playing.

 

[Quincy A. Wagstaff]

If you want to try and make a point by being a cherry-picking stat boy, it’s your free time. I will stick with NFL depth charts and SEC record books. Thanks for playing.

lol

1-I thought you hung up to listen?
2-I said Moorhead inherited more talent.
3-I guess you called me a cherry-picking stat boy because I pointed out Moorhead won more games? You got me: I tend to cherry-pick stats, like the scoreboard at the end of games.

 

[olblue.sixpack]

lol

1-I thought you hung up to listen?
2-I said Moorhead inherited more talent.
3-I guess you called me a cherry-picking stat boy because I pointed out Moorhead won more games? You got me: I tend to cherry-pick stats, like the scoreboard at the end of games.

You have reached a Peaches level of idiocy in this thread. Congratulations.

 

[Smoked Toag]

Quincy, you are disappointing me with this thread. For one, the eye test matters. If you are relying 100% on paper statistics, you will not get the big picture. But since you must:

2018, we were #5 in F+. We lost 5 games. Just an unbelievable underperformance.
2019, we dropped precipitously to #49.
2020, we dropped again to #74.
2021, back up to #43.

It's pretty easy to see that Moorhead was riding this train off a cliff with incredible momentum. Leach stopped it and is dragging it back up the cliff and is on the verge of flat ground again.

Does anybody here really think Moorhead would NOT have gone 1-9 last year? I only give him 1 win because I figure he'd have gotten lucky in one, and Shrader and Co. would have squeaked something out.

The only way I think it may have been better if we had waited to fire Slopface is that maybe we could have gotten a coach better suited for our typical talent, in December of last year. But that's still up in the air, because it seems like Leach has us headed in the right direction, and this whole deal might actually work.

ETA 2 things:

1) Slophead looked like Santa Clause last night.
2) Who are the 4 posters that upvoted this? I thought State fans were fairly unanimous on Moorlosses. I can understand one guy (OP) who starts a thread after a frustrating loss. But there are 5 of y’all out there? Holy hell. I mean when I'm agreeing with blue/anonymous, it's pretty telling. But, it's probably blue doing the upvoting, just to troll.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

Dude, you’ve jumped the shark in C34 fashion. We did very little well under Moorehead, did not progress and it never felt like we even had a chance to compete in most games, much less win. The offense showed practically no signs of life at all. The team was completely out of control. Even our wins felt terrible because of how poorly prepared to play that we were. It was just hard to watch.

 

[BlueRidgeMtns]

Upvote for “no ball ***** losers”.

Out Cold reference?

 

[BulldogBillyCrash]

Not firing Moorhead after the Eggbowl was the real mistake. All of the other coaches were off the board except for Sark, Leach, and Napier after the bowls.

17 peanut oil face Keenum for that cluster.

Actually my sources state it was Keenum’s call to sack JoMo…cigar boys were promised he’d get year 3

 

[BulldogBillyCrash]

Quincy we don’t have players fighting each other. Team discipline off the field was nonexistent. Like it or not his offense wasn’t working. Team always seemed unpreparedness for games.

Still losing games we should win so what does that 17ing matter

 

[Cooterpoot]

Actually my sources state it was Keenum’s call to sack JoMo…cigar boys were promised he’d get year 3

Cohen wanted him gone. Keenum refused until the issues blew up. The total loss of control was obvious to him finally.

 

[WilCoDawg]

I see Nell downvoted you.

 

[Upyurs]

Delete

 

[Upyurs]

Moorhead year 4 with Schrader would have us in a better position than we are now.

This guy is in a roll. Making Lemonis AD now this BS.

 

[Choctaw Dawg]

We should’ve hire Sam Pittman

Hindsight being what it is, how do you think this board/fanbase would have reacted hiring a relative unknown to be head coach?

Also: Do you have confidence that Cohen would throw all of his chips in on a guy like Pittman with no head coaching experience before Arkansas hired him?

It was a massive gamble for Arky hiring him and it is paying off big time right now for them, Cohen would not have taken that gamble because he knew how the fanbase would react.

 

[Choctaw Dawg]

Moorhead’s big problem: Inexperienced leadership. He was in over his head and it affected him in public with his postgame interviews, which is too bad because he was universally seen as a good hire on paper.

Leach improves upon Moorhead with his experience as a head coach at multiple P5 schools and his seeming even-keeled approach to things.

One big problem with Leach as head coach is that it takes time for repetitions to work for the offense to get going and this was compounded with the pandemic taking away spring installation of the offense last year, we’re essentially in the second half of the first season— partly why I was thinking 6-6– 7-5 at most this season.

Right now though, we’re looking at 5-7– maybe 6-6 if things work out. I tend to be pessimistic so I don’t expect the sixth win.

Yep, Nick Fitzgerald was asked in a podcast about the difference between Moorhead and Mullen. It said a lot to me when Nick stated the same players that were never late to Mullens team meetings were always late to Moorheads or just didn't show up in general.

 

[TrapGame.sixpack]

We should’ve hire Sam Pittman

Sam Pittman hired Barry Odom and Kendall Briles. Sam Pittman is letting his coordinators do their jobs. If anything he's proving he's a good CEO.

 

[TrapGame.sixpack]

Cohen wanted him gone. Keenum refused until the issues blew up. The total loss of control was obvious to him finally.

Cohen had a former player look into practice for him. He came back appalled at Joe's coaching and how he handled practice. Cohen started going to ALL practices from that point.

Our defensive coordinator couldn't believe the lack of physicality we had. He started Toughness Tuesdays to try and get some of it back. Moorhead didn't see a problem.

Cohen wanted him gone. After Tennessee is was a "done deal". Then we beat ole miss and the cigar boys thought that was enough to keep him one more year.

The bowl game was supposed to be all business. Moorhead assured Cohen. It was a clusterfruk from practices onward. At that point the cigar boys were over their Egg Bowl Orgasm. He was gone.

 

[engie]

I bet there is a whole lot of carryover in this thread to guys that wanted to fire Lemonis after mailing in Hoover.

I guess that’s the difference between just being occasionally wrong compared to an actual dubmass who is consistently wrong in the exact same thing way

 

[engie]

Sam Pittman hired Barry Odom and Kendall Briles. Sam Pittman is letting his coordinators do their jobs. If anything he's proving he's a good CEO.

Which very well could be an Ogre effect. We will see how good he is when those two guys move on or back to decent head gigs, probably after this season

 

[thatsbaseball]

At this point I had some inside info. I didn't know about the practices etc but it was clear as day that neither Cohen or Keenum was in complete control and it deteriorated into an unbelievable CF . I've posted before and I stand by it, it's been a long time since the "cigar boys" have had the influence over over the athletic administration that they have now IMO. This is why Cohen's job security is in no way dependent on his performance.