Coaching misses

[RutherfordBHayes]

Yesterday I saw on the Twitters a post by @MSUhistory who says in 1986 MSU interviewed UNC assistant, Roy Williams, for basketball coach. He says Williams declined the job after talking to some students who were less than enthusiastic about MSU sports. He went to Kansas 2 years later.

That reminded me that Steve Spurrier has publicly said that he interviewed for and wanted the MSU football job in 1986 and would've taken it, but we went with Felker instead. There is a rumor that Spurrier wanted the job in 2004 as well, but we went with Croom.

It also fairly accepted in MSU circles that Paul Manieri openly lobbied for the MSU job after McMahon left us in 2002, but we went with Polk II instead.

Anywho...

 

[TBone.sixpack]

Jimbo Fisher.

Larry went with Croom.

 

[Bulldogg31]

It’s safe to say leadership has not been our strong suit for the last century or so.

 

[HotMop]

Jimbo Fisher.

Larry went with Croom.

Jimbo wasn't interested from what I recall.

 

[RutherfordBHayes]

Jimbo wasn't interested from what I recall.

Jimbo absolutely was interested.

He had been stuck at OC forever and after putting his name in every opening that came up kept getting passed over. It was looking like nobody was going to hire him as a HC.
After it was apparent that Croom was our guy and the announcement was being organized, Jimbo issued a statement that he had “removed” his name from consideration.

 

[bruiser.sixpack]

It’s safe to say leadership has not been our strong suit for the last century or so.

That about sizes up everything back to Stephen D. Lee doesn’t it?

1st Priority it the University President is a sound Academic program that creates opportunity for qualified students to successfully navigate a path to a meaningful, and useful, education.

2) Hire and maintain a competent Faculty and Staff.

3) Fund-raising

4) Hire a Competent, Qualified and Highly Competitive Athletics Director who has a sound Financial, Managerial, and Supervisory Skill Set Level to that of his/her peers in the Field of Collegiate Athletics.

5) Butt-kissing the Financially well-heeled Alumni and Community Leaders.

Obviously there are more, but at MSU, I think No. 5 far exceeded the other 4 over the last 50 years!!

 

[Willow Grove Dawg]

Jimbo would have taken the job when we hired Croom, but LT had already cut his deal with the NCAA & SEC
I was in school at MSU in 1986 and remember both Spurrier & Roy Williams interviewing. Rumor has always been that Roy Williams was offered the job & that our genius brain-trust offered Rockey instead of Spurrier

 

[Dawgzilla]

I was in school back then, too. We couldn't get anyone to take the basketball job. It was a total dead end, with no money and no support. Williams was the last resort pick; an unheralded Boyd assistant who never played college ball and started his career as a math teacher.

Spurrier wanted the job, but couldn't come to terms with Templeton. I never knew if it was money, or some other demands Spurrier had for the program.

Everyone thinks Spurrier would have been an awesome coach at State, but I wonder. Imagine if we had message boards back then, and Spurrier was losing games trying to install his Fun 'n' Gun offense, with David Fair not getting enough touches...

 

[was21]

Bob Tyler offered the head basketball job to Digger Phelps. For some reason Phelps didn't like some provisions of the standard contract an while he was interested, it all fell apart. I don't who at the time got the job since I don't recall when it was vacant at that time

 

[Mjoelner]

Spurrier and Jimbo. Here are the rumors I've heard associated with both of those.

Spurrier: Wanted to be our coach but also wanted the guarentee that we would hire his son as head coach after he retired. We said 'no' to that part. The fishy part of this is that his son didn't graduate college until '94 so its hard to believe that Spurrier was wanting us to make a promise 8 years in the future. Maybe that part I heard about his son is from 2004. That would make more sense as far as the timeline goes.

Jimbo: Wanted the job. Was actually at a hotel room in Starkville ready to interview when he found out through the grapevine that we were interviewing Croom after we had told him that he was the only game in town. Left without even interviewing. Winson Churchill say "Thanks LT!"

 

[patdog]

I was in school then too, and you're right about our basketball job. That was the year Dick Vitale said on air that MSU was the worst job in all of Division I basketball. We got incredibly lucky with Richard Williams, because he was literally the only person in basketball dumb enough to take the job.

Spurrier would have won at MSU and Fair would have gotten plenty of touches. What people don't realize about those UF fun & gun offenses is they always had a 1,000 yard rusher and they ran the ball as often as they threw it.

 

[dogfan96]

I was in school then too, and you're right about our basketball job. That was the year Dick Vitale said on air that MSU was the worst job in all of Division I basketball. We got incredibly lucky with Richard Williams, because he was literally the only person in basketball dumb enough to take the job.

Spurrier would have won at MSU and Fair would have gotten plenty of touches. What people don't realize about those UF fun & gun offenses is they always had a 1,000 yard rusher and they ran the ball as often as they threw it.

Recruiting to Florida ain't like recruiting to Starkville.. it would've been just like at SCU.. lotta 6,7,8 win years with an occasional 10-11 win year. His average year in Columbia was 7-5 or 8-4

 

[$altyDawg]

our genius brain-trust offered Rockey instead of Spurrier

So how'd that turn out? ***

 

[patdog]

7-5 at MSU in those days would have felt like we were on top of the world. Seriously, that was the dream back then, that maybe possibly somehow we could win more games than we lost. And this was back in the days of a 6-game SEC schedule and 5 cupcake non-conference games.

 

[memphisbulldog]

Jimbo

Yesterday I saw on the Twitters a post by @MSUhistory who says in 1986 MSU interviewed UNC assistant, Roy Williams, for basketball coach. He says Williams declined the job after talking to some students who were less than enthusiastic about MSU sports. He went to Kansas 2 years later.

That reminded me that Steve Spurrier has publicly said that he interviewed for and wanted the MSU football job in 1986 and would've taken it, but we went with Felker instead. There is a rumor that Spurrier wanted the job in 2004 as well, but we went with Croom.

It also fairly accepted in MSU circles that Paul Manieri openly lobbied for the MSU job after McMahon left us in 2002, but we went with Polk II instead.

Anywho...

Here’s the deal. I’d bet my life on all these. Would you bet your life on all the mentioned myths. :

1, Spurrier was not interested in MSU during the Croom hire.
2. Jimbo pulled his name before the Croom hire.
3. Jimbo was interested in our job but Sabin would not let him interview before their bowl game. Too much distraction. We could not wait that long to have a Plan B. We kept interviewing. Rumor came out we were going to offer Croom Not true. Jimbo pulled his name in response to save face. We then had no alternative but to hire a Croom.

All these are 100% facts.

 

[tbaydog]

Bob Tyler offered the head basketball job to Digger Phelps. For some reason Phelps didn't like some provisions of the standard contract an while he was interested, it all fell apart. I don't who at the time got the job since I don't recall when it was vacant at that time

greene or hatfield.....

 

[RocketDawg]

Jimbo would have taken the job when we hired Croom, but LT had already cut his deal with the NCAA & SEC
I was in school at MSU in 1986 and remember both Spurrier & Roy Williams interviewing. Rumor has always been that Roy Williams was offered the job & that our genius brain-trust offered Rockey instead of Spurrier

I'll probably get heavily criticized for this, but it's the truth as I remember it. At the time of the coaching vacancy, the national media were putting intense pressure on the SEC to hire their first black head coach. We had the first vacancy and were seemingly pressured into hiring someone who we thought would be good, but would also fit the pressured criterion. Otherwise, all things being equal, we'd have hired Jimbo. Am I right? All that said, I'm not sure we would have cared for Jimbo given what I think was his sketchy record at FSU. Yes, he won, but I always had the impression he used a lot of OM methods to get who he wanted. As I recalled, Croom was big on discipline and got rid of some of the mal-behaves, but just wasn't a very good head coach.

 

[Dawgzilla]

Spurrier would have won at MSU and Fair would have gotten plenty of touches. What people don't realize about those UF fun & gun offenses is they always had a 1,000 yard rusher and they ran the ball as often as they threw it.

I'm just not sure who Spurrier's QB would have been at State. And for offensive philosophy, you have to look more at what he did at Duke, and that was a lot of passing. Of course, he didn't have a running back like Fair ,either. He also did not emphasize defense at all, which would have been another problem.

He would have been better than Rockey. He also would have recruited the Hell out of Shane Matthews, and then signed him at Florida.

 

[Dawgzilla]

Recruiting to Florida ain't like recruiting to Starkville.. it would've been just like at SCU.. lotta 6,7,8 win years with an occasional 10-11 win year. His average year in Columbia was 7-5 or 8-4

Spurrier wouldn't have been around long enough to have a 10 win season. If he was winning more than losing. He still would have gone to UF in 1990. If he was losing, then hopefully we still would have canned him and hired Jackie.