Matt Wyatt on the air raid

[Drebin]

This has been consistently my take from the beginning as well. I do think that what Mullen was doing could have produced over .500 if he wasn’t looking for new jobs every year, especially the year after he left, but I’m on board with trying this and not half assing it. I’ll take five years of it and see what happens. 8-4 running teams for the rest of my life just doesn’t sound interesting

I think your take is correct and it's also why a lot of people didn't like the Leach hire. You can't hire a guy like Leach and then only give him two or three years. So, if it eventually works, that's great. But if it doesn't, we are stuck.

I'm with you though....the hire was made so we're pot committed at this point. Leach isn't going anywhere for a while.

 

[Smoked Toag]

I’ll like Leach a lot better if he wins like Jackie & Mullen did.

John Cohen led us to a national runner-up finish and you still cracked on him constantly. I'm not holding my breath waiting for you to finally admit that Leach is a good coach either.

 

[Smoked Toag]

Matt was pretty misleading about our history. Yes, Jackie was only a .500 coach here, but it took an 8-27 collapse the last 3 years to get down to .500. His first 10 years, he was 67-48-2 (40-38-1 SEC). And Mullen wasn't "a few games over .500", he was 69-46 (33-39 in the toughest division in college football history). Both those coaches prove you CAN be better than a .500 team for a sustained period of time at Mississippi State. I'm tired of people lowering the bar for Mike Leach.

Those years count brotha, and they show the ugly side of things when you go all-in in certain areas and leave other areas exposed.

 

[Smoked Toag]

He's right. It can work. But, you have to have the right players. He may not get the right players. If Rogers can't play who do we have to step up. So the scheme can work, but we may not get players to make it work. Mullen won with Relf. Jackie couldn't get a good QB yet we won some games (I'm ignoring his last years). Mullen's offense was awesome with Fitz, someone no other SEC team wanted and someone who made us cringe when he threw downfield. Dude could run, though, and was one of my favorite State players to watch. How many QB's with Dak's talent have we gotten over the years? Leach needs a talented QB who can throw and avoid throwing interceptions. We'll see.

You're right and wrong.

Leach does need a certain type of QB, but they don't have to be some world beater. I mean he's doing alright with Rogers, and has used walk-ons/transfers before. The offense is pretty plug and play once it gets rolling and your rotating in upperclassmen. We just have to get out of this couple year funk where we have a bunch of freshmen and sophomores.

 

[Smoked Toag]

My biggest problem with Leach right now is that it has gotten apparent that we've spent very little to no time getting an adequate (note I said just adequate) backup QB ready. I got the fact that it takes a tremendous amount of repetition to run this offense correctly but.....

Brought in KJ Costello
Brought in like 4 QB transfers last year (Abraham, Lovertich, Vandy guy and seems like there was another)

Sure we've had bad luck but I'd say that qualifies as trying.

 

[Smoked Toag]

I have no idea why so many here can't see this, and instead label it lil ole moo mentality or whatever. Oh well, the good news is, Keenum and Cohen are committed to Leach for the long haul, and Leach especially does not care what they think. I personally have some doubts but so far the results have been encouraging and I agree with Wyatt that this is worth pursuing for 4-5 (or even 10 if it works, whenever Leach retires) years. It's a passing scheme that doesn't seem to wear our own defense out, and looks to be plug and play. I also think Leach will evolve over time in the running game, especially with the QB.

It's worth a try, and if we flame out, then let's get back to a run-based spread with a running QB.

 

[Ralph Cramden]

I agree its definitely worth giving it a fair chance. Its way too early to be wanting to give up on it. If its garbage in year 4 it might be time to consider a change but for me I am counting this as year one. Of course I wanted to do better this year but honestly I can handle a couple more years before I will be too discouraged. I have been watching State have losing seasons for a lot of years and if we don't win but one more this year I can accept it.

 

[patdog]

John Cohen also led us to last in the SEC a couple of years after that. But you've never, ever seen me say he didn't do a great job in 2013 or that he didn't rebuild the disaster he inherited from Polk to set the foundation for our future success in baseball.

 

[thatsbaseball]

I think our fanbase has PTCD (post traumatic coaching disorder) from the Croom and Moorhead disasters. Coach Leach is a whole different breed of cat than those two and we'd be foolish not to give him more time.

edited to ad: by posting this I do not relinquish my right to ***** and complain along the way when we 17 up

 

[Smoked Toag]

I agree its definitely worth giving it a fair chance. Its way too early to be wanting to give up on it. If its garbage in year 4 it might be time to consider a change but for me I am counting this as year one. Of course I wanted to do better this year but honestly I can handle a couple more years before I will be too discouraged. I have been watching State have losing seasons for a lot of years and if we don't win but one more this year I can accept it.

Yeah and the big argument against it was that the big talent MS produces is big dumb OL and big fast running backs, and not a lot of smart QBs and WRs. Over our history, some have been able to bottle that, some haven't, most haven't. Well, it appears to me that Leach's offense doesn't really need big talent, he can use mediocre talent, and if some big talent comes along, that's great too, they can be inserted.

That leaves us to put our 'big' talent on defense, which is TRULY where MS shines in producing talent. We always have plenty of DL/LB hybrid athletes and fast DBs.

 

[Smoked Toag]

I think our fanbase has PTCD (post traumatic coaching disorder) from the Croom and Moorhead disasters. Coach Leach is a whole different breed of cat than those two and we'd be foolish not to give him more time.

edited to ad: by posting this I do not relinquish my right to ***** and complain along the way when we 17 up

I know what you mean, and I don't see how anyone can look at this team and see anything that resembles anything that generated from the Crxxms and Slophead Errors. But we do have some dumbasses trumpeting that, I'm guessing they are the late 20s/early 30s crowd who think they know everything.

And further, Crxxms and Slophead weren't really similar. Crxxms just didn't play to his strengths, and Slophead just had no concept of discipline. Neither of them are as bad, as far as skill, as they seemed. Crxxms was just misguided and Slophead was a *****.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

To be fair, he was responding to a caller/texter on the call in show. He's also probably heard about all the chicken little he can stand at this point as well. That's my guess.

 

[047Dog]

Jackie's offensive coordinator from 1993 to 1995 was a fella named Bruce Arians. I think he's had some success since then and some even call him the QB whisperer for some reason.

Bruce Arians wasn’t the current Bruce back then. Obviously he forgot to whisper to Derrick Taite and Todd Jordan. Taite had a decent statistical season for a terrible 95 team and then he was booed off the field the next year.

 

[Smoked Toag]

Jackie's offensive coordinator from 1993 to 1995 was a fella named Bruce Arians. I think he's had some success since then and some even call him the QB whisperer for some reason.

Yeah 047Dog is a dubmass. Todd Jordan, Derrick Taite, Rob Morgan, Kevin Fant, Omarr Conner were ALL highly rated QBs from Mississippi alone. Problem is we were trying to do things that weren't advantageous to our talent. All those guys until Conner were drop-back passers and our OL was never consistent enough to protect them. 1991 and 1992 were good with Sleepy, we bottled something in 1994 with Taite (with Moulds, Bouie and Davis), didn't do much again until we had Madkin running a little bit later on, but even those teams needed miracles. Then along comes Conner, the PERFECT MSU QB, and Crxxms dumb effing *** tries to make him a drop-back passer. IDIOT.

Then under Mullen, Russell does ok but still gets beat up due to our OL cycle, and not until another mobile guy comes along do we truly flourish. And being an NFL caliber guy helps too. And oh look, then Fitzgerald, another mobile guy, rewrites our rushing record books.

Do we see a trend here? John Bond???

We will see on the Air Raid, but if it doesn't work, can we please stop trying to do what other teams do like we did in the 90s, and go back to a dual threat QB.

 

[Ralph Cramden]

Someone commented that if Jackie had got a decent QB he would have won a championship. Don't forget he had Marino at Pitt so he knows about good QBs. Im sure he tried to get some QB talent here

 

[She Mate Me]

Bruce Arians wasn’t the current Bruce back then. Obviously he forgot to whisper to Derrick Taite and Todd Jordan. Taite had a decent statistical season for a terrible 95 team and then he was booed off the field the next year.

Arians literally pulled a punter named Dave Marler off the practice sidelines at Mississippi State in 1978 because Bob Tyler's son said he could throw it. By the end of the season Marler was 1st team All SEC and had a pro career in Canada.

Arians has always been able to coach, he just hasn't always had the right situation or personnel, like every coach in history.

Some of your takes are off the cuff BS with no research.

 

[FQDawg]

Matt Wyatt is high off the smell of his own farts. I'm surprised he even had time to do a video about Mississippi State football since he spends so much time making videos pimping other SEC schools.

 

[PirateDawg]

Matt Wyatt is high off the smell of his own farts. I'm surprised he even had time to do a video about Mississippi State football since he spends so much time making videos pimping other SEC schools.

Yes, how dare he try to make a living. Who does he think he is????? Some posts on here defy logic and this is definitely one of them.

 

[DoggieDaddy13]

Wyatt is really good at what he does. I think he's one of the best. He's also a huge homer.

It is true that most all of us Leach complainers, don't get why MSU went all in on an gimmick offense that will probably take time (FIVE YEARS!) to build. But that is where we are at: year two of a FIVE YEAR!! experiment.

So Wyatt and the team in the MSU media will be constantly crafting the response for the FIVE YEARS!!! worth of complaining we'll all be hearing and reading during the Leach experiment.

I tend to think it will work out fine, at least Mullen-level fine and, hopefully, better. But it will probably take FIVE 17n YEARS!!!!

 

[wsjmsu75]

Bingo. Good pass blocking o line and a true air raid q b that can make all the throws. Sawyer and Locke both have the pedigree.

Texas hs football is where Leachs influence is greatest, they run the air raid and produce the qartetbacks.

Haven't heard of Locke. Is he another qb recruit/commit?

 

[AtlantaDawg]

Thoughts?

https://youtu.be/mwidwMc50nw

I agree with Matt. Leach has had 1 weird season with COVID rules, only one spring practice between season 1 and season 2, and half of this season. He has had great success recruiting skill-players (Stanford grad QB that did not pan out, but it was a great get on paper; and some very skilled receivers). He had a PR setback on what I consider a ******** incident (tweeting a picture of a little old lady knitting a noose for her husband, which has been shared countlessly before without incident). Leach has also had to deal with discipline issues that caused him to cut his scholarship players to the bone (40+ scholly players at UGA last year), but he has handled them head-on. I like coaches with discipline, it's the only way to run a team.

Overall, I have been impressed with his defenses, the intensity of the players, and have been very entertained by his passing offense. I also find him entertaining as an interviewer, and like the fact that he is not trying to win the popularity show (which in my opinion, Lane Kiffin tries too hard to do).

I remember from the Croom days where our receivers would drop the very few passes we threw when the ball hit them right in the hands.

I say give him 4-5 years and see where this heads. If you push Leach out now, you will not get ANY decent HC to come to Starkville...

My bet, after 5 years from when Leach and Kiffin started, we are going to be glad we hired Leach...

 

[Smoked Toag]

Wyatt is really good at what he does. I think he's one of the best. He's also a huge homer.

It is true that most all of us Leach complainers, don't get why MSU went all in on an gimmick offense that will probably take time (FIVE YEARS!) to build. But that is where we are at: year two of a FIVE YEAR!! experiment.

So Wyatt and the team in the MSU media will be constantly crafting the response for the FIVE YEARS!!! worth of complaining we'll all be hearing and reading during the Leach experiment.

I tend to think it will work out fine, at least Mullen-level fine and, hopefully, better. But it will probably take FIVE 17n YEARS!!!!

5 years is extreme. It's not like we suck at the moment. It might take 5 years to contend for the SEC, but in my mind, once you get to 8-4 territory, you've arrived at MSU. I expect to happen next year and probably could have happened this year with a little luck here or there.

People need to do a little better job of defining things around here. Keeps hot takes to a minimum.

And of course, we all know that Ole Miss is driving the sheep insane. Let's be real.

 

[AtlantaDawg]

Matt was pretty misleading about our history. Yes, Jackie was only a .500 coach here, but it took an 8-27 collapse the last 3 years to get down to .500. His first 10 years, he was 67-48-2 (40-38-1 SEC). And Mullen wasn't "a few games over .500", he was 69-46 (33-39 in the toughest division in college football history). Both those coaches prove you CAN be better than a .500 team for a sustained period of time at Mississippi State. I'm tired of people lowering the bar for Mike Leach.

So if we can cherry-pick the Jackie years, can we throw out year one with Leach? He did not have a spring practice while installing a new pass-oriented read-heavy offense, had a freshman quarterback, only had 40+ scholly players, etc...

I love Sherrill and Mullen, but BOTH were below .500 in the SEC. Jackie was 43-59-1. Nick Sabin wasn't around, either...

 

[FQDawg]

If you push Leach out now, you will not get ANY decent HC to come to Starkville...

People were saying that about Croom. And people were saying that about Moorhead.

* ETA - I'm not saying we should get rid of Leach. Just that the idea that we'd never get a good coach again is nonsensical.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

Croom teams made me wonder if they had ever played any ball at all. The MOST surprised I've ever been at what basic coaching competency can accomplish is year 1 under Mullen. I had absolutely assumed that he would have to rip and replace our whole roster because they looked so bad under Croom.

 

[$altyDawg]

FIFY

John Cohen Hunter Renfroe, Jonnathan Holder, Chad Girodo, Kenda Graveman (and others) led us to a national runner-up finish

 

[horshack.sixpack]

I think that implicit is "proven good head coach". You might end up with a good one, but it's unlikely that someone who is already successful somewhere else as a head coach would accept a job here with that instability unless it meant an order of magnitude pay increase. The amount of money we pay will be attractive to some regardless.

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

View attachment 22560

 

[DoggieDaddy13]

I think that implicit is "proven good head coach". You might end up with a good one, but it's unlikely that someone who is already successful somewhere else as a head coach would accept a job here with that instability unless it meant an order of magnitude pay increase. The amount of money we pay will be attractive to some regardless.

Lets be on honest: Unless the money is REALLY good, nobody who is successful somewhere else is coming to Starkville.

Particularly if that somewhere else has a Target, a top 250 ranking in US News and World Report, and soft pretzels.

 

[AzzurriDawg4]

Mullen won 69 games in 9 years, and would have won 70 if he’d stayed for the bowl game. That’s a lot closer to 8 wins per year than 7.

Devils advocate: Mullen only excelled when he had an NFL MVP candidate at QB and he treated that QB like a battering ram. We couldn't move the ball for **** against any top tier defense his entire tenure.

I fall somewhere in the middle with Leach. Is it the ideal offense? No, I would probably prefer a hybrid air raid such as has been developed by many of his acolytes. Can it still "work" as far as that term means in the context of our football history? I think maybe it can. I am not 100% sold on it, but I am not ready to write it off yet. There are a handful of coaches that I would hire today if the opportunity was there. I don't know if we could get them.

 

[oxfordrebel22]

I know you catch some hell here (you're a Rebel, whaddya expect), but this is about as good of an analysis of who and where State football is as can be found on this site.

I’m perfectly fine with catching hell. To your point, I know where I am. But I do try to be fair, both ways. Me recognizing the positive things about MSU doesn’t somehow make it more or less true. It amazes me how many people (on both sides) take offense to a fan acknowledging the rival has some good things going for it.

Where it becomes difficult is when there are real negatives or obvious concerns to point out, if we are going to have a fair discussion. Because so many don’t want an “outsider” to point out anything negative about their program. I get it. But I think there’s value in an outside opinion, if they at least attempt to be fair/unbiased.

Here’s my take on Ole Miss - we are damn lucky to be 6-1, and we have very real injury concerns. We survived 2 last second plays and went 2-0 in those games. That’s lucky. Sometimes teams get lucky though. I am really excited about our defense coming along, now that it’s healthy. I’m extremely concerned about our offensive injuries. Especially as they cluster on an already thin OL and WR group. The odds of us going 11-1 are about 1 in 7 (or 14.4%), based on my predictions. I’d give us about a 40% chance to win @ Auburn. A 60% chance at home against Texas A&M, and about 60% chance @ MSU. And that’s of course assuming that Corral stays healthy, and we don’t get more beat up. So, in reality it’s probably more like 1 in 10. I do feel like we are very well coached and very well Quarterback’d. But we don’t have elite depth, or even good depth. We are absolutely being carried by Matt Corral, right now. Kiffin is trying to tell people how special he is, and he’s coached some pretty good ones. Without him, we are probably 3-4 and not 6-1.

I feel like MSU is the most underrated team in the country. They lost 2 really weird games to Memphis and LSU. They also won a really weird game they trailed by 20 in the 4th quarter. They also have the 2 best wins, by far, of any 4 win team in the country. They have a defense that can make teams one dimensional, and can take the ball away from you in the pass game, even though they’ll give up some yards. Like Ole Miss, they have some depth concerns. They’ve just, so far, avoided injuries there (at CB, particularly). They’re a very weird team. If you told me they beat Kentucky by 21 and then lost by 21 to Auburn, I’d believe you. Or anything in between. Going forward, I think MSU will continue to progress under Leach, and at times be a Top 15 or so program. IF, IF, like I said, they can continue to maintain the same talent level on defense. Leach and Arnett inherited some real talent there. And Arnett is an elite DC. But, there are some recruiting concerns, particularly in the defensive backfield. If they shore that up, and Kiffin stays (big if) I think there are going to be some incredible Egg Bowls in the next 4-5 years.

 

[Ralph Cramden]

I think we got lucky when we got Leach here. And when/if we transition from him it will be easy to go to a different system. We will have recievers, QB and RB. Might just have to add a little beef and go dual threat. More and more systems are heavy on passing. Nobody on this board is gonna have any input in what they do anyway. Bout as well watch and enjoy. Worst case scenario you can say I told ya so.

 

[She Mate Me]

Devils advocate: Mullen only excelled when he had an NFL MVP candidate at QB and he treated that QB like a battering ram. We couldn't move the ball for **** against any top tier defense his entire tenure.

I'm not arguing back at you, but in the interest of not being unfair to Mullen, we had solid Top 25 caliber teams in 2010 with Relf at QB and in 2017 with Fitz. And he left the cupboard full of talent to carry Moorhead to a strong 2018. He was a very good coach in the context of MSU history.

 

[anon1756333655]

Thoughts?

https://youtu.be/mwidwMc50nw

I’ve watched too many of Matt’s videos to disagree with anything he says. He does get a little preachy but dude knows his stuff.

 

[MedDawg]

I'm not arguing back at you, but in the interest of not being unfair to Mullen, we had solid Top 25 caliber teams in 2010 with Relf at QB and in 2017 with Fitz. And he left the cupboard full of talent to carry Moorhead to a strong 2018. He was a very good coach in the context of MSU history.

Mullen didn't exactly leave the cupboard full for Moorhead. Mullen did leave a stellar defense for 2018, but the stars left after 2018 and the lack of playmakers in 2019 is at least partially on Mullen. Mullen didn't recruit enough depth in key positions in 2015, 2016, and 2017.

Even before Mullen left a lot of posters were saying we were going to have a down 2019 and 2020.

 

[MedDawg]

Well, if you're going to compare, look at AR. They were the worst team in the conference. Look what they did year one under the same circumstances.
Hell, even MO has been better offensively than us under their new coach.

Arkansas finished with the same SEC record and worse overall record than MSU last year and are currently behind us in the SEC.

 

[MedDawg]

Someone commented that if Jackie had got a decent QB he would have won a championship. Don't forget he had Marino at Pitt so he knows about good QBs. Im sure he tried to get some QB talent here

That was either Lee Corso or Herbstreit during the 1999 Egg Bowl broadcast. Something like State was a good QB away from winning the NC.

 

[hogfan14]

Arkansas finished with the same SEC record and worse overall record than MSU last year and are currently behind us in the SEC.

Yeah the bowl game was canceled or could have had the same record. Also had to play Georgia and Florida from the east while teams like Ole Miss got the benefit of playing Vanderbilt and South Carolina, just a brutal SEC schedule.