Moorhead will be fine

[kired]

that so many of us think of Mullen as an offensive guru but his WR stats were that ****** that far into his tenure. it hasn't taken Moorehead anytime at all, nor much success, to improve in that area. i think that's the whole point(that most of you are missing).

wait... what?

I agree WR was the position we always seemed to be lacking at under Mullen. But Moorhead has improved in that area? So you're telling me that even though every team in the SEC (other than Arkansas) has at least one WR with better stats than any of our WRs, we've actually improved in that area?

 

[Ibdancin]

I don't think Moorhead will be "fine" either. I was dissolutioned with Moorhead after I saw him bring an unprepared and undisciplined team to Kentucky last year. That, along with stinging defeats to Kansas State and Tennessee this year, not to mention our non-competitiveness against Auburn, makes me think that Moorhead will never be fine at State.

That's a different, yet valid point. But there are reasons that happen that are due to circumstances beyond anybody's control. I think it's been pointed out that we are playing 3 freshmen DTs. That we had to alternate a DT to OL just to have a back up center. That we have had a steady rotation of guys on the OL due to injuries. We even had to play 2 true freshmen at CB. You remove your Defensive team leaders from the field due to being suspended and ALL of their experience that younger guys draft off. Autry, Gay, Murphy... Those are starters and yes.... Murphy would have taken that spot. So not only did we lose everything from last year in experience and depth, we lost more to suspensions... then 2 for the season due to injuries.

On the other side of that, he has to deal with it. It's his job. So know the issues and knowing the cause, what's the solution. That's the way I look at it.

- Defense is getting better. Even the freshmen are showing huge strides.
- I look at what he appears to be adding to that defense through recruiting and I see potential there to move back into the top 25 over the next 2 years.

- I see an OL that will be more seasoned next year and have the addition of 2 hard core OTs...1 four star and 1 five star.

- I see better talent being recruited at WRs. I want to say he has 5 or 6 four stars either committed or signed since he has been here. That's more than Mullen did in 9 years.

- I see the RBs that he has signed and his relationship with Marks.

 

[Ibdancin]

wait... what?

I agree WR was the position we always seemed to be lacking at under Mullen. But Moorhead has improved in that area? So you're telling me that even though every team in the SEC (other than Arkansas) has at least one WR with better stats than any of our WRs, we've actually improved in that area?

Improvement within our own team is there for everybody to see. Under Mullen's last year, every SEC team had at least 1 better WR in stats. I'm not sure the point.

But yes. with 3 to 4 games left, we are already equal to the whole last season of Mullen and the only differences- QBs, WRs and Moorhead's offense.

 

[Strike.sixpack]

No, a transition period in this case is 3 to 4 years. You don't replace an 85 man roster in a year nor teach an rpo system in a year. Second, you can compare Mullen's last year with Moorhead's first if you want. You need to make sure that there were zero changes in the roster because that 100% matters.

On things that stayed the same:

- Rushing. Was about the same even with the loss of an NFL OLman. Roughly 300 total difference.
- Defense. Was an improvement. And let's not go to anybody could have coached them... no. They couldn't have. We had Sirmon who had our guys ranked 110th, the following year Grantham had them at 10th.

Things that did not stay the same:

- Changes in the WR/TE corp were drastic. Jackson was injured and never came back to his former self, Gray and Thomas were gone. That's the top 3 receivers on the roster from Mullen's last year that Moorhead did not have. In addition to that, out of the 10 WRs on roster, 4 were not available to Moorhead and all of it was beyond his control.

- despite that, Fitz still had the same year passing. 1782 under Mullen, 1767 under Moorhead (who lacked the NFL TE and those listed above). He averaged 1.3 yards less per game, but rushed for 200 more under Moorhead.


That's not bad considering the breaking in of new corp of WRs, losing an NFL OL and TE (and the top receivers on the team)

Roster changes every year for every team. That is an absurd statement that you have to make sure there are zero changes in a roster from year to the next.

We returned our top 5 scorers from 2017 and the only difference was Hill scoring more instead of Thomas. We only lost 17.8% of our scorers from 2017 to 2018. The vast majority were still on the roster. So 4 of the top 5 scorers were the same and all 5 were on both rosters.


As far as yards go, rushing is down from 251.09 per game in 2017 to 223.62 last year and 217 this year. Passing has increased but our total offense per game is still down from 2017. But you have to start splitting out when the yards occur if you want a complete analysis of performance. In 2017 19.5% of our total offense came when we were down 8+ points in games. This year we have gained 34.7% of our total yards once down 8+ points. That is a lot of yards (and points) in garbage time.

The other part of the offense that has to be addressed, and is more important, is scoring. If you contend that you think we have been about the same, 2017 32 points per game, 26.3 vs conference teams. 2018 28.5 all games, 19.3 vs conference teams. A full TD drop in scoring from 2017 to 2018 with a vast majority of our scoring playmakers returning. This year we are back up but again thank goodness for ARK and garbage points because otherwise the numbers are up just a little from last season.

 

[Strike.sixpack]

How awesome was Relf? love that guy!

Heck yeah!! Especially in the EB!!

 

[Strike.sixpack]

Improvement within our own team is there for everybody to see. Under Mullen's last year, every SEC team had at least 1 better WR in stats. I'm not sure the point.

But yes. with 3 to 4 games left, we are already equal to the whole last season of Mullen and the only differences- QBs, WRs and Moorhead's offense.

The only difference? Well Mullen did win 8 games and wouldn’t have scored just 10 points vs Tenn. The eye test and 9 years worth of stats tell us that.

I get what you are trying to saying with passing and receiving but it’s still not good and in the aggregate of total offense it is still below 2017. If we adjust for the differences of blow out yards and points, we are still way behind. We are down 35-10 to TAM right after their opening drive of the 3rd quarter. Those yards and points are statistically irrelevant. They went conservative and 2 deep zone for the rest of the game. Glad we got the work in for Shrader but those are meaningless yards and points. Same against Auburn.

 

[Ibdancin]

Roster changes every year for every team. That is an absurd statement that you have to make sure there are zero changes in a roster from year to the next.

It's you that wanted to compare things in a static way. It's not possible to do that unless everything is the same but the staff. To say that it does not matter is just not accurate. It's like saying we should have remained the top defense in the nation this year after all of the loses from that defense from last year. That's what you are trying to do.

We returned our top 5 scorers from 2017

Not in passing we didn't. Let's keep apples to apples. We had 17 passing TDs in 2017 caught by 8 receivers. We lost 5 of those receivers who caught 11 of those 17. That's about 68% of your scoring. And the Moorhead offense is not a Mullen offense. It relies on getting the ball downfield in the passing game, not bubble screens. I count that as improvement on his part in year 1 considering we increased the total passing TDs with 68% of the production gone from the previous year.

If you want to talk about rushing Tds... Fine. We can. It remained about the same. 30 rushing Tds vs 24.

As far as yards go, rushing is down from 251.09 per game in 2017 to 223.62 last year

I believe I stated that rushing was slightly down. Now, when you look at Fitz and Hill and Williams in both years, I think you will find they were really close in those years.

Fitz went from 6.1 to 5.1 average
Hill went from 5.0 to 6.3
Williams from 4.7 to 6.2.

But once again.... He has to continue to fix the issues he was presented with or he will have to go.

 

[Ibdancin]

The only difference? Well Mullen did win 8 games and wouldn’t have scored just 10 points vs Tenn. The eye test and 9 years worth of stats tell us that.

Moorhead won 8 games in his first year too. 9 years worth of stats tell us Mullen had bad years too. I think out of the 9 years he took us to 8 bowls. Of those 8, 4 came from him having to win his last game. Some of those 4 came down to winning his last 2 games. 1 of those bowl appearances was with us having a losing season and still had to win the last one.

Mullen had his moments too. 3 points against OSU in 2013...


My point is that Moorhead is making improvements in Passing, Running, and not too bad on defense considering. He has a lot to prove though.

 

[Strike.sixpack]

It's you that wanted to compare things in a static way. It's not possible to do that unless everything is the same but the staff. To say that it does not matter is just not accurate. It's like saying we should have remained the top defense in the nation this year after all of the loses from that defense from last year. That's what you are trying to do.



Not in passing we didn't. Let's keep apples to apples. We had 17 passing TDs in 2017 caught by 8 receivers. We lost 5 of those receivers who caught 11 of those 17. That's about 68% of your scoring. And the Moorhead offense is not a Mullen offense. It relies on getting the ball downfield in the passing game, not bubble screens. I count that as improvement on his part in year 1 considering we increased the total passing TDs with 68% of the production gone from the previous year.

If you want to talk about rushing Tds... Fine. We can. It remained about the same. 30 rushing Tds vs 24.



I believe I stated that rushing was slightly down. Now, when you look at Fitz and Hill and Williams in both years, I think you will find they were really close in those years.

Fitz went from 6.1 to 5.1 average
Hill went from 5.0 to 6.3
Williams from 4.7 to 6.2.

But once again.... He has to continue to fix the issues he was presented with or he will have to go.

No I didn’t want to compare anything in a static way. You started the whole thread with arbitrarily comparing Mullen’s last year and this season with Moorehead’s QB’s and his system. That was the last part of you original post and that is just an arbitrary comparison. It is cherry picking.

At least comparing 2017 to 2018 makes some sense since you have the bulk of your scoring back from the previous team. Whether it comes from rushing the ball or throwing the ball, it doesn’t matter. Scoring is scoring, period. And it went way down last year and when you eliminate garbage yards (receiving and rushing) and points it is not nearly as good as you paint it.

Yes we did return our top 5 scores from 2017 to 2018

http://www.cfbstats.com/2017/team/430/scoring/index.html

http://www.cfbstats.com/2018/team/430/scoring/index.html

Kickers count as scorers as well. We only lost 17.8% of our scorers from 2017 and yet averaged 7 points less per game in conference.

Thank goodness Moorhead got the most putrid ARK teams the last 2 years because just those 2 games account for 34% of all of the conference points we have scored in 14 conference games the last 2 years. In the other 12 games we are averaging 17.1 points per game.

 

[TrapGame.sixpack]

Arkansas has the slowest defense in the SEC and probably in the country. We ran the same plays we've always run. Same plays against Auburn, A&M and LSU. Arkansas's defense is so bad we look like a top flight SEC offense against it. They are a really bad, bad team.

 

[Strike.sixpack]

Moorhead won 8 games in his first year too. 9 years worth of stats tell us Mullen had bad years too. I think out of the 9 years he took us to 8 bowls. Of those 8, 4 came from him having to win his last game. Some of those 4 came down to winning his last 2 games. 1 of those bowl appearances was with us having a losing season and still had to win the last one.

Mullen had his moments too. 3 points against OSU in 2013...


My point is that Moorhead is making improvements in Passing, Running, and not too bad on defense considering. He has a lot to prove though.

You were stating improvement from 2017 and this year. But Moorehead won 8 last year.

Us having to win the last game or two to be bowl eligible also has to do when and who we played during certain years. And it happened 3 times not 4. I’ve seen some others bring this up. It doesn’t matter because he did win. And the last game is the EB, that is a negative in some way? That is an absurd argument to me, “Mullen only got bowl qualified by winning the Egg Bowl”...that’s a negative some how? If so I assume then all of this touting of Moorehead’s offense improvement will be for naught since he has to win the last 2 to be bowl eligible. But that is a negative in your opinion as you laid out above. Don’t use that to tear down one coaches record while telling me about all the improvement this coach is doing...when he literally will have to do the same thing to qualify for a bowl.

2011 we had to win last game to qualify. 5 of our 6 losses are to ranked teams (4 of them Top 10) and an 8 win Auburn team that was a close loss. Our last 3 games was # 1 Bama, #5 Ark and then EB. I think scheduling was the issue

2013 all 6 losses were to ranked teams

2016 was bad, luckily we had a coached to demanded better performance in the class room. But with a bad DC hire and Mullen not really settling on QB1 and Fitz winning over the team after BYU you could see offensive improvement. We scored 38+ in 5 of our last 6 games. Including a 55-20 drumming of OM who had 5 wins and need to beat us to win 6 games. And Freezus last game. Yeah nothing positive about that win.

 

[ColoradoDawg]

You troll. It's a well established fact that he is the worst coach ever and should have been fired 2 seasons ago. Also, our strength and conditioning coach is bad. No excuses, win 10 games a year or get out of town.

 

[Ibdancin]

No I didn’t want to compare anything in a static way. You started the whole thread with arbitrarily comparing Mullen’s last year and this season with Moorehead’s QB’s and his system. That was the last part of you original post and that is just an arbitrary comparison. It is cherry picking.

At least comparing 2017 to 2018 makes some sense since you have the bulk of your scoring back from the previous team. Whether it comes from rushing the ball or throwing the ball, it doesn’t matter. Scoring is scoring, period. And it went way down last year and when you eliminate garbage yards (receiving and rushing) and points it is not nearly as good as you paint it.

Yes we did return our top 5 scores from 2017 to 2018

http://www.cfbstats.com/2017/team/430/scoring/index.html

http://www.cfbstats.com/2018/team/430/scoring/index.html

Kickers count as scorers as well. We only lost 17.8% of our scorers from 2017 and yet averaged 7 points less per game in conference.

Thank goodness Moorhead got the most putrid ARK teams the last 2 years because just those 2 games account for 34% of all of the conference points we have scored in 14 conference games the last 2 years. In the other 12 games we are averaging 17.1 points per game.

Again, we were talking passing game, and no we did not return that in the passing game.

Your links even shows that. You are counting a FG kicker and a back up QB that is in the top 3 returning! LOL! I mean they list Simmons in the top ten. He's not on offense for pete's sake. Not to mention, their stats are not lining up with Hailstate. They have Thomas with 5 Tds, and Hailstate has him with 4.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

You troll. It's a well established fact that he is the worst coach ever and should have been fired 2 seasons ago. Also, our strength and conditioning coach is bad. No excuses, win 10 games a year or get out of town.

You can tell that S&C is turrible because we had injuries. That's a first in college football and unheard of at any school with a real S&C program.

 

[Strike.sixpack]

Again, we were talking passing game, and no we did not return that in the passing game.

Your links even shows that. You are counting a FG kicker and a back up QB that is in the top 3 returning! LOL! I mean they list Simmons in the top ten. He's not on offense for pete's sake. Not to mention, their stats are not lining up with Hailstate. They have Thomas with 5 Tds, and Hailstate has him with 4.

Oh my word. First off the links are not off. The link is for SCORING. Not just receiving TD’s. Deddrick Thomas also has a punt return for TD. TOTAL scoring is relevant. Especially if a coach with a clue looks at how the personnel is set up to score from the previous season and knows that his own offense in the run game is very similar to what we run.

The reason the back up QB ranked highly in scoring is because, you know the starter was hurt. Just like you have used Shrader all day. Do you really want to limit your stats to just the starting QB? I don’t that you do because the numbers are not there. And you original was alluding to the QB’s and his system, not just the WR. So that is all open because that is how you presented it.

Any way you want to cut it, we returned the vast majority of our scoring from 2017 and dropped 7 points per game in conference last year. Without the ARK games, we are more than 9 points less per game in conference for the last 2 years. WR, passing, whatever has not come close to making up actual points on the board production from 2017. Split it anyway you want but the points returning from 2017 should have been enhanced not dropped. Our receiving has not made up that difference

 

[BossDawg78]

View attachment 14486

 

[Ibdancin]

You were stating improvement from 2017 and this year. But Moorehead won 8 last year.

So are we back to roster changes don't matter? You are very close to making that argument.

Us having to win the last game or two to be bowl eligible also has to do when and who we played during certain years. And it happened 3 times not 4.

Why does it matter who or win we play a team. Every year it ends with Ole Miss. And you are right, it was 3 of the 9 with 1 year not making a bowl.

It doesn’t matter because he did win. And the last game is the EB, that is a negative in some way? That is an absurd argument to me, “Mullen only got bowl qualified by winning the Egg Bowl”...that’s a negative some how?

I agree with all of that and will apply the same logic to Moorhead.

But that is a negative in your opinion as you laid out above. Don’t use that to tear down one coaches record while telling me about all the improvement this coach is doing...when he literally will have to do the same thing to qualify for a bowl.

I never stated it was a negative thing. I didn't tear down any body's record. I stated clearly that Mullen had his moments too and some of those were in later years of his tenure here.

You forgot 2018- every loss came to ranked teams while beating 1. So Credit?



Now back to the topic. Again.. Passing game improvements, defense improvements. Need to continue the improvements.

 

[Ibdancin]

Oh my word. First off the links are not off. The link is for SCORING.

No, first of all would be the point of the OP... which was passing game.

The reason

I know the reason(s). Again... apple to apples. Passing attack.

Split it anyway you want but the points returning from 2017 should have been enhanced not dropped. Our receiving has not made up that difference

Not true. We had 47 Tds on offense in 2017. We had 48 offensive TDs in 2018.

 

[kired]

I must be blind because I don't see a ton of improvement at WR that I would say Moorhead is responsible for. Have Osirus Mitchell and Deddrick Thomas improved? Sure - I would hope most players do improve throughout their careers.

I do see Moorhead trying to put an emphasis on passing more. That's why our passing stats are up from 2017. Our rushing stats are down... points per game are about the same... total yards are about the same. 3rd down conversions are worse. We have fewer trips into the redzone.

We could come out and throw 60 times a game for 300 yards and say our passing game has improved. But I doubt we'd win very many games doing that. You can't focus on just one position and say Moorhead will be fine because we're getting slightly better production from that position than we did in 2017.

 

[Ibdancin]

I do see Moorhead trying to put an emphasis on passing more. That's why our passing stats are up from 2017. Our rushing stats are down... points per game are about the same... total yards are about the same. 3rd down conversions are worse. We have fewer trips into the redzone.

We could come out and throw 60 times a game for 300 yards and say our passing game has improved. But I doubt we'd win very many games doing that. You can't focus on just one position and say Moorhead will be fine because we're getting slightly better production from that position than we did in 2017.

100% agree with all of this.

 

[Strike.sixpack]

No, first of all would be the point of the OP... which was passing game.



I know the reason(s). Again... apple to apples. Passing attack.



Not true. We had 47 Tds on offense in 2017. We had 48 offensive TDs in 2018.

Are you obtuse? Our SCORING dropped from 2017 to 2018 by 7 points per game in conference. Take away the 2 ARK games and we are averaging more than 9 points less per game from 2017. Don’t give us total TD’s in all games. We had the bulk of our scoring return from 2017 and our scoring dropped in all games and in conference games especially. Period. Don’t try to parcel out some sort of stat...scoring dropped while we returned the vast majority of our scoring. Period. All stats say that exact same thing. Points dropped.

 

[thatsbaseball]

Just one question. Why would you go to all this trouble ?

 

[Nunya.sixpack]

Duh...someone on the interwebs is wrong and must be corrected.

 

[mount lefroy]

You can tell that S&C is turrible because we had injuries. That's a first in college football and unheard of at any school with a real S&C program.

Joe could have avoided all of this legitimate criticism by simply calling Dan Mullen and asking him for his playbook so he could run that instead of what got him the job in the first place.

 

[Seinfeld]

Thanks for that. I’m still trying to wrap my head around this belief that our passing is better, our running is better, and our defense is ok... yet here we are with a 4-5 record.

Either I’m blind, stats are being skewed, or something just doesn’t add up

 

[DoggieDaddy13]

It's true and that counts for a lot in my book. You know Ole Miss folks still have nightmares about him.

 

[Dawgzilla]

That's a great meme. I think my favorite part is that whoever made the image put the real JoMo IN the mirror, and the mirror image JoMo is in the real world. Not making fun of photoshop skills because it works; I like the idea of JoMo walking around with backwards logos on his shirts.

 

[Rupert Jenkins]

Joemo will be fine. I know I would be if I was making 3.15 million dollars this year