On Lebby

[Rsbrsb1010]

Since 2000, there have been a total of 73 non-interim head SEC football coaches.

One coach, in the history of the entire conference over the past 25 years, has ever been retained for a 3rd year after going 1-15 or worse in conference play in his first two seasons. This was Bobby Johnson at Vanderbilt, retained after starting off 1-15 in 2002/2003. Greg McElroy said this stat on the radio this week.

I saw someone that posted Josh Pate’s coaching grades like Lebby gets a B. He gets an F with a freaking capital letter. We convinced ourselves that since he beat Arkansas, who was 2-10 with an interim coach and gave us 200 yards in penalties, that were on the up swing.

We got punked by Wake Forest to make his record 7-18, 1-15. We fired Moorhead for 15-12, fired Arnett for 5-7.

If he doesn’t go 7-5 or better, he has to go.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

Shouldn’t have been hired

When you make bad hires you find yourself making hardline stances such as this, and what will happen is he will go 6-6 thus you have a tough decision

But he will never have that up year and will likely bottom out soon, but we will still have to wait

 

[Shmuley]

Since 2000, there have been a total of 73 non-interim head SEC football coaches.

One coach, in the history of the entire conference over the past 25 years, has ever been retained for a 3rd year after going 1-15 or worse in conference play in his first two seasons. This was Bobby Johnson at Vanderbilt, retained after starting off 1-15 in 2002/2003. Greg McElroy said this stat on the radio this week.

I saw someone that posted Josh Pate’s coaching grades like Lebby gets a B. He gets an F with a freaking capital letter. We convinced ourselves that since he beat Arkansas, who was 2-10 with an interim coach and gave us 200 yards in penalties, that were on the up swing.

We got punked by Wake Forest to make his record 7-18, 1-15. We fired Moorhead for 15-12, fired Arnett for 5-7.

If he doesn’t go 7-5 or better, he has to go.

One of the pork palace plants will be along directly to tell you that he is technically in year two now because dead Pirate.

 

[ZombieKissinger]

I don’t think anyone internal feels good about Arkansas. It may be why we’re listed ahead them this year by some reporters. It was mostly the Florida, Tennessee, and Texas near wins that gave people some hope, but he ultimately **** the bed in all three

 

[Perd Hapley]

We convinced ourselves that since he beat Arkansas, who was 2-10 with an interim coach and gave us 200 yards in penalties, that were on the up swing.

I don’t recall anyone ever saying this. The Arkansas game was even more embarrassing than any of the three “shoulda won” games….Texas, Tennessee, and Florida. They were absolutely horrible, had completely rolled over and were just playing out the string, were playing in front of maybe 15,000 of their own fans in Fayetteville, and they STILL outplayed us everywhere except for the penalty department.

He should have never gotten Year 3. But since he did, anyone who thinks 7-5 is good enough for Year 4 can 17 right off. You don’t fire a dude in freaking Year 1 for 5-7, then turn around and give the new guy 3 years just to flip two losses from that baseline to wins….all while being the worst program in the league for the first two years. 8-4 or GTFO….no excuses whatsoever.

 

[ETK99]

Since 2000, there have been a total of 73 non-interim head SEC football coaches.

One coach, in the history of the entire conference over the past 25 years, has ever been retained for a 3rd year after going 1-15 or worse in conference play in his first two seasons. This was Bobby Johnson at Vanderbilt, retained after starting off 1-15 in 2002/2003. Greg McElroy said this stat on the radio this week.

I saw someone that posted Josh Pate’s coaching grades like Lebby gets a B. He gets an F with a freaking capital letter. We convinced ourselves that since he beat Arkansas, who was 2-10 with an interim coach and gave us 200 yards in penalties, that were on the up swing.

We got punked by Wake Forest to make his record 7-18, 1-15. We fired Moorhead for 15-12, fired Arnett for 5-7.

If he doesn’t go 7-5 or better, he has to go.

And he inherited a horrible roster without enough players to even field a scout team. This year is make or break, but he still got dealt a terrible hand to start. Where he 17d up was his staff hirings. He cost himself a year just on bad hires.

 

[Bulldawg77]

And he inherited a horrible roster without enough players to even field a scout team. This year is make or break, but he still got dealt a terrible hand to start. Where he 17d up was his staff hirings. He cost himself a year just on bad hires.

And a nil chest that was embarrassing small a fan base split and some checked out.

 

[patdog]

Shouldn’t have been hired

When you make bad hires you find yourself making hardline stances such as this, and what will happen is he will go 6-6 thus you have a tough decision

But he will never have that up year and will likely bottom out soon, but we will still have to wait

We repeated our mistakes. Made a panic hire of a young unprepared coach, fired him, and hired another young unprepared coach who just happened to work with the young unprepared ad at their previous school.

 

[TheBannerM]

None of this stuff happens in a vacuum. If we had hired Lebby instead of Arnett and he went 7-18, he'd be gone now. We didn't. The adminstration believed continuity was more important than a real coaching search. And then we allowed Arnett to blow up the offense, inexplicably.

Two of our previous three coaches were fired after two season or less and the third one died. Like it or not, we have the reputation of being a hard place to win at. Couple that with the reputation of being not very patient and good luck hiring a competent coach. Fans like to say coaches would crawl over broken glass to coach an SEC team, but every coaching search we hear about coaches who turn us down (Chadwell, Fritz, etc.). Hiring coaches to State has always been a crapshoot and our poor choices have made it tougher.

Our previous poor choices were quickly rectified (Moorhead, Arnett), however we are now in a situation of putting up with incompetence just to show the next coach we're not a bunch of psychopaths.

 

[Dawgbite]

And a nil chest that was embarrassing small a fan base split and some checked out.

You can check out but you can never leave.

 

[Bulldawg77]

We repeated our mistakes. Made a panic hire of a young unprepared coach, fired him, and hired another young unprepared coach who just happened to work with the young unprepared ad at their previous school.

The promotion of Arnette was as dumb of a move we could have made. The only saving grace was that Keenum over saw the contract which allowed us to move on.
Selman and Lebby worked at OU for less than 10 months together and didn’t even work in the same building. They were not some best friends.

 

[Dawgbite]

The promotion of Arnette was as dumb of a move we could have made. The only saving grace was that Keenum over saw the contract which allowed us to move on.
Selman and Lebby worked at OU for less than 10 months together and didn’t even work in the same building. They were not some best friends.

With hindsight, I agree on Arnette but at the time it was the only move to try and retain the recruiting class. The mistake was letting him blow up the rest of the coaching staff.

 

[L4Dawg]

None of this stuff happens in a vacuum. If we had hired Lebby instead of Arnett and he went 7-18, he'd be gone now. We didn't. The adminstration believed continuity was more important than a real coaching search. And then we allowed Arnett to blow up the offense, inexplicably.

Two of our previous three coaches were fired after two season or less and the third one died. Like it or not, we have the reputation of being a hard place to win at. Couple that with the reputation of being not very patient and good luck hiring a competent coach. Fans like to say coaches would crawl over broken glass to coach an SEC team, but every coaching search we hear about coaches who turn us down (Chadwell, Fritz, etc.). Hiring coaches to State has always been a crapshoot and our poor choices have made it tougher.

Our previous poor choices were quickly rectified (Moorhead, Arnett), however we are now in a situation of putting up with incompetence just to show the next coach we're not a bunch of psychopaths.

This is it. We couldn't fire Lebby last year. We in all honesty probably shouldn't fire him this year no matter what. We will fire him though if he regresses and we will be right back where we were when we fired Arnett. We now have the rep for a quick trigger, and that is NOT good for a place like MSU.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

None of this stuff happens in a vacuum. If we had hired Lebby instead of Arnett and he went 7-18, he'd be gone now. We didn't. The adminstration believed continuity was more important than a real coaching search. And then we allowed Arnett to blow up the offense, inexplicably.

Two of our previous three coaches were fired after two season or less and the third one died. Like it or not, we have the reputation of being a hard place to win at. Couple that with the reputation of being not very patient and good luck hiring a competent coach. Fans like to say coaches would crawl over broken glass to coach an SEC team, but every coaching search we hear about coaches who turn us down (Chadwell, Fritz, etc.). Hiring coaches to State has always been a crapshoot and our poor choices have made it tougher.

Our previous poor choices were quickly rectified (Moorhead, Arnett), however we are now in a situation of putting up with incompetence just to show the next coach we're not a bunch of psychopaths.

Agree with you in premise but Fritz did not turn us down. That was the hire we should have made.

It's pretty obvious that older, experienced head coaches are the way to go at MSU.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

The promotion of Arnette was as dumb of a move we could have made. The only saving grace was that Keenum over saw the contract which allowed us to move on.
Selman and Lebby worked at OU for less than 10 months together and didn’t even work in the same building. They were not some best friends.

It was literally the ONLY move we could have made. And when you're successful, promoting from within is often the right move.

Problem was we didn't have an AD in place that could hold him accountable, and made sure he didn't do dumb shlt like fire all the offensive staff because muh rundabawl (I'm guessing you likely were one of those back then).

 

[Bulldawg77]

Agree with you in premise but Fritz did not turn us down. That was the hire we should have made.

It's pretty obvious that older, experienced head coaches are the way to go at MSU.

He and others at least by themselves or their representations turned us down. Fritz wanted the Houston job as his last rodeo( his daughter and his grandchildren live in the Houston area). Chadwell didn’t want the job mainly due to our at the time lack of NIL. Sumrall was interested but wanted a zero buyout if the UK job came open. Then as luck would have it, the UK job almost came open when stoops was on the plane headed to ATM only to be diverted… we then pivoted to Lebby.
Our job is in a much place than it was in November of 23. I don’t think most posters on here understand that between our roster and lack of NIL at the time really hampered not only our ability to hire a coach but assistants as well.

 

[Bulldawg77]

It was literally the ONLY move we could have made. And when you're successful, promoting from within is often the right move.

Problem was we didn't have an AD in place that could hold him accountable, and made sure he didn't do dumb shlt like fire all the offensive staff because muh rundabawl (I'm guessing you likely were one of those back then).

I was one of the most outspoken against promoting ZA to HC. I think ZA is a good DC but nowhere near ready to be a HC on any level. We should have opened up a search and took the hit that we took in 23 and 24.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

If things start bad, then just pull the trigger. It's possible Lebby has learned from his past mistakes. I hope that's the case and he gets off to a strong start and posts a season we can take pride in. But if there is any stumble in September.....then we have 2+ years of data to pull from in making the decision.

If he's under .500 at any point before November, it's time to move on.

 

[Bullldawg78]

I don’t think anyone internal feels good about Arkansas. It may be why we’re listed ahead them this year by some reporters. It was mostly the Florida, Tennessee, and Texas near wins that gave people some hope, but he ultimately **** the bed in all three

Can't win a big game, coaches like he's playing NCAA '25.

 

[Bullldawg78]

I don’t recall anyone ever saying this. The Arkansas game was even more embarrassing than any of the three “shoulda won” games….Texas, Tennessee, and Florida. They were absolutely horrible, had completely rolled over and were just playing out the string, were playing in front of maybe 15,000 of their own fans in Fayetteville, and they STILL outplayed us everywhere except for the penalty department.

He should have never gotten Year 3. But since he did, anyone who thinks 7-5 is good enough for Year 4 can 17 right off. You don’t fire a dude in freaking Year 1 for 5-7, then turn around and give the new guy 3 years just to flip two losses from that baseline to wins….all while being the worst program in the league for the first two years. 8-4 or GTFO….no excuses whatsoever.

What's even better is you bring back the guy you fired @ 5-7 to coach defense. How could he not feel salty about that, I know I would!

 

[Bullldawg78]

The promotion of Arnette was as dumb of a move we could have made. The only saving grace was that Keenum over saw the contract which allowed us to move on.
Selman and Lebby worked at OU for less than 10 months together and didn’t even work in the same building. They were not some best friends.

Doesn't matter perception there, he was is and will always be a lazy hire.

 

[Bullldawg78]

This is it. We couldn't fire Lebby last year. We in all honesty probably shouldn't fire him this year no matter what. We will fire him though if he regresses and we will be right back where we were when we fired Arnett. We now have the rep for a quick trigger, and that is NOT good for a place like MSU.

How ironic would it be if Lebby sh*ts the bed and we ask Arnett to be interim head coach again if we fire Lebby midway through the season?

 

[patdog]

With hindsight, I agree on Arnette but at the time it was the only move to try and retain the recruiting class. The mistake was letting him blow up the rest of the coaching staff.

You never hire a coach to keep a recruiting class. The real problem was Keenum dragging his feet on hiring an athletic director when he knew Cohen was at least a candidate to leave and he knew there were rumors of health issues with Leach. We can gripe and complain about all the stupid things Mississippi State has done over the years, but it all starts at the top.

 

[patdog]

If things start bad, then just pull the trigger. It's possible Lebby has learned from his past mistakes. I hope that's the case and he gets off to a strong start and posts a season we can take pride in. But if there is any stumble in September.....then we have 2+ years of data to pull from in making the decision.

If he's under .500 at any point before November, it's time to move on.

View attachment 1282958

So Sept 20 then. Pretty much no matter what happens on the field I don't think anything will happen until November. Possibly during the bye week if we're 1-4, but even then I doubt it.

 

[patdog]

What's even better is you bring back the guy you fired @ 5-7 to coach defense. How could he not feel salty about that, I know I would!

Salty or not, he apparently likes Starkville and it's a promotion. Hopefully he's matured a bit over the last couple of years.

 

[The Peeper]

And he inherited a horrible roster without enough players to even field a scout team.

He inherited a team that had just won 5 games with a totally inept offensive coordinator (Barbay) and a first time head coach that is now our defensive coordinator.

Now, he's only won 7 himself in 2 seasons and is only 1-15 in conference.

 

[Rsbrsb1010]

One of the pork palace plants will be along directly to tell you that he is technically in year two now because dead Pirate.

This is what irks me. “It’s leach’s fault, it’s Arnett’s fault, it’s Cohen’s fault”. None of those dudes have been in charge in 3-4 years.

We’re the only fanbase that would like to perform an autopsy to decide “who did it” rather than think about the present.

The losses these past two years are on Lebby, and then to a lesser extent Selmon. It’s THEIR fault.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

So Sept 20 then. Pretty much no matter what happens on the field I don't think anything will happen until November. Possibly during the bye week if we're 1-4, but even then I doubt it.

If we get embarrassed by Bama, LSU, Oklahoma and Texas he will have to be fired even if we were 4-0 beforehand, which is really unlikely.

 

[The Peeper]

I think ZA is a good DC but nowhere near ready to be a HC on any level.

Yet he won 5 games as a head coach after hiring an idiot OC and blowing up the offense and playing with players that didn't fit the "new" Arnett offense.

In 2 seasons Lebby has only won 2 more than Arnett did in 1, and has had much more NIL. How does that work?

 

[AnesthesiaDawg]

Based on the number of open seats in the lower bowl during the seating upgrade selection, whatever he does will be in front of an empty stadium.

 

[patdog]

Yet he won 5 games as a head coach after hiring an idiot OC and blowing up the offense and playing with players that didn't fit the "new" Arnett offense.

In 2 seasons Lebby has only won 2 more than Arnett did in 1, and has had much more NIL. How does that work?

It's hilarious to me all the Lebby defenders who are so quick to trash Arnett. As much as he 17ed things up, he managed to win as many games as Lebbey won in year two, and as many P4 games in 1 year as Lebby has in 2.

 

[leeinator]

Newsflash: We ain't beating Minnesota or South Carolina.

 

[leeinator]

If things start bad, then just pull the trigger. It's possible Lebby has learned from his past mistakes. I hope that's the case and he gets off to a strong start and posts a season we can take pride in. But if there is any stumble in September.....then we have 2+ years of data to pull from in making the decision.

If he's under .500 at any point before November, it's time to move on.

View attachment 1282958

5-7 and that's being optimistic.

 

[Prince of Darkness]

Also, to my knowledge, there has been no one in the history of the Egg Bowl on either side, that has lost 3 consecutive years and kept their job.

 

[RocketDawg]

Isn't it all about lack of money: revenue sharing, and buyout money?

 

[jxndawg]

Based on the number of open seats in the lower bowl during the seating upgrade selection, whatever he does will be in front of an empty stadium.

This. I did mine the other day, and spent some time looking around at availability in different sections. Season ticket sales appear to be ... slow.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

Also, to my knowledge, there has been no one in the history of the Egg Bowl on either side, that has lost 3 consecutive years and kept their job.

That's certainly what the RuNdAbAwLeRs were crying in 2022 before the Egg Bowl.

But you know how this goes. We likely start 1-1. Rumors flying that we're gonna fire him. Then we'll pull off something against South Carolina or Mizzou. Proceed to go 2-6. Rumors flying again. Then we beat Vandy. Then he pulls off a miracle on Auburn due to 1st year coach, etc. Then beat TN Tech, then go to Oxford and pull off another miracle bc Pete has flopped and Chambliss has gotten hurt or something.

And here we are with another year.

 

[Bulldawg77]

Yet he won 5 games as a head coach after hiring an idiot OC and blowing up the offense and playing with players that didn't fit the "new" Arnett offense.

In 2 seasons Lebby has only won 2 more than Arnett did in 1, and has had much more NIL. How does that work?

ZA won 4 games.. he was fired after the 51-10 loss to ATM. Knox won the USM game. Let’s not forget that 7-3 win at ARK …. Thanks to an offsides penalty on us. That somehow gets a pass but winning against ARK this past year was considered a fluke.

 

[Bulldawg77]

Newsflash: We ain't beating Minnesota or South Carolina.

I’ll take that bet right now

 

[Lucifer Morningstar]

Newsflash: We ain't beating Minnesota or South Carolina.

Carolina, we have a shot. Minnesota, I agree with you. Simply because it is there, and I think PJ Fleck out coaches Lebs for that win. I can already hear that Minnesota is not that great an argument. I just think a p4 team on the road against a coach that can run circles around ours is a dangerous one.