Thoughts on Mullen's Junior College Recruiting..............

[BillBraskyDOG]

Nobody told you anything repeatedly. We all get what you are doing here, so you can stop wasting your time trying to bait us.

 

[Ole Miss Grad]

Just as we all see you stalk everyone of my posts.

It's simple, either Croom didn't recruit well or he did. Which is it?

 

[dawgstudent]

Croom was recruiting better with the 08 signing class and who he had committed for 09. So I guess you can have it both ways.

 

[DerHntr]

either Croom didn't recruit well

pre-2008

or he did.

post-2008 (meaning the class we appear to have right now for 2009)

there. with five years of his recruiting it is pretty easy to have it both ways. satisfied?

 

[Ole Miss Grad]

I suppose.

But if he recruited great talent in '08 and this class, I don't think it should take Mullen long to put out a good product.

I see/hear some say it should take 4-5 years.

That's crazy in my opinion.

 

[dawgstudent]

That is ridiculous. We should be bowl eligible by year 2.

 

[BillBraskyDOG]

I am only going to respond when you post something stupid.

People didnt repeatedly tell you how great of a recruiter croom was, and people arent saying its going to take 4 or 5 years for mullen to turn it around. You are making stuff up to try to get a rise out of people. Dont take what one or two people say and apply it to the entire fanbase.

I dont take what idiots like you and rebelbruiser say and apply it to all ole miss fans. So just calm down.

 

[RebelBruiser]

That is ridiculous. We should be bowl eligible by year 2.

Yep, in today's format where over half of D-1 teams get bowl invites, I don't think it's unrealistic for any program to say that bowling in Year 2 is an unrealistic goal. There may be a few exceptions on occasion, but getting a team to 6-6 should not be too difficult unless the coach inherits a program that's really in the crapper, which MSU is not.

Most decent coaches would be able to get a team to 6-6 pretty quickly, even in poor circumstances. You guys were a couple of 1 point losses from 6-6 this year, and you didn't have a very good coach or team.

 

[8dog]

Home Conf games: Ark, KY, Auburn, Georgia
Road Conf games: OM, Bama, LSU, Florida

Non Conf: VHDawg, please help.

 

[patdog]

I'm close to adding Ole Miss Grad to that count.</p>

 

[DerHntr]

the circumstances would have to be extreme to get me to agree that it would take 5 years to rebuild.

 

[VanillaFace]

You hired an Offensive Coordinator with no HC experience.

We hired a guy with 10 seasons of HC experience in the SEC.

Yeah, the situations are so similar....

 

[VanillaFace]

Home Conf games: Ark, KY, Auburn, Georgia
Road Conf games: OM, Bama, LSU, Florida

Non Conf: VHDawg, please help.

Damn, thats a tough road schedule. If you can pull 2 games from that you would probably be in a NYD bowl.

The home schedule looks promising....could easily go 3-1.

I agree, year 2 is when you SHOULD be bowl eligible. It could happen in 2009, but I don't see it, especially with a first time HC and possibly a true freshman QB.

If you'd have hired Petersen or some other proven HC, I could see a bowl game in 2009.

 

[patdog]

Home - UAB, Memphis, I-AA team
Road - Houston

At worst, should go 3-1 non-conference, 2-2 home conference and 0-4 road conference for 5-7 at worst.

 

[8dog]

and undervaluing talent and how down the conference was this year.

 

[patdog]

We both agreed that Orgeron would have gone 6-6 this year. I thought he would have gotten to 7-5, but the UM fan disagreed. Nutt did a good job this year, and I really do think he's a good offensive coach, but he had a lot of talent (and experienced talent) to work with.

 

[VanillaFace]

Croom sucked so bad because he was a ****** HC and because he has sucked *** at recruiting the last several years, with the 09 class being the exception. Thats been the general agreement on this board, from what I have read.

Orgeron left Nutt with a wealth of talent and experience, and vastly outrecruited Croom. I've also gathered that on this board.

But, you believe that the situations at Ole Miss after hiring Houston Nutt and State after hiring Mullen are similar? Maybe I misread what you really said in your post.

Also, I think you are undervaluing coaching and overvaluing talent. I think both are equally important. It doesn't matter how good your players are if you have a ******-average coach, ex: UT, 2008.

 

[patdog]

It doesn't matter how good your players are if you have a ******-average coach, ex: UT, 2008.

And yet, Tennessee somehow managed to win 152 games in 16-1/2 years with that ****** coach. You're giving UT's players WAY too much credit.

 

[8dog]

Nutt inherited a bunch of talent and an SEC caliber quarterback (a qb that Orgeron got, but never could use).

Mullen is inheriting garbage.

That is the biggest difference b/w the two situations.

 

[RebelBruiser]

Also, I think you are undervaluing coaching and overvaluing talent. I think both are equally important. It doesn't matter how good your players are if you have a ******-average coach, ex: UT, 2008.

I agree with that. I really think that a big reason we went 0-8 last year had to do with coaching on many levels and not talent. For one thing, our team didn't know how to win, didn't believe they could win, and our coaching staff was doing nothing to help turn that tide. On top of that, we were weak with our schemes both offensively and defensively, and we had inexperienced position coaches that weren't very good at developing or preparing our players for the games. That's why I said last year that I believed we had enough talent in 2007 to be bowling. I got laughed at for saying that on this board, but I believed it then and I still believe it now.

I also believe that there is a good chance we would've had another losing season this year if Orgeron had been retained. We had the talent to win quite a bit, but we needed a change of the culture and a change of the mindset before we could get over that hump. That change wasn't going to come without a coaching change.

And yes, Nutt and his more experienced staff were much better with the X's and O's and with the development side of things. However, I think the main thing that they did for our team this year was a psychological transformation. If you've never played sports, you don't understand how much attitude and confidence as a team play a role in winning or losing, and that lack of confidence leftover from the previous staff is a big reason why we lost some of the early games we did (Wake, Vandy, SC).

 

[DerHntr]

/just wanted to try it out

 

[rebelrouseri]

were not really that different from Croom's.

 

[8dog]

Nutt inherited? Because that's how I read your post. That's insane.

 

[RebelBruiser]

Nutt inherited? Because that's how I read your post. That's insane.

I agree. O's problem with recruiting was his inability to recruit a deep class. He managed to land some quality players (and no I'm not talking about guys with good star rankings), but his problem was his inability to get all of his players in school and keep them in school. Attrition rates were way too high due to discipline issues (kicking off 6 players during Pack-gate), flunking out (see Chris Strong), or just not getting into school period. The 10 or 15 guys he brought in each year that actually made it to school and stayed in school usually turned out to be good players. Problem is, he didn't leave us a ton of depth.

I'd still take a thin team with a little bit of talent on the surface rather than a deep team filled with few playmakers.

 

[dawgstudent]

he should be bowling by year 2.

 

[RebelBruiser]

and honestly I think it really takes 7-8 years before you truly see the results of what a guy is building.

That said you should at least see signs of progress in the first 2, 3, or 4 years. Finishing outside the Top 100 in total offense for 5 years running is not showing progress. In the same way, with Orgeron, we actually saw some regression in only 3 years. The talent level was improving some, but the issues within the team were enough to get him canned. You could see that those issues weren't going to get better in only 3 years.

 

[patdog]

If he goes 4-8 this fall and then 5-7 next fall, I'd probably feel like he has us moving in the right direction. He definitely needs to go bowling by year 3 at the latest.

 

[VanillaFace]

You don't think that coaching had much of anything to do with the same team, plus Snead, going from 0-8 in the SEC to winning 5 SEC games and going 8-4. It was all about the players.....the same players that went 0-8.

I promise you, from watching the team this year and the team last year, Snead did make a difference, but not that big of a difference. The biggest difference was the coaching.

 

[8dog]

I just think talent and schedule had more to do with it.

Auburn, LSU, and Arkansas were signifcantly worse this year than last year. 4 of 5 SEC wins were against teams that finished below .500 in the conference.

 

[MSUCostanza]

2009 we play JSU, GA Tech, Houston at home and at MTSU.

 

[Columbus Dawg]

Those same players improved tremondously. Michael Oher went from being your 4th best Offensive Lineman to 1st team All-American. How many new coaches inherit 2 All American Lineman and another who might be a 1st round draft pick (Greg Hardy) + a blue chip QB?

 

[patdog]

nm</p>

 

[rebelrouseri]

fans challenged the notion that O's first and third classes were that much better (if better at all) than Croom's classes from the same years, and after i looked at all the guys that didn't qualify, i agreed. A big difference between Croom and O was that O really tried to recruit a good qb to OM and Croom seemed like he didn't even try. If O had coached OM this year and Nutt had coached State, the records would be very different.

 

[Todd4State]

You don't think that coaching had much of anything to do with the same team, plus Snead, going from 0-8 in the SEC to winning 5 SEC games and going 8-4. It
was all about the players.....the same players that went 0-8.

I promise you, from watching the team this year and the team last year, Snead did make a difference, but not that big of a difference. The biggest difference
was the coaching.

that a good coach can take us from four to six wins at a minimum next year? Heck, you could make an arguement that Mullen is taking over a better than Nutt took over. We at least managed to win two SEC games, including one over a bowl team.

And if you want to talk about talent- consider this. If we have a kicker that can make a 38 yard FG with the wind and an extra point and chip shot FG agianst UK, we're in Shreveport right now. So, all we need is a kicker and that was even with our sub-one hundred offense and a defense that was average to above average on a good day.

If you don't think that a new offensive scheme and new ST's players aren't going to improve us, plus an easier schedule in my opinion- I have no idea why people think that we have a "killer" schedule- you're flat out wrong.

But keep telling yourself that we will be down if that makes you feel better.

 

[VanillaFace]

that your team lost to 2 of those 3 teams that were "significantly worse?"

I wouldn't say that bodes well, but your opinion may differ.

For Todd4State:

That sounds just like the Ole Miss fans that say "we were a fumble on the goalline against Vandy, a fumble returned for a TD and a fumble by McCluster against USC, and a punt hitting a gunner against Wake from being 11-1."

Do you really think the Ole Miss team was good enough to win 11 games?

You were also 2 INTs returned for a TD and "4th and 1" from being 4-8 in 2007.

The point is, we didn't win those games for whatever small reason, and State didn't win those games this year for whatever small reason. All that matters is the score at the end.

 

[8dog]

and I've been pretty clear that I think our main problem is personell. I dont know that we can win 4 games next year. Croom is a bad coach--in virtually every way. And yes, there are plenty of coaches that would've won more than 4 games this year with out team. But we still lack talent, and that's a big, big problem.

 

[VanillaFace]

If you don't, beware of Mullen, he may be another Orgeron.

 

[8dog]

I'll be on the lookout.

Have you even looked at our schedule next year? Which games outside of JSU and MTSU are absolute should wins? None.