Thunder & Lightning: Where Did It Go Wrong For Mississippi State?

[HD6]

Mississippi State is a program that has been to ten straight bowls, appearing to be a model of consistency on the outside. Inside, the cracks were hidden but still there, waiting until this season to finally show. Brian Hadad and Joel Coleman look back through the years to pinpoint how it all got to this … Continue reading "Thunder & Lightning: Where Did It Go Wrong For Mississippi State?"

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[MSUDC11]

We hired a baseball coach to be an AD and with the exception of one last hurrah with Mullen in 2017 that was a mostly fun year, it’s been a downhill slide for our football program under Cohen. That’s where I start.

Beyond that, it’s a combination of Mullen’s high school recruiting being bad his last couple of years, Moorhead not being an SEC caliber head coach and ruining our culture, and in general us having holdovers from two different coaching staffs trying to figure it out with a third different staff.

I also have concerns that we caught Leach on the back end of his career and the true Air Raid that he’s been running forever has reached its expiration date, at least against competent defenses. But it’s too early to know that for sure, and he’s a proven coach so you certainly give him plenty of time to prove things can work.

I think some of this was unavoidable this year, we were not positioned to be very good with any coach. But even as someone who is urging patience with Leach, we seem worse than expected and coming right off a failed coaching regime under Moorhead, I get why people are very concerned.

 

[gwadSIG]

Hiring a baseball coach as an AD who tries to out smart the rest of the SEC because he thinks he's genius. Plus unrealistic expectations on the ceiling of the football program have led MSU away from the style of offense that has been most successful in its history.

 

[Leeshouldveflanked]

The day that Keenum hired Cohen was the beginning of the end. There would have been many great candidates interested in this job, but they weren’t even given a chance to send a resume..... but the primary reason was Mullen spending more time job hunting instead of recruiting, which fell on Stricklin and later Cohen.

 

[DogTalk]

Fix your squeaky chair please

 

[Dawg1976]

Easy answer....hiring Cohen. Enough said.

 

[seb304]

It struck me as strange to essentially blame Dan Mullen for Mike Leach’s inability to move the football.

I can buy that Mullen’s later recruiting handicapped the 2020 team, but it’s not *the* reason this team is as bad as it is. After all, Mullen’s defensive recruiting in the cited classes on the podcast, wasn’t much better, and those guys are capable and competitive. I think the biggest issues right now are a coach who can’t or won’t adjust and a miserable post-Mullen coaching hire. Put simply, you can say that Mullen’s recruiting would have caused this team to miss a bowl game — it’s a stretch to say his recruiting is the reason we’ve seen one touchdown in a month.

 

[patdog]

Ultimately, if went wrong when we took the easy way & hired Cohen as AD. 2 bad coaching choices in a row will kill any football program.

 

[L4Dawg]

We can't even score in garbage time right now. That ain't on Mullen. That is squarely on Mike Leach and the Athletic Director (sic) who hired him.

 

[BulldogBillyCrash]

We hired a baseball coach to be an AD and with the exception of one last hurrah with Mullen in 2017 that was a mostly fun year, it’s been a downhill slide for our football program under Cohen. That’s where I start.

Beyond that, it’s a combination of Mullen’s high school recruiting being bad his last couple of years, Moorhead not being an SEC caliber head coach and ruining our culture, and in general us having holdovers from two different coaching staffs trying to figure it out with a third different staff.

I also have concerns that we caught Leach on the back end of his career and the true Air Raid that he’s been running forever has reached its expiration date, at least against competent defenses. But it’s too early to know that for sure, and he’s a proven coach so you certainly give him plenty of time to prove things can work.

I think some of this was unavoidable this year, we were not positioned to be very good with any coach. But even as someone who is urging patience with Leach, we seem worse than expected and coming right off a failed coaching regime under Moorhead, I get why people are very concerned.

Please tell me how it’s Mullen or JoMo’s fault Lxxch can’t score and continues to trot out a QB who can’t move the ball...It’s like blaming your first wife when you can’t get a hard on for your third

 

[NTDawg]

Most informative podcast that y’all have ever had. I believe that our problems this year are related to two things, the recruiting under Mullen as covered by the podcast and couple that with a new coach, new system and no spring. Nothing to do with Cohen.

 

[patdog]

This **** ain't on Mullen. I don't care how bad his recruiting might have been (and it wasn't as bad as the Leach defenders are claiming), there's simply no excuse for this garbage. At some point you have to take the players you have and make it work to some degree.

 

[thekimmer]

Pretty informative but where was even a hint of this insightful analyis before the season started? The data was already there in plain sight but the predictions were that the offense was going to carry the defense. Just saying.

 

[maroonmania]

It struck me as strange to essentially blame Dan Mullen for Mike Leach’s inability to move the football.

I can buy that Mullen’s later recruiting handicapped the 2020 team, but it’s not *the* reason this team is as bad as it is. After all, Mullen’s defensive recruiting in the cited classes on the podcast, wasn’t much better, and those guys are capable and competitive. I think the biggest issues right now are a coach who can’t or won’t adjust and a miserable post-Mullen coaching hire. Put simply, you can say that Mullen’s recruiting would have caused this team to miss a bowl game — it’s a stretch to say his recruiting is the reason we’ve seen one touchdown in a month.

Maybe its as simple as the fact that we have players that are not all that talented (as the T&L podcast documented) and, added to that, are not experienced in nor do they all fit into the system they are playing in. But Leach has shown for years that he can take guys that aren't 4 and 5 star recruits and make them productive in his system, but it normally takes them being in the system a few years. Take a guy like walk-on WR Brandon Arconado for the Cougars last season. He had 78 catches for 1109 yards and 7 TDs even with missing a couple of games but he did it as a Senior . Had very little to any stats before that.

 

[maroonmania]

This **** ain't on Mullen. I don't care how bad his recruiting might have been (and it wasn't as bad as the Leach defenders are claiming), there's simply no excuse for this garbage. At some point you have to take the players you have and make it work to some degree.

I don't think anyone is trying to put the current state of the program on Mullen. But I think anyone with 2 eyeballs could see that, even with Mullen, the program was going to dip after 2018 because of the high dependence on JUCOs and not backfilling with the proper HS talent. Now Mullen may have offset that by trying to keep going back to the JUCO well heavy again, who knows, but once you start signing double digit JUCOs in a single class, its a tough drug to stop taking and rehab can be painful.

 

[MSUDC11]

I don't think you can blame one single thing right now to be honest, it's all these different factors that have combined to make things a mess.

But if you you want to blame a single thing, go back to November 4th, 2016, the day John Cohen became AD. Everything about our decline in football has happened under his watch and he is now on his second chance to get a hire right after the first one ended up being mess. And it's safe to say that hire number two has gotten off to a rocky start.

If we hire someone with actual administrative experience in a major athletic department, we might be in a different spot today. But nope, had to hire the baseball coach.

 

[RockKickinSandPoundinSOB]

Cohen 17ed up. It’s that simple.

 

[fishwater99]

Ultimately, if went wrong when we took the easy way & hired Cohen as AD. 2 bad coaching choices in a row will kill any football program.

Slow Joe was one bad choice, who was the other?

 

[SheltonChoked]

Mississippi State is a program that has been to ten straight bowls, appearing to be a model of consistency on the outside. Inside, the cracks were hidden but still there, waiting until this season to finally show. Brian Hadad and Joel Coleman look back through the years to pinpoint how it all got to this … Continue reading "Thunder & Lightning: Where Did It Go Wrong For Mississippi State?"

More...

Great topic and summary.

I'll say that the key thing about your alabama vs state comparison is not the QUALITY of players, but that most of the sr class top 10 recruites were contributors to the team (i.e., multi year Starters)

 

[Russ Wheeler]

I don't think you can blame one single thing right now to be honest, it's all these different factors that have combined to make things a mess.

But if you you want to blame a single thing, go back to November 4th, 2016, the day John Cohen became AD. Everything about our decline in football has happened under his watch and he is now on his second chance to get a hire right after the first one ended up being mess. And it's safe to say that hire number two has gotten off to a rocky start.

If we hire someone with actual administrative experience in a major athletic department, we might be in a different spot today. But nope, had to hire the baseball coach.

but he sat in on the interviews bruh

 

[Seinfeld]

I always enjoy these trips down memory lane with recruiting classes and who did or didn’t pan out.

I’ll tell you something else that’s become a pet peeve of mine ever since Moorhead started talking about it, and that is completion % from our QBs. Look, I get that it obviously helps to have an accurate QB in an air raid offense, but here are a few facts for everyone...

Our YTD completion % of 65.5% is the second highest number from the last 20 years. I’d venture to say it may be the second highest of all time for us, but I didn’t feel like going any farther back than 2000. That said, post-LSU, we also have the 3rd worst offense in FBS in terms of moving the ball, and the historically bad ‘06 offense that included a 47% passer moved the ball as efficiently.

If guys like Fitz, KT, and Shrader don’t fit what a coach is trying to do, I’m fine with that, but spare me the BS about “well, he’s just not accurate enough.” You have to consider what else they bring to the table, and if nothing else, one thing that’s clear is that completing 65% of our passes isn’t doing a dang thing for us this season.

 

[campshelbydog842003]

Please tell me how it’s Mullen or JoMo’s fault Lxxch can’t score and continues to trot out a QB who can’t move the ball...It’s like blaming your first wife when you can’t get a hard on for your third

2 of the 5 classes on our roster were recruited by Dan Mullen and there is no one from those classes that are playing. You can’t be serious? It is not all on him by any means but the juco heavy class with complete **** signees from HS ranks that he brought in for 16 and 17 gives him at least partial responsibility. Moorhead is responsible for a large chunk and covid is responsible for some issues. Mike Leach is responsible for trotting KJ’s terrible *** out there and for not adapting his scheme to his current personnel (which is something he has never and will never do). The talent on our roster is almost 100 % not Leach’s fault, and our talent on offense is almost non existent outside of some very young players. We brought in a guy to run the Air Raid and he inherited a team whose passing numbers ranked in the 100s the previous year. As much as I thought Leach would be able to turn things around immediately, it is pretty clear at this point that I was wrong and we have very little talent at receiver and a bunch of offensive linemen recruited for a run heavy scheme. That’s an awful mix for what we are currently running and in the best conference in the country at that.

 

[patdog]

I think that should be pretty obvious.

 

[patdog]

The two most important QB stats for me are yards per attempt and interception percentage. Hint: Garrett Shrader blows both our current QBs away on these stats.

 

[Russ Wheeler]

I don't think anyone is trying to put the current state of the program on Mullen. But I think anyone with 2 eyeballs could see that, even with Mullen, the program was going to dip after 2018 because of the high dependence on JUCOs and not backfilling with the proper HS talent. Now Mullen may have offset that by trying to keep going back to the JUCO well heavy again, who knows, but once you start signing double digit JUCOs in a single class, its a tough drug to stop taking and rehab can be painful.

He only signed 9 JUCOs. That's not too far, though I prefer 5-7 per year. The problem in that 2017 class was that the high school class sucked and most of the decent ones are gone with minimal contribution.

MSU should ALWAYS use to the MS JUCO system to some extent. It's just the practical thing to do.

 

[philduckworth]

Too bad the Giants came in and offered Joe Judge. I think we would feel differently about Cohen and the direction of our program.

 

[Go Budaw]

Too bad the Giants came in and offered Joe Judge. I think we would feel differently about Cohen and the direction of our program.

I don’t. I’m not personally done with Cohen, but there is a very high likelihood that Judge would have been a disastrous hire just as Croom was...too much NFL background and hardly any college experience (and zero major recruiting or X’s and O’s experience). Hell, even though he’s in his wheelhouse in an NFL gig, he’s not exactly setting the world on fire in New York even though he’s got the benefit of playing in the worst division in football and has a tenured former HC as his OC.

 

[bruiser.sixpack]

We need a QB who can zip the ball to a moving receiver between 2 defenders who can not only get his hands on the ball but win the battle 99% of the time. When we get 10 receivers and 2 QBs like that and 5 Olinemen who can move their feet enough to trip defenders as they go by, we might be able to beat every team below Bama, Georgia, A&M, and Florida in the SEC.

 

[Russ Wheeler]

Too bad the Giants came in and offered Joe Judge. I think we would feel differently about Cohen and the direction of our program.

I never saw the attraction to Judge except for the MSU tie. That said, he's obviously good enough for the NY Giants, even though sometimes those hires are reaches and/or political, plus it's often a different skill set.

All that to say....what is the upside to Judge? Recruiting? So is he a CEO type like Dabo and Orgeron?

I just never got it. I thought Napier was the obvious choice. If not him, someone in that mold. If we wanted a 60 year old system coach, why not Willie Fritz?

Just an awful job by Cohen on both hires, 2017 and 2019.

 

[Russ Wheeler]

We need a QB who can zip the ball to a moving receiver between 2 defenders who can not only get his hands on the ball but win the battle 99% of the time. When we get 10 receivers and 2 QBs like that and 5 Olinemen who can move their feet enough to trip defenders as they go by, we might be able to beat every team below Bama, Georgia, A&M, and Florida in the SEC.

Hahaha, my thoughts exactly. Geez what a clown show this will ultimately be...

 

[Ralph Cramden]

I was preaching this same story last year trying to defend Jomo. Hardly any seniors left thanks to terrible recruiting while Dan was looking for another job. Leach is lucky to not have last years crew. At least some of those freshmen got some experience last year. And our template for the most successful offense ever at State was never good enough to win the west so why continue to beat that dead horse ?? Do we wanna win 7 games or try to win the west ? Dan had a couple great years but the rest were 6 and 7 win seasons. Beat up on 4 non con and 2 or 3 SEC bottom feeders ?

 

[philduckworth]

B/c right now the idea of a CEO type coach who is a culture builder and who is not tied to any sort of system is very appealing to me.

 

[KeyserSoze1999]

Abandoning Physical Football in 2020.

For years even in Bad years, opposing coaches would talk about MSU and the phrase "they're a really physical football team" would always be said. We had a song in the early 80's "Maroon! White! Bulldog Blitz!!!" and we were a team that had an Offensive Line fired off and hit you in the mouth and had physical Running Backs like Walter Packer, Michael Davis, William Prince, Kevin Bouie, Keefer McGee, James Johnson, Anthony Dixon, and Josh Robinson. But now, we will live or die with the Pass.

Offensive Linemen LOVE to run block because they get to charge forward and hit / take the fight to the Defense. They typically don't like lots of Pass Blocking because they are mostly back peddling and absorbing hits from the Defense. But now we will be asking our OL to Pass Block 85% of the time.

 

[patdog]

For me the upside to Joe Judge is he's not Mike Leach.