Who here is old enough to remember

[Russ Wheeler]

I mean you can count the good head coaches in our history on one hand so I’m not sure it’s fair to suggest that just because Leach hasn’t started like Sherrill or Mullen did that it won’t get turned around.

Shoot even at Washington State, he went 3-9 in two of his first three years in a bad league and then lost to an FCS team in Week 1 of Year 4. And WSU was a passing team before he got there. Nick Saban went 7-6 his first year at Bama with losses to UL Monroe and Sylvester Croom.

Good coaches have bad first years, it happens sometimes depending on the situation. And I don’t know that Leach inherited as good of a situation as some want to believe. We aren’t totally devoid of talent, but we have some misfits for this system, particularly with our upperclassmen which hurts us this year, and we are also trying to revamp our culture after it was allowed to tail off immensely under Moorhead.

It sucks to have a struggling team and none of us are enjoying this season right now. But this “I’ve seen enough” mentality that some have is very short sighted this early in his tenure. If we still look like this a year from now and are showing no signs of improvement then that’s one thing. But I don’t know how you can’t give Leach the benefit of time given his track record. And it’s premature to make definitive statements after four games as if he’s been here as long as Croom or Moorhead were.

I realize patience barely exists anymore in 2020, but some of that is going to be required here. If you can’t handle that then I don’t really know what to tell you. The situation is what it is.

That's the problem, you're talking to me like I'm some millenial Johnny come lately negative fan. I've seen all this before, as have you. You've been around for a long time. I've put in my patience. I don't disagree with much you said, but again, like I said in my post to 8dog, it's not about the Ws and Ls, it's how the team looks and behaves in those losses. Again, he gets the benefit of the doubt this year.

My biggest concern is yet again we are trying to work an OL scheme that has NEVER worked here, in my lifetime. The OL is the heart of your football team. I've seen many QBs come and go, to have a good year one year then crash and burn the next, with fans booing and clamoring for the backup. Here we are again. That rarely happened under Mullen, who gave us a great blueprint....OL exploding and rolling up field. I've sat here for 3 years now and watched guys like Eiland look awful, when he looked pretty dang good as a freshman in 2017. Reminds me of when Sherrill did some of that. The OL is where we can innovate......and here we have yet another coaching staff who needs athletes we don't regularly sign.

ETA: The good news is, we have a lot of bigger OL signed in the 2018-2021 classes that will all grow up together and should be peaking at the same time Rogers and/or Robertson are peaking.

 

[MSUDC11]

That's inaccurate. Leach never looked this bad at either of his other stops. The record may have not looked great, but the team didn't.

Same with Mark Stoops. Kentucky made instant improvement the second he got there.

Either way, Leach should get the benefit of the doubt due to the COVID lack of practice and his resume. I got no problem with that. But I'm definitely concerned.

Stoops didn’t win a conference game his first year and the only SEC team they played within single digits was us. They went 4-20 in league play his first three years and didn’t go to a bowl game until Year 4.

Joker Phillips was a bad coach and Stoops had a mess to clean up, but this whole “immediate improvement” thing with him is not accurate.

 

[Quincy A. Wagstaff]

“A (10-3) Kentucky and (10-3) Florida team,” both of which we played like sh*t against with better talent on both sides of the ball.

I agree we had better talent than Kentucky in 2018, just like we had better talent than Kentucky this year. But how exactly did we have better talent than Florida in 2018?

The 247Sports team talent composite rankings had Florida at #12 and State at #23 in 2018. 2018 Florida had two 5-stars and 33 4-stars. We had one 5-star and 21 4-stars in 2018. Both schools had five players drafted after the 2018 season. Florida had another six players from the 2018 team drafted after the 2019 season. State had another four players from the 2018 team drafted after the 2019 season.

So on what basis do you say we had better talent than Florida in 2018?

 

[Quincy A. Wagstaff]

Not sure exactly what you're saying, but I think you're trying to say that this year's coach/offense/defense is very similar to 2018's coach/offense/defense.

Is that correct?

No.

 

[Go Budaw]

That's the problem, you're talking to me like I'm some millenial Johnny come lately negative fan. I've seen all this before, as have you. You've been around for a long time. I've put in my patience. I don't disagree with much you said, but again, like I said in my post to 8dog, it's not about the Ws and Ls, it's how the team looks and behaves in those losses. Again, he gets the benefit of the doubt this year.

My biggest concern is yet again we are trying to work an OL scheme that has NEVER worked here, in my lifetime. The OL is the heart of your football team. I've seen many QBs come and go, to have a good year one year then crash and burn the next, with fans booing and clamoring for the backup. Here we are again. That rarely happened under Mullen, who gave us a great blueprint....OL exploding and rolling up field. I've sat here for 3 years now and watched guys like Eiland look awful, when he looked pretty dang good as a freshman in 2017. Reminds me of when Sherrill did some of that. The OL is where we can innovate......and here we have yet another coaching staff who needs athletes we don't regularly sign.

ETA: The good news is, we have a lot of bigger OL signed in the 2018-2021 classes that will all grow up together and should be peaking at the same time Rogers and/or Robertson are peaking.

Disagree on the OL. If anything, we can now bring in tall, rangy OL who may be overlooked in recruiting due to not being able to get good leverage in the run-blocking, because we won’t need them to do that here. That will be how we “innovate”, if you will.

 

[bruiser.sixpack]

That's inaccurate. Leach never looked this bad at either of his other stops. The record may have not looked great, but the team didn't.

Same with Mark Stoops. Kentucky made instant improvement the second he got there.

Either way, Leach should get the benefit of the doubt due to the COVID lack of practice and his resume. I got no problem with that. But I'm definitely concerned.

Covid is with us forever! People wearing masks are now getting it by the 100’s. So we are stuck with Covid, wearing masks, and bad football??? Yuck!

 

[Russ Wheeler]

Disagree on the OL. If anything, we can now bring in tall, rangy OL who may be overlooked in recruiting due to not being able to get good leverage in the run-blocking, because we won’t need them to do that here. That will be how we “innovate”, if you will.

I hope you end up right, in the end.