Now That We've Had a Few Years to Chew On It

[Indndawg]

Was the Pirate a good hire for the time(s)?

I was skeptical at the time
Now it looks like Cohen mighta made the blind squirrel find

 

[triton28]

Was the Pirate a good hire for the time(s)?

I was skeptical at the time
Now it looks like Cohen was made the blind squirrel find

Absolutely it was a good hire. I’ll never forget the feeling when we curb stomped LSU in his first game.

 

[Howiefeltersnstch]

Considering he died it was a bad hire. But who could know that was gonna happen. We won 9 which for State is a rare feat. It was rough for a couple years but I always wonder how it would have gone over the next 3 or 4 years. 10,11 or back to 6 ? Inquiring minds want to know but we will never find out. ETA I was much more excited about Leach than Lebby

 

[Seinfeld]

I'm definitely not mad about it. Ol Leach was a good guy, a good coach, and we got exactly what we knew we were going to get with him. A competent, competitive team in most years with a chance to occasionally have a very good season. It really sucks that we didn't get that last year from him because it really felt like the special season that would come around every so often with him.

When I compare him to guys like Moorhead, Arnett, and Lebby, though, I don't see good vs bad coaches. I see a constant reminder as to how rare it is to find someone in the college coaching profession that has the skillset and demeanor to run an entire program. There are thousands of guys in the football coaching profession that can teach a kid how to tackle or read a defense, but to manage a program of 115 kids and a few dozen people on staff? It's a whole different talent altogether, and that is where we've missed so badly recently.

 

[karlchilders.sixpack]

I was agin the hire, but it clearly worked.

 

[L4Dawg]

Given what happened, it destroyed the football program.

 

[Dawg1976]

Given what happened, it destroyed the football program.

The decision making from our illustrious leaders after his death destroyed the program.

 

[gtowndawg]

We won a bunch of games and got tons of attention around college football. So yeah, it was pretty awesome looking back on it.

 

[POTUS]

He won 11 games in Lubbock & in Pullman. I think it’s reasonable to assume, had he not passed, he would’ve done that once here as well. And that would be the greatest season in school history. So yeah, it was a home run hire.

 

[eckie1]

The decision making from our illustrious leaders after his death destroyed the program.

Leach was always gonna leave a crater behind due to his offense and the personnel. Nobody runs that crap. But, Keenum doubled down and not only fumbled the internal choices but hired him outright instead of tagging him as interim. He could’ve hired done that with Spurrier, Jr. and salvaged something.

All roads lead back to 17 you John Cohen, regardless.

 

[Chesusdog]

Hard to say. I do get the feeling that the problems we've had with defense would have still reared their head. Maybe less so considering how his offensive style had us taking a lot of possession time.

 

[Dawgzilla2]

Absolutely it was a good hire. I’ll never forget the feeling when we curb stomped LSU in his first game.

10 points is a curb stomping? It was a shootout.

I have never been a fan of Leach as a coach, but we certainly could have done a lot worse. Cohen was *this* close to hiring Joe Judge.

We only had a handful of blowout losses under Leach, which means we had a fighting chance in most of the other games. That's about all we ask for, with an occasional season where things really go our way.

 

[John Deaux VII]

I was skeptical when we hired him, but I think it was a good hire and we were very lucky to have him. He would have eventually gotten a really good QB and we would have had a 10-11 win season. I think things would have gone much better over the past 4 years if Leach had lived and we finally got our NIL act together after jettisoning Cohen to the Barn. Our early NIL struggles and him dying all happened at the same time.

 

[PBRME]

I wasn’t happy when he was hired. He did win me over in his last season.

 

[Indndawg]

I wasn’t happy when he was hired. He did win me over in his last season.

Same

 

[Dawg1976]

Leach was always gonna leave a crater behind due to his offense and the personnel. Nobody runs that crap. But, Keenum doubled down and not only fumbled the internal choices but hired him outright instead of tagging him as interim. He could’ve hired done that with Spurrier, Jr. and salvaged something.

All roads lead back to 17 you John Cohen, regardless.

That crap enabled Leach to be competitive. I realize many hated the 4 yard passes but it worked. A unique style is not always bad.

 

[MStateU]

One of the only cool things Cohen did as an AD was the tweet he sent out of the Jolly Roger with no context. Nobody even knew that was a possibility. Just out of nowhere. I was at work just staring at my phone like “There’s no 17’ing way”.

 

[DAWGSANDSAINTS]

Good hire but it didn’t turn out to have the overall extended positive impact that Jackie Sherrill and Dan Mullen had.
Could it have, probably.
Hate we didn't get to find out but for some reason my gut says Leach would not have liked, nor done well with today’s NIL and the transfer portal, at least not in current form.

 

[BulldogBlitz]

Good hire but it didn’t turn out to have the overall extended positive impact that Jackie Sherrill and Dan Mullen had.
Could it have, probably.
Hate we didn't get to find out but for some reason my gut says Leach would not have liked, nor done well with today’s NIL and the transfer portal, at least not in current form.

I cannot imagine many coaches enjoy this NIL/insta-portal crap if there is no accompanying bottomless money stash.

 

[RocketDawg]

I was agin the hire, but it clearly worked.

I wasn't necessarily against hiring him, I just thought it would never happen. Then it did.

 

[RocketDawg]

Leach was always gonna leave a crater behind due to his offense and the personnel. Nobody runs that crap. But, Keenum doubled down and not only fumbled the internal choices but hired him outright instead of tagging him as interim. He could’ve hired done that with Spurrier, Jr. and salvaged something.

All roads lead back to 17 you John Cohen, regardless.

After Leach's death, it seemed logical to temporarily have Arnette move in. The huge mistake was hiring him as the permanent coach when there was plenty of time to find someone. Then, they found Lebby which had to be nothing but nepotism on the part of Selmon.

 

[ZombieKissinger]

I loved it. I invited him to my wedding. He didn’t come, but he sent me a big autographed picture. I also mailed him a bunch of candy after he gave his Halloween candy overview

 

[patdog]

We’ve made worse hires. Probably the 4th best hire we’ve made in the last 65-70 years. Which is sad.

 

[POTUS]

We’ve made worse hires. Probably the 4th best hire we’ve made in the last 65-70 years. Which is sad.

If you don’t use hindsight and go on what we got when we hired the coach, Leach is either first or second behind Sherrill. With hindsight he’s still probably 3rd. It’s a pretty bleak history.

 

[Lucifer Morningstar]

He was a good man and a good coach. While he may not have been the greatest or the preferred choice of many, he did win games here. If you think that’s easy, you’d be mistaken. Moreover, the publicity he brought with him due to his personality was much more entertaining than watching Heavy Lebby stare into the camera, sweating and looking foolish.

 

[Puppers]

We would have been damn good in 2023

 

[triton28]

10 points is a curb stomping? It was a shootout.

I have never been a fan of Leach as a coach, but we certainly could have done a lot worse. Cohen was *this* close to hiring Joe Judge.

We only had a handful of blowout losses under Leach, which means we had a fighting chance in most of the other games. That's about all we ask for, with an occasional season where things really go our way.

Jesus you must be a lot of fun. On that particular night we curb stomped LSU.

 

[greenbean.sixpack]

A great coach and great man, we were set up for a double digit win season in 2023.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

I'm definitely not mad about it. Ol Leach was a good guy, a good coach, and we got exactly what we knew we were going to get with him. A competent, competitive team in most years with a chance to occasionally have a very good season. It really sucks that we didn't get that last year from him because it really felt like the special season that would come around every so often with him.

When I compare him to guys like Moorhead, Arnett, and Lebby, though, I don't see good vs bad coaches. I see a constant reminder as to how rare it is to find someone in the college coaching profession that has the skillset and demeanor to run an entire program. There are thousands of guys in the football coaching profession that can teach a kid how to tackle or read a defense, but to manage a program of 115 kids and a few dozen people on staff? It's a whole different talent altogether, and that is where we've missed so badly recently.

Nailed it. How could anyone say it wasn’t a great hire? The damn dead ones got us again

If T-bro Arnett had kept the staff we’d have gone 9-3 in 2023

 

[blacklistedbully]

People seem to not consider the fact that CML had to start his rebuild at the beginning of the pandemic! It's tough enough to get ready for the next full season when you're already rolling with a set program. It's a whole other ballgame when you have to install a completely new offense & defense, including recruiting players that will better fit the scheme you want to run.

 

[BossDawg78]

Absolutely it was a good hire. Three bowl games and things were clearly trending up every year. But...only at Mississippi damn State, where we can't have anything worth a nickle...we finally hire a serviceable head coach only to have him friggin' die just when he was putting things together . Typical State bull$#!t luck.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

I wasn’t happy when he was hired. He did win me over in his last season.

I think a lot of people felt this way, me included. We thought we had to have a running offense and that the Air Raid didn't fit MSU. But there were a lot of smart people saying that it was a breath of fresh air that we had finally hired a truly competent coach. They were right, and it appeared that it might be a very effective offense for us, it bled the clock AND established the pass, which we'd never really had. Which of course then opens up the run more consistently.

And even with his death, we were set up for 2023 and beyond. Lot of young talent in the program. We just simply bungled it. Think about this......as bad as T-Bro Arnett and the RuNdAbAwLeRs were in 2023, we were still 5-7. They did everything possible to sabotage the program and our record was still as good as Lenny's best. That tells you right there that our decision-making beyond the Leach hire tanked the program, not Leach'd death.

 

[ckDOG]

Outstanding hire 9/10. I only knock 1 off bc it's difficult to transition from a Leach system to anything else. But MSU fans should know by now that you MUST hire the best HC available. You can hit on a coordinator but our history indicates it fails hard more than it being successful. Leach had a resume of winning at multiple rural have not programs (TX Tech at the time - NIL has obviously made things much easier for them). The only better hires would have to be argued with the benefit of hindsight or were pipe dreams for our budget and circumstance.

 

[BoDawg.sixpack]

 

[Ranchdawg]

Both he and Jackie were good hires. You knew what you were getting with both because they had a proven background. Promoting an assistant is a crap shoot. Even a head coach from a lower level conference with a proven record has proven to be a better decision.

 

[ckDOG]

Mike wasn't afraid to do things differently. Miss that guy.

 

[BoDawg.sixpack]

Mike wasn't afraid to do things differently. Miss that guy.

He was prolific. I miss him.

 

[Colonel Angus.sixpack]

I think it was a good hire. He would have had State competitive enough year in and year out. Definitely better than the current results.

 

[kired]

Great hire, much better than I thought at the time. I didn't think his offense would work well in the SEC. But hard to argue with him winning 50% of his SEC games (excluding the covid season). Only issue I see... as good as Rogers was in the air raid - he wasn't an elite QB. He would have definitely been our starter for 2023 & 2024. And I think we would have stayed around the same level of play we saw in 2022. That would have been fantastic compared to what we went through, but I think people would have still gotten frustrated with it and wanted more.

Obviously his long term success would have depended on what QBs he'd be able to recruit after Rogers. But I think with the NIL and transfer era, he would have been smart enough to use it better than most and could have kept us winning 8 - 10 games / year.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

I only knock 1 off bc it's difficult to transition from a Leach system to anything else.

This was fake news 15 years ago, 10 years ago, 5 years ago and continues to be now. For the love of all things holy, the Air Raid is not a triple option. It is very difficult to go from a run-based scheme to a pass-based scheme, but not the other way around.

That said, if you go from pass-based to run-based, you will likely lose more games.....simply because it's smart to invest in the pass. Unless you bring in an elite tailback/running QB or something.

And more to the point.....Texas Tech and Washington State didn't drop off immediately after he left....so where does this come from?