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

Indndawg

Indndawg

Senior
Nov 16, 2005
7,197
685
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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
 
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Howiefeltersnstch

All-Conference
Dec 28, 2019
3,106
3,828
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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
 
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Seinfeld

Seinfeld

All-American
Nov 30, 2006
11,732
8,086
113
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.
 
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eckie1

All-Conference
Jun 23, 2007
4,119
4,362
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Dawg1976 said:
The decision making from our illustrious leaders after his death destroyed the program.
Click to expand...
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.
 
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Chesusdog

Chesusdog

All-American
May 2, 2006
5,197
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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.
 
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Dawgzilla2

All-Conference
Oct 9, 2022
2,795
3,224
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triton28 said:
Absolutely it was a good hire. I’ll never forget the feeling when we curb stomped LSU in his first game.
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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.
 
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John Deaux VII

John Deaux VII

All-Conference
Jun 7, 2024
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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.
 
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Dawg1976

Dawg1976

All-Conference
Aug 22, 2012
8,466
3,032
113
eckie1 said:
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.
Click to expand...
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.
 
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MStateU

MStateU

All-Conference
Nov 15, 2009
1,107
2,370
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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

DAWGSANDSAINTS

All-Conference
Oct 10, 2022
3,432
3,111
113
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.
 
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BulldogBlitz

BulldogBlitz

Heisman
Dec 11, 2008
18,467
26,814
113
DAWGSANDSAINTS said:
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.
Click to expand...
I cannot imagine many coaches enjoy this NIL/insta-portal crap if there is no accompanying bottomless money stash.
 
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RocketDawg

All-Conference
Oct 21, 2011
20,392
3,057
113
eckie1 said:
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.
Click to expand...
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.
 
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Lucifer Morningstar

Lucifer Morningstar

All-Conference
Aug 30, 2022
2,536
3,775
113
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.
 
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T

triton28

Freshman
Dec 18, 2009
1,366
98
43
Dawgzilla2 said:
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.
Click to expand...
Jesus you must be a lot of fun. On that particular night we curb stomped LSU.
 
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OG Goat Holder

OG Goat Holder

Heisman
Sep 30, 2022
14,536
13,362
113
Seinfeld said:
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.
Click to expand...
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
 
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blacklistedbully

All-Conference
Sep 8, 2008
4,252
1,055
113
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.
 
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BossDawg78

BossDawg78

All-Conference
Jan 25, 2015
4,031
1,303
113
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.
 
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OG Goat Holder

OG Goat Holder

Heisman
Sep 30, 2022
14,536
13,362
113
PBRME said:
I wasn’t happy when he was hired. He did win me over in his last season.
Click to expand...
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.
 
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ckDOG

ckDOG

All-American
Dec 11, 2007
10,504
6,955
113
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.
 
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Ranchdawg

Ranchdawg

All-Conference
Dec 13, 2012
4,776
4,030
113
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.
 
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kired

kired

All-Conference
Aug 22, 2008
7,174
2,605
113
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

OG Goat Holder

Heisman
Sep 30, 2022
14,536
13,362
113
ckDOG said:
I only knock 1 off bc it's difficult to transition from a Leach system to anything else.
Click to expand...
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?
 
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