A Croom reflection question.

[Bulldog Bruce]

One of the unspoken or lightly spoken reason for the hiring of a black coach was the imagined advantage we might get in recruiting African American players. I thought we would get some stud player that there was no way we would normally get because of this racial situation. Was there a single Croom recruit we got that we should not have?

If not, is it because success is much more important than racial makeup?

or was it because the modern athlete did not want to play for a disciplinarian?

 

[dgsmith15]

I would say Robert Elliot and Derek Pegues fit that description. I have no clue if it had anything to do with our coach being black or not, but those two stand out to me.

 

[lariverdog]

IMHO, you would have thought that CC could have gotten just about anybody he wanted because of race. After 5 years, I see no evidence of that in who he brought into vegas.
While it may have opened mom and dad's door, it certainly didn't translate to the field.
I will stick with my belief that at the present, recruits are coming to state because they want to play at state. No other reason.
No recent history with pipeline into the NFL means we will not get players with NFL ego. Period.
Now give us a HC that wins more than once every 4 years and starts putting kids in the NFL and that might change.

 

[maroonmania]

it takes us having a black coach to get a guy to commit to us over Ole Miss. Those were essentially the schools in it at the end for them.

 

[RebelBruiser]

Did Rod Barnes vs. Rick Stansbury not teach you this lesson already?

Recruits care very little about race. They care about things like winning, tradition, the type of system you run, the amount of fans you have, playing on TV, the campus, girls, etc. Race of the head coach falls way down on the list of things that recruits will base their decision on.

 

[lawdawg02]

but he didn't choose msu.

 

[Bulldog Bruce]

However, Basketball is a little different in that there are more choices if there is a racial factor. Thadeus Young in Memphis is one player that seemed to use race as a big factor in his decision. Otherwise there are no other obvious players that I can think of.

I just asked the question to see if anyone thought the racial factor proved to be true or not.

 

[DowntownDawg]

....it sucked in the early years because of several reasons:
1) Lack of recent football success
2) Lack of effort by Croom
3) Orgeron

I would say we were in on Perrilloux, but what was that worth? I think, ironically, this year we were starting to get some players that we might not've initially been in on. Montrell Conner being one. However, the reasons above contributed to terrible initial classes and this lack of talent basically got him fired.

 

[LandArchDawg]

most good black athletes are more interested in themselves and what they can get than helping a brother out. That was evidenced by our lack of ability to convince big-time black recruits we recruited to come here. Generally speaking, we were able to get better recruits in the Sherrill era.

 

[lawdawg02]

signed,

john thompson

 

[SwampDawg]

and came here when OM ditched Cut.