was21 said:
as more successful than his.
I think that Croom was more successful than Rockey as HC. Their record was almost identical in five years- Croom was 21-38 and Felker 21-34- Croom coached in an era where teams played 12 as opposed to 11, so while Felker does have a slightly better winning PCT, much of that is because of the schedules in their era. Both had one winning season- Croom's was a 7-5 regular season with a bowl win, and Felker's was 6-5. Croom went to one bowl game while Felker never did, but to be fair Croom coached in an era with more bowl games than Felker, and I highly suspect that Rockey's 6-5 team would have gone somewhere in today's college landscape.
Now let's talk about "Big wins" vs. "Bad losses"
Croom's big wins- Twice over Bama, Auburn on the road, ranked Vandy team (OK that's a stretch), Floirda, ranked Kentucky team in 07.
Croom's bad losses- Maine, Vandy, UAB, Houston (personally don't consider this THAT bad of a loss, especially when compared to the others, but I'll throw it in there because a lot of people do. I do agree that MSU should have beat them with a record day from Norwood.), Tulane, and La Tech.
Felker's big wins- Syracuse, Tennessee, Florida, and LSU. USM twice with Brett Favre will be my throw in there.
Felker's bad losses- Vandy and Tulane twice.
So, Croom had more big wins than Felker, with or without the throw ins, but Felker had fewer bad losses. BUT Felker's schedules were much more difficult, so there were fewer opportunities for bad losses. Felker did oversee Tech and 10, so he deserves credit for that.
Felker's coaching record against SEC teams was 5-28.
Croom's in a much more difficult SEC era was 10-30. So, Croom won twice as many SEC games as Felker.
In the Egg Bowl, Croom was 2-3, and Felker was 1-4. Of course, Felker had to go up against Billy Brewer, and Croom got to go up against O for three years.
So, based on my research, Croom and Felker had basically similar tenures, which means that Felker was as much as failure as Croom as a HC, but neither was more of a failure than the other. I think the difference as time goes on, at least in the eyes of the fan, is that Felker played QB at MSU whereas Croom had a love affair with Bama. It will be interesting to so what happens with Mullen, because Felker got a lot of credit for leaving Jackie with good players, and Croom is already getting a lot of credit for leaving Mullen a good recruiting class this year. Plus, both took over in very dire situations- Bellard left Felker with little, and Croom took over a team on probation. Both lost games that their teams should have won against Auburn by one point their last year and also both lost to Kentucky, which many people say is when it was decided that a change should have been made.
It's very interesting to see how similar their tenures were.
