Comparative Dumpster Fires for Your Opines

[Indndawg]

Stans/Ray vs Rocky/JWS vs JWS/Sly vs Sly/Dan

Which coach left the worst mess?
Which coach has/will succeeded and cleaning up said mess?
Which coach walked into the toughest situation?

For me, Jackie walked into the better situation. Rocky put together a pretty good team and JWS coached them to their potential.

The worst situation, I don't know.....I do know it was pretty bad when Croom took over..not that he made things that much better

 

[Philly Dawg]

Ray ended up in a worse position, but half of it was a spate of injuries that can't really be blamed on Stans. I don't recall ever having that many players go down for the season in one year before.

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

As for worst mess, it's Stans/Ray and it's not even close. If Ray makes the tourney by year 3 he should be national coach of the year due to how empty the pantry was when he got here. Rockey left The Kang some great players. The Kang left Crooms an average team with a few rotten players (it wasn't near as bad as some make it out to be), but Crooms had no idea how to use the players left to him so it looked like Jackie left him nothing. Crooms actually left the team in better shape than when he got here, but that doesn't exonerate his awful coaching.

 

[Indndawg]

I don't know how anyone can judge him for being a mediocre coach

Ray ended up in a worse position, but half of it was a spate of injuries that can't really be blamed on Stans. I don't recall ever having that many players go down for the season in one year before.

given:

1) he stepped into a disaster
2) injuries that I've never seen in a team sport
3) Unfamiliarity w/MSU and ms hs basketball players

I'm bullish on RR long run, short run I don't know if Petino could get us to the NCAAs

 

[was21]

Felker was a good recruiter, he just didn't know how to coach or communicate. Sherrill definitely benefited but it all went in the tank his last three years and he should have been fired. As it turned out Croom actually recruited fairly well and didn't know how to coach. Felker didn't inherit much talent wise. I couldn't care less about basketball. Bottom line: I'm glad we have Mullen. He may still be learning as a corch and recruits better than some give him credit for. I think we're in better shape in football than we've ever been.

 

[Arthur2478]

No Polk/Cohen comparison?

Cohen had virtually nothing to work with his first couple season.

 

[esplanade91]

Polk/Cohen FTW. We were about to riot in the streets to fire a coach who ended up taking us further than anyone else in MSU history has.

But behind that it has to be a tie between JWS/Croom and Croom/Dan, and for different reasons.

JWS basically allowed Croom to make it to 5 years by leaving him the skill players he did. If not for JRock and him beating Florida all by his lonesome I don't know that Croom gets the 1 or 2 decent players a year he gets and makes it to 5 years. On the other side of that coin is the attitude of that team he gave Croom. It was completely tainted with criminals and guys who just didn't give a ****, and I think before anything else Croom had to somehow get the team to stand around a fire and sing kumbaya. JWS dug is so down we fielded Russell jerseys.

But I refuse to give Croom credit for cleaning up our roster though because we ended up having just as many criminals leading up to Dan's hiring. And the branding became so bad that we looked like a cheap knockoff of Alabama, which can be debated as to how much Croom had to do with. When Dan took over it wasn't as hard to get his players ready to at least be competitive, but the roster is just now becoming balanced. Signing that many WR's and playing them immediately in year one tells you all you need to know. Clausell might be another great indication of what he was dealing with, although now that he's more experienced he's fine.

Cohen definitely got the worst of it. Ray was at least handed Ware and Sword.

 

[Indndawg]

Completely forgot about Polk II and Cohen.

Still, it just seemed we were THAT bad in baseball (compared to football/basketball). Polk II was MSU back in the WS and just that we weren't that bad.

 

[johnson86-1]

As for worst mess, it's Stans/Ray and it's not even close. If Ray makes the tourney by year 3 he should be national coach of the year due to how empty the pantry was when he got here. Rockey left The Kang some great players. The Kang left Crooms an average team with a few rotten players (it wasn't near as bad as some make it out to be), but Crooms had no idea how to use the players left to him so it looked like Jackie left him nothing. Crooms actually left the team in better shape than when he got here, but that doesn't exonerate his awful coaching.

This is the answer. Croom was so terrible at coaching that it made it look like Jackie and Croom left the program in much worse shape than they did. A good coach coming after Sherrill definitely could have used the pieces in place to turn the program around. And now we know that other than not having a QB, a free safety, and having a huge gap in O-Line recruitment, Croom actually had put together a very good team.

 

[Indndawg]

Its hard to remember the good times under Stans (there were many) b/c

of UMass meltdown, Round Mound, Big Feces, defections, bleacher running...list goes on.