Gene and Croom

[Buford T. Justice]

Gene was interviewed by the Alabama site to give information on MSU for the Bama readers. Here is one question concerning Croom. The Bama site is asking the questions and Gene is answering.

9. Alabama fans have a fondness for Sylvester Croom and wished him success in all but one week (and he had success in that week a couple of times, too!). Is there a feeling that he was a positive for Mississippi State, or is he remembered as not being able to get the job done?

Answer: Many MSU fans have the belief that his tenure at State was unsuccessful. And if you look at his overall numbers that will easily prove their case. But very, very few fans really know what it was like when Sylvester Croom first got to State. I've talked off the record to numerous players who were here at the time and it was truly a mess. I won't go into detail, but suffice it to say it was really bad. Then you add in the fact that the NCAA was investigating State the first year, then State was put on probation after that. That made it almost impossible to recruit. Factor all that in and it was a very tough first few years for Sylvester Croom and the rest of the coaches and players in the MSU football program. But give Coach Croom credit, once all that was out of the way he started bringing in some very talented players. All you have to do is look at the starters on both sides of the ball and you see that.

 

[Coach34]

those 6 NFL players he inherited werent enough to beat Maine either were they?</p>

Crooms may have weeded out some things, but the man left less talent than he inherited- that can't even be disputed</p>

 

[Xenomorph]

...But past playing keeper of the daycare, Croom either was incompetent at recruiting, coaching and motivating or simply too lazy to put forth the effort.

Either way... he was a disaster.

 

[pDigital32Dawg]

please lets talk about Mullen's dawgs not crooms. I know everyone is bringing him up this week but theres something important at stake here tomorrow that he has no control over.</p>

 

[Jake Wimberly]

nm.

 

[Todd4State]

that going from Omarr Conner to a midget is improvement.

 

[Berserker.sixpack]

Lance Long is in the pros but he's a walk-on not a recruit. Didn't do much at MSU.

And who else of Croom's boys are in the pros ...?

 

[FlabLoser]

....have a future NFL talent on the team that achieves nothing while playing for MSU.

 

[Shmuley]

"You know, I understand your reason to bring up the Sylvester Croom era, but the best way to answer any question about that era is to say that it is over, in the past, and we are excited about the new direction of the program. Did you have any questions for me about Coach Mullen and the new staff?"

 

[Seinfeld]

anytime I hear someone say that not many people know just how bad it was when Croom arrived then go on to say that they "won't go into details". In other words, they don't have a 17ing clue either, but it sure is a good excuse.

Also, I think that I may have read where a recruit stated that they were concerned about a school's probation maybe twice. That is a BS excuse for not being able to recruit.

Basically, Croom's entire tenure as well as Croom himself is a giant pile of BS.

 

[MSUCostanza]

Both of you are a blight on our University.

 

[Todd4State]

we certainly had some problems at the end of Jackie's tenure- like Tommy Kelly telling an assistant coach that he wouldn't do a certain drill, and then walk off and not show up until Fri. before the game and STILL start.

But Croom didn't really fix a lot of the problems. If something bad happened, he just chalked it up to "bad character".

Let me put it this way- back during Croom's year, I expected it to be like what we are seeing from Dan Mullen right now. We may not win, but we're competitive, and we don't look like chumps. And look at what Dan's way has gotten us- respect. Heck, there are some people on ESPN picking us to upset Alabama, the #2 team in the country tommorrow. I sure as hell didn't expect to lose to Maine.

 

[Seinfeld]

but Mullen inherited just as big of a pile of crap as Croom did, yet Mullen's team is a few bounces of the ball and/or bad calls away from being 6-2 right now. The scores are what they are and that can't change, but I've seen enough this year from Mullen such that I will be shocked if he is not very successful in his future years at State.

Croom did weed out some problems, but his biggest problem with discipline was that his answer was always to just kick kids off the team as opposed to dealing with the problem. He said it himself, "be good or be gone". Yeah, good luck with competing in the SEC with that philosophy, Sly.