And you've gotta think those donors are already a little on edge. I mean, if the big boys are spending $20M on rosters these days, can we assume that we spent $8-10M? If so, if I happened to be one of the ones that put cash into that pot, I'd sure as hell be wondering where it went.
That depends on what Selmon does. If he goes to Okie, Lebby may be done this year. If he gets another year he will need a really favorable schedule to keep his job beyond that.
That red flag is what the reason why many ppl have formed and stayed in their opine of Coach CoachSpeakYour second paragraph is spot on.
The fact Lebby didn’t get a seasoned DC to be Our DC: As far as I’m concerned, that’s a…
Are you telling me that you’re not impressed that Hutzler’s top ‘26 commitment is the 86th best player from the state of Georgia? Or that MS has 10 defensive players in the state’s Top 25, and Hutzler has commitments from zero?
Holy crap you people need to be realistic here. Our program was gutted. 5 wins is a step in the right direction
Arnett had 16 starters including QB returning from a 9 win team. That idiot changed the entire offense built with personnel to run the air raid. Saying 24 and 22 and 24 had a similar roster is ridiculous.
I couldn't agree with this more. I was just thinking the number of players lost after CML passed and the hiring of Arnett and the transfers out after his tenure ended put us in a huge hole with not hiring a coach and then him hiring a staff until the portal was opening was just bad timing. Most of what we saw last year was squarely on Arnett. I don't know if Lebby is a good coach or not but I know I can't base that decision on last years results. I think for me I can have a better evaluation of whether he is or will be a good coach after this year. I do like how the previous season ended, I thought the team made some substantial gains later in the year.
Arnett drove CML's GMC off into the grand canyon and all decent players with value looked over the cliff and saw the fire and hoped on a greyhound out of town.
You actually believe a different DC with the same roster would have resulted in a different outcome?Yeah, the easy comp here is 2009 Mullens.
And he wasn’t happy with the record and Diaz came in to be DC in place of Torbush.
And Lebby kept Hertzler?
Uh, yeah exactly! That's what I responded too, you think a different outcome would have occured?
I don’t know what the outcome would have been.
I’ll still add though that arnett nor Lebby have lost a defensive player that was worth a damn. Leach AND arnett put us in a bad spot with that.
Sewanee still has us beat.
That's ridiculous, Bruce. Keeping a bad coach another year is NEVER the right answer.
But is he a bad coach or is it a horrible situtation? If you keep giving guys 2 years or less it will be perceived as a horrible situation and who is going to kill their career by going to a horrible no win situation. I think Arnett proved his ineptitude. Lebby would have to be a total disaster this year to prove to the coaching world he is inept.
He's a bad coach in a horrible situation that he's not making any better. If you keep hiring bad coaches, keeping them 3 years is even worse than keeping them one or two years. The problem isn't how often you're turning over coaches, the problem is you're hiring bad coaches. Doesn't matter if you keep them 6 months or 10 years, if you don't hire a good coach it's not going to get better.
This is why Lebby will be here next year. 90% plus chance.
Kinda sorta, but it won’t be because good coaches are afraid of Starkville. It will be because we can’t afford to hire a good coach, pay another $10M+ in buyouts, plus make a legitimate commitment to football NIL. At least, not without some major donors stepping up to a level that we haven’t seen before
It will partially be b/c we've had 4 coaches in 8 years. 3 in 5 years (i'm pulling leach out of the equation).
You can't hire a proven good coach if you're a horrible program. Period.
We were able to hire Jackie Sherrill, Dan Mullen & Mike Leach. Of course Bell never compete with the blue bloods for coaches. But it’s not like we can’t hire a good coach. We can.
You can find a good HC who isn’t at the P4 level. MAC has produced several as has d2. Klieman, Tressel. The AD just needs to put in the time and research. A guy who has never been a HC before really didn’t fulfill the requirements of this job. That seems obvious.
Agreed. MSU can execute effectively when its leadership focuses.
The continuity part is funny since, for the second year in a row, we totally flipped the roster. Like 60 new players again but we want to keep a bad defensive staff totally in tact for continuity's sake? Our CB room is still terrible yet we keep that coach in place as well? At least the other areas of the defense we did improve the talent level.
Exactly. None were Tier 1 coaches at the time we hired them. But all were good coaches. It just takes an AD (or president) with a bit of ambition and initiative to not make the lazy hire of the defensive coordinator or the offensive coordinator at the school the AD came from.
Jackie Sherrill was a pariah when we hired him.
