Mike Leach will be doing color commentary for our game Saturday...

[patdog]

against non-conference BCS teams. He was a whopping 7-6 in 10 seasons. And it's not like he was playing the top teams in those conferences in most of those games either. So please, tell me again what a great coach he was. His record says more about how ****** the Big 12 has been (especially defensively) than anything else. He was a good coach with a lot of baggage.

As for him shredding most of the crappy SEC defenses, there just aren't that many crappy SEC defenses out there in most years. You can count on Kentucky to have a bad defense but usually there aren't more than 1 or 2 other bad defenses in the SEC. As opposed to the Big 12 where there usually aren't but 3-4 good defenses.

 

[colodawg]

Bumped into some UF folks while hiking across Independence Pass last week. They are extremely high on Mullen and would take him back in a heartbeat as HC should Meyer retire.

 

[DerHntr]

although, i did stay at a holiday inn express last night

 

[Johnson85]

They have a head coach they like (love?) with a system they believe in. I'm not sure UF jumps at hiring somebody with a different system if Mullen gets a good enough endorsement from Meyer and goes 7-5 this year (basically two years in a row winning the games he should win and not being upset once).

That said, I don't think Mullen would be that high on people'slist this year, at least not of the programs that could actually steal him.If he goes 7-5 and doesn't beatArk,bama, or UF, then as impressive as the turn around of the Slytanic will have been, he still won't have a signature win that shows he has MSU competingwith the bigboys and I'm not sure fans at LSU, UTexas, Oklahoma, USC, etc will be excited about hiring a coach thatgot MSU to the top of the second tier SEC schools.Although they probably should be, becausea coach that avoids upsets at those schools is a coach that wins 10+ almost every year.

If he can get to 8 wins this year, I think people take notice. If he gets 6 or 7 this year and 8 next year, he'll have clearly established himself as a good coach, but I'm not sure fans of other schools will be as impressed as they should be with managing a turn around like that in just 3 years.

 

[Todd4State]

Hiring someone with baggage made more sense then than it does now. MSU needed someone like Jackie Sherrill that was a competent coach that knew how to win, and give people confidence in MSU football. Because of Sherrill, we now have a generation of fans that has seen consistent winning for at least a period of time. Sherrill debunked myths about MSU such as we don't travel well to bowl games and that you couldn't win consistently at MSU. Heck, if ESPN had a story on schools that "should be" national powers in 1990, do you think MSU would have even gotten an honorable mention in that story? No. Some of that is because of what Jackie did in the 1990's.

MSU needed attention, even if that attention was "bad" attention- such as castrating a cow in practice, being investigated for violations, and etc. MSU doesn't need that now. We need Dan Mullen right now- someone with some swagger, but at the same time is a great ambasador for MSU football and does not have any baggage. When Dan leaves, there is still no reason for MSU to hire someone like Mike Leach with a lot of baggage that could potentially split the fan base and what the current MSU administration has worked so hard to build up since 2008.

And I will say- Jackie's offenses sucked in general and were boring to watch. I think MSU goes 11-0 in 1999 with a better offense and I mentioned last week that we would have gone 11-0 or 10-1 had Jackie realized that Steve McNair was a QB and not a safety. And believe me, I wasn't happy about that. I'm actually glad that Jackie is gone in many ways. I appreciate the success that he brought, but the lack of offense, the all JUCO recruiting practices, and the poor discipline on and off the field were maddening. And that's exactly why I don't want Leach either. I want a complete program that wins and is built to win over a long period of time that doesn't make me embarassed to wear a MSU t-shirt out in public.

A Mike Leach maybe would have made sense in 1990 for MSU, but not now. We've made enough strides now that we don't have to go out and make a risky hire like that from a PR perspective.

And you talk abou Leach's great winning percentage- what would it have been with a good defense?

 

[CuzDawg]

questions why we aren't throwing to the backs out of the backfield.