Mullen's pre-game speech

[Todd4State]

He is a good motivational speaker. The people complaining about the umms.. are being really nitpicky.

There is a segment of our fanbase that he does appeal to. For example, my Mom really likes him as a person. She understands why he was fired and likes Mullen, to, but she still likes Croom as a person. If Croom was a speaker at a fundraising event, she would be more likely to give money than if Jackie Sherrill or Ron Polk were the speaker.

 

[GloryDawg]

did you hate hearing Croom speak more then you hated hearing Jackie speak? Also who did you hate more in general? The only Ole Miss Coach I hated was Billy Brewer.</p>

 

[GloryDawg]

He is a good motivational speaker. The people complaining about the umms.. are being really nitpicky.

There is a segment of our fanbase that he does appeal to. For example, my Mom really likes him as a person. She understands why he was fired and likes Mullen, to, but she still likes Croom as a person. If Croom was a speaker at a fundraising event, she would be more likely to give money than if Jackie Sherrill or Ron Polk were the speaker.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">There are many posters who just hated Croom and everything about him. This is the forum they use to let their feelings known. As long as they obey the board rules they should have the right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span> Croom was like a cancer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span> Once you have it in your system it takes awhile to heal it and get it out. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I liked Croom but hated his decision making. I was not real happy with the hire but being a good Bulldog faithful I backed him 100% for the first two years and then it became apparent to me that he was an idiot and needed to go. </p>

 

[Felonious Junk]

"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." Pregame speeches are extremely overrated. Probably the most important pregame activity is going over the maxims.

 

[theOriginalOne]

He really would say stupid things on a daily basis to the media. He constantly whined about the talent level of the team he inherited, often calling out players. He also would become stubborn and take a hard line about what he was doing scheme-wise or make outlandish statements about how his players would never get into trouble.

Couple all that with his teary-ended recollections of the Bear, and it's easy to see how he grated on a lot of fans.

 

[OMlawdog]

Probably because I didn't care about it as much when Jackie was winning. I was in college and then law school, and hating your rival was fun, but not something you do everyday like most alumni now a days. Also the internet has made the coaches more present. I don't think I read or heard anything Jackie said until egg bowl week, now you hear everything, everyday.

The reason Croom made me more nervous than Jackie was that I didn't think Jackie could win long term, give him a great set of jucos and he could win games, but I didn't think it would be consistent. I was worried Croom could be a football version of Stansbury. A guy that could cherry pick in state, and get enough solid players from out of state to be a consistent 6-6 to 9-3 team.

He just couldn't get out of his own way on the field.

I was more worried about Croom in 2007 than i was about Jackie going into 2001. I thought back to back winning seasons would give him enough credibility to do well at MSU.

 

[GloryDawg]

Probably because I didn't care about it as much when Jackie was winning. I was in college and then law school, and hating your rival was fun, but not something you do everyday like most alumni now a days. Also the internet has made the coaches more present. I don't think I read or heard anything Jackie said until egg bowl week, now you hear everything, everyday.

The reason Croom made me more nervous than Jackie was that I didn't think Jackie could win long term, give him a great set of jucos and he could win games, but I didn't think it would be consistent. I was worried Croom could be a football version of Stansbury. A guy that could cherry pick in state, and get enough solid players from out of state to be a consistent 6-6 to 9-3 team.

He just couldn't get out of his own way on the field.

I was more worried about Croom in 2007 than i was about Jackie going into 2001. I thought back to back winning seasons would give him enough credibility to do well at MSU.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">That's a change. Many of my Ole Miss friends hate Jackie with a passion. They seemed to like Croom, maybe because he could not win. If MSU would have done as well as projected in 2001, I think Jackie would have still been there a few more years then he did even with the probation. I don't think it was the JUCO recruits that hurt Jackie. It was the NCAA investigations that went on for three years. Michael Fair told me that he and all the players had investigators following them around all the time making sure they were paying for meal at restaurants and other things.</p>

 

[patdog]

I was more worried about Croom in 2007 than i was about Jackie going into 2001. I thought back to back winning seasons would give him enough credibility to do well at MSU.

Going into 2001 Jackie was 33-15 in his last 4 years and MSU had been the most successful football program in the SEC West over that time span. And you were worried more in 2007 about a man who only once won more than 3 I-A games in a single season.

 

[Optimus Prime 4]

hell, if that much. Football games were an excuse to get a date and get wasted all weekend. Now if I had been older I'm sure I would have cared more. But then? Wasn't that big of a deal.

 

[Optimus Prime 4]

[No message]

 

[OMlawdog]

and I thought we were screwed. We had an idiot for a head coach, and MSU had a guy that the media loved, that though a terrible gameday coach, I thought could effectively recruit in MS as well as any MSU coach before him.

He had the PR part down, in my mind. He just couldn't coach.

Once we hired Nutt, I wasn't worried as much about Croom because Nutt was a great public speaker as well, and the media loved him, and he was a great game day coach. But I thought MSU had a chance to do something solid.

In PR sense we had a alcoholic, anti-christian, cajun, that sounded like he came right out of the movie the Waterboy, while Croom was the christian, black, strong father figure that would play great in MS.

 

[OMlawdog]

I thought Jackie had run his course. How many MSU fans are going to be saying that they aren't worried about Nutt once O's recruits leave, hell they already say it.

Back in 2001 I thought we were going to be headed in a solid direction with Eli at QB and some solid offensive players around him. I also thought Cut was doing great in recruiting with Buckles/Spencer/Stallings/Biddle/Espy type players we were landing.

Croom reminds me so much of Barnes at Ole Miss. Media loved them, I think they honestly cared about their players, players loved them, strong christian presence, each had a glaring deficiency. Barnes couldn't recruit and Croom couldn't coach. Some may argue that Croom couldn't recruit as well, but I think he was getting better before he was fired, Barnes was always terrible unless we hired a high school coach, and never improved.

Am I saying that Croom was oh so close to being dominant in the state of MS? No. What Im saying is that he was a strong public speaker, and that if he could have coached a lick he had the opportunity to do solid things at MSU.

 

[GhostOfJackie]

I agree, it was not a jaw dropping speech. He got the point across and he stressed the points he wanted to get out a few times. Obama is a good speech giver and I could give a **** less what he said. Coaching the football team is what matters. With that said... it was not "that" bad of a speech. It was his first time too.

Playing with "relentless effort" is something that we did not do last year and that is the most important part of the speech.