He is 100% correct. John Cohen almost destroyed MSU athletics. I'm using the word "almost" in hope. Spending that much money on baseball and not doing hardly anything for the sport that pays all the bills was not smart.
Selmon said the quiet part out loud ….
- Thread starter Shmuley
- Start date
When Mullen left we could have easily hired a sitting head coach. We had the money and the talent to be an attractive job. Instead the smartest guy in the room saved a few bucks and wasted our best roster ever. It completely killed our momentum. That decision cost this university millions of dollars over the last 8 years.
You went the only one saying, and none of the rest of us were popular either.
The thing you can't seem to see was we were about to start sucking WITH Leach. The talent level was trending down at most positions, even if it was up at a couple. The defense especially was running out of players.
This FACT has nothing to do with what I posted.
But if you want me to 'blame' it on something, I will select...
- the talent of players transferring in not equaling the talent of players transferring out after the '22 and '23 seasons.
- lack of continuity in coaching staff for the prior couple years.
Add those two things together and you get a bad rebuilding situation...but that isnt due to Leach's offense or his having been hired, which is what I commented on earlier.
Lebby has had 2 Spring Portal windows and 1 full HS recruiting season to create the current roster. With how many players enter the portal each year, it is reasonable to think overall team talent can turn around within a couple portal windows.
no kidding. I say this everytime it comes up but the 5 best defensive players on the 2023 team were MULLEN recruits. And the 6th best was a Jomo recruit. And those were basically the only 6 worth talking about.
Nice deflection, the fact is it’s the norm now to have massive turnover in the transfer portal. Other than Clemson no one is keeping the same roster year to year.
Leachs recruiting three years ago after two coaching changes is a ridiculous criticism
We are talking about the current state of talent.
Last year directly affects this year.
last year we had the worst talent we’ve ever had or pretty darn close. Leach does deserve some of the blame for last years talent. That’s a fact.
Leach was telling folks closest to him before he passed that 2023 was going to be his final season and retire to Key West. I personally love Coach Leach, but Cohen hired him to get to make a splash more for himself than for Mississippi State.
No, it's not the norm. It's maybe normal for teams trying to dig out of holes. The question is how we got in the hole - and that's where you aren't getting it.
And my comment wasn't a deflection. It was a complete and total defeat of your feeble argument.
This is and has always been fake news.
So is this.
Neither of these backed up by facts. And the facts are, it's much easier to transition from a passing offense to a running offense, than the other way around. The other facts were that Leach's recruiting classes were just fine, ranked mid-20s, with a bunch of MS players and overlooked out of staters, like always. And we had a damn good hit rate in the portal too. The guy knew what a D1 football player looked like.
I get that ya'll didn't like or want Leach, but come up with something backed up by reality, if you want to bash him.
Last year when the transfer portal closed we were 1 year and 5 months away from Leach’s death.
Drunk, not asleep.
But nope, that's uniquely OUR situation, caused from within. Keenum, Arnett, Selman and Lebby all played a part.
That's not what went down at Texas Tech or Washington State.
And this is the guy half the fanbase wants to run off for some reason. Selmon is continuing to show he’s growing into this job.
Yes, those folks have all played a part. But you're talking symptoms vs disease.
As far as Tech or WSU, apples and bowling balls. Completely different situations, the biggest of which being those teams don't play in the SEC.
What are you talking about ? Ole Miss has large roster turnover through the portal every year and is a good team. Indiana , ASU both playoff teams…. Three years later not many rosters would be intact after two coaching changes.
Swing and a miss......but keep swinging. Maybe you'll make contact one of these days.
I am not blaming anyone here, I am simply stating facts that I think are relevant.
- 25% of fbs players transferred a couple years ago.
- Lebby has had 2 Spring Transfer Portals to sign talent and 1 full HS signing season.
- That much turnover thru the portal each year reduces how long it can take to rebuild.
Now, consider why Mississippi State has had challenges recruiting high school and the portal the last two years, even with more NIL money to spend, and you'll get closer to the root cause of all of this.
Well, Perd said it well.
But my .02, Id like to know more detail on the failure to "investment" into football and instead invest in baseball. Was there a robbing of Peter to pay Paul? I doubt it. Or was money donated to the baseball stadium rebuild that could have went to football? Maybe someone just wanted to give to a baseball stadium.
Some important facts, I love Dan, Dak and Jones all the others .... but losing to Bama and OM in 14 and 15 was a gut punch. Then the 16 season was bad. Then 17 we lose again to Bama and OM. I'm sure people were really feeling dejected about that time and asking people to commit millions of dollars wasn't easy. But I'm not defending Cohen here, just pointing out the facts. Also when was the baseball stadium rebuild put into motion? Loafers left in 2016 and Cohen is hired. Baseball stadium started demo in 2017
Then in that same time frame baseball won a regional almost every year from 2011-2019 and won the sec in 2016.
But as far as 500k in NIL in 2022. I doubt many bottom P4 schools had more in the bank. NIL wasn't officially allowed by the ncaa until July 1, 2021. Then we have our AD leave and coach die. So yeah, who is giving millions to that train wreck.
As for hiring Moorhead and Leach, I imagine there is a lot more to those decisions than is made public. There is no way, none, that I believe Leach was choice 1 for the Intense Bastard. Those two personalities couldn't be more opposite. Leach was choice 3 for Cohen. Hiring Moorhead, seemed like a good hire at the time. Because outside Bellard and Jackie, State hadn't hired any one in history with much experience. It's easy to say now it was a bad decision.
With all that said, you can't play 3rd or 4th fiddle in your own state (behind Bama, LSU and OM) and expect some coach to come in here and build a championship program over night. I think Selmon is doing one helluva job as AD at Mississippi State. However the situation for football is damn near impossible, to build into a winner.
We have 8,300ish in the Bulldog Club. OM has 16,000ish in the Loyalty Foundation. That says alot right there. State needs more fans and for those fans to give. There is a reason two alumni left the AD position, unfortunately.
But my .02, Id like to know more detail on the failure to "investment" into football and instead invest in baseball. Was there a robbing of Peter to pay Paul? I doubt it. Or was money donated to the baseball stadium rebuild that could have went to football? Maybe someone just wanted to give to a baseball stadium.
Some important facts, I love Dan, Dak and Jones all the others .... but losing to Bama and OM in 14 and 15 was a gut punch. Then the 16 season was bad. Then 17 we lose again to Bama and OM. I'm sure people were really feeling dejected about that time and asking people to commit millions of dollars wasn't easy. But I'm not defending Cohen here, just pointing out the facts. Also when was the baseball stadium rebuild put into motion? Loafers left in 2016 and Cohen is hired. Baseball stadium started demo in 2017
Then in that same time frame baseball won a regional almost every year from 2011-2019 and won the sec in 2016.
But as far as 500k in NIL in 2022. I doubt many bottom P4 schools had more in the bank. NIL wasn't officially allowed by the ncaa until July 1, 2021. Then we have our AD leave and coach die. So yeah, who is giving millions to that train wreck.
As for hiring Moorhead and Leach, I imagine there is a lot more to those decisions than is made public. There is no way, none, that I believe Leach was choice 1 for the Intense Bastard. Those two personalities couldn't be more opposite. Leach was choice 3 for Cohen. Hiring Moorhead, seemed like a good hire at the time. Because outside Bellard and Jackie, State hadn't hired any one in history with much experience. It's easy to say now it was a bad decision.
With all that said, you can't play 3rd or 4th fiddle in your own state (behind Bama, LSU and OM) and expect some coach to come in here and build a championship program over night. I think Selmon is doing one helluva job as AD at Mississippi State. However the situation for football is damn near impossible, to build into a winner.
We have 8,300ish in the Bulldog Club. OM has 16,000ish in the Loyalty Foundation. That says alot right there. State needs more fans and for those fans to give. There is a reason two alumni left the AD position, unfortunately.
Last edited:
Leach was a knee jerk reaction hire to Kiffin who was popular enough to sustain the program here but everyone knows he was never gonna win a natty here. Just misfortunate that he passed before he could stabilize constant winning seasons and we could build off those. Also, Cohen hired him just so he could show he could grab a big fish and that was a feather in his cap to move on down to Auby.
Leach recruiting classes were not balanced talent wise. The defense was about to suck no matter who the coach was. That was his MO wherever he went. It worked for him....sort of. He could always out score opponents, even good ones, in leagues that didn't play much defense. As for his offensive players, they worked well, for him. That is why going with a total niche system is about the absolute worst thing you can do to build and maintain a program long term, especially at a place like MSU.
And there's reason why he's showing clear interest in coming back if Lebby doesn't work out. Getting back with your ex is often stupid... but for us it just might work.
Ok but you are overlooking an important fact.
Lebby took over the worst talent we've ever had. Part of is on Leach. Part of it is on Arnett.
Of course not. It’s pretty clear we didn’t work too hard to keep him though.
He has no vision.
Dan Mullen will never be the coach here again.
I think the point Selmon is making is that Cohen wasn't actively out looking for football money like he was baseball money.
If he was, he didn't do a very good job at it considering what selmon has been able to get committed.
I'm not arguing or disagreeing here but where has mullen shown "clear interest in coming back"?
Come on, man. I know where you are going with this. Placating the dumbassedry that is MS high school football coaching circles is not the route we need to go. They all got their way in 2023 and we see how that turned out.
Neither Mullen nor Leach did that and bam, both were successful.
Great post. I do want to clue in on the part in bold, but didn't want to cut out the rest of your post.
It really is that simple. This article and comments by Selman are BS. Politician level BS, meant to sell the dream. And that's fine I guess, if it rallies the base. But it's BS nonetheless.
No that's not where I was going with that.
When we are competing with other programs for the same players and offering competitive NIL deals, why are they choosing the other programs?
I guess that we'll see this week if "we are digging out of a hole" or climbing out