Selmon said the quiet part out loud ….

[Perd Hapley]

So you are basically saying Dan Mullen wouldn’t have performed better than Moorhead. Got it.

2017
48th in total offense
27th in defense

2018
71st in total offense
2nd in defense

Do you honestly think Mullen wouldn’t have been better in 2018 than slow joe? Is that your stance?

Uhh what? I don’t know where you got any of that, but it wasn’t from my post.

The entire point was that the offense wasn’t drastically different schematically or playcalling wise. Please note I said not “drastically” different. It was obviously different in some respects and added a lot more complexity with the RPO’s, tags, etc. But it was still just a run-based spread offense at its core. Therefore, the players that had success in Mullen’s system should (in theory) have success in Moorhead’s. The chosen hire offered some potential for the coveted “continuity” that so many hold as the gold standard for a coaching change.

Yet, it didn’t work very well, because Moorhead kind of sucked at situational play-calling, he ran the offense at a snail’s pace, there were way too many pre-snap adjustments which created penalties and left us behind the chains a lot, the WR’s often ran the wrong routes or dropped passes in critical moments, and so forth.

In other words, there was a reset on offense due to the change at the top, in spite of every effort made in the hiring process for that to not be the case. That step back on offense essentially cost us that season, because the defense took a huge step forward.

We should have said to hell with trying to match systems, and just hired the best available candidate. And not worry about what happens when that candidate leaves. You can’t ever make or not make a hire based on what you want the NEXT hire to look like. That’s a recipe for disaster and disappointment.

 

[L4Dawg]

It doesn't have to be a total and complete reset if the AD is around for multiple hires.

You might have the same exact system but you can have some continuity. Take Mullen's system. There are plenty of athletes in Mississippi to make Mullen's system or relatively close variations successful.

Spread offense with power run mixed in as your identity
Mobile qb to gain a blocking advantage at times
Play action pass
Little bit of read option
Chris Relf took us to 9-4. You can find a lot of guys like Chris Relf who you can make into decent QBs.

You don't need stud wide receivers. Bear wasn't a stud. Good but not great.
Need a decent O-line that is will coached. Dillon Day wasn't a stud. Good but not great.

Just recruit well enough to improve the player and the situation and hopefully you have the right pieces fall together for the occasional 2014 scenario. Maybe get lucky and have a 2014 year with an Ole Miss schedule.

Exactly. That works for us because that is what our recruiting base provides players for....or it did before Leach blew it up without replacing it.

 

[She Mate Me]

Based on a quick perusal of the last few pages herein, it appears football season on SPS is now fully engaged, in all it's **** slinging, name calling glory.

 

[paindonthurt]

Uhh what? I don’t know where you got any of that, but it wasn’t from my post.

The entire point was that the offense wasn’t drastically different schematically or playcalling wise. Please note I said not “drastically” different. It was obviously different in some respects and added a lot more complexity with the RPO’s, tags, etc. But it was still just a run-based spread offense at its core. Therefore, the players that had success in Mullen’s system should (in theory) have success in Moorhead’s. The chosen hire offered some potential for the coveted “continuity” that so many hold as the gold standard for a coaching change.

Yet, it didn’t work very well, because Moorhead kind of sucked at situational play-calling, he ran the offense at a snail’s pace, there were way too many pre-snap adjustments which created penalties and left us behind the chains a lot, the WR’s often ran the wrong routes or dropped passes in critical moments, and so forth.

In other words, there was a reset on offense due to the change at the top, in spite of every effort made in the hiring process for that to not be the case. That step back on offense essentially cost us that season, because the defense took a huge step forward.

We should have said to hell with trying to match systems, and just hired the best available candidate. And not worry about what happens when that candidate leaves. You can’t ever make or not make a hire based on what you want the NEXT hire to look like. That’s a recipe for disaster and disappointment.

Running the ball the same amount of time doesn't make the offense similar.

Slo Joe's offense was very finesse compared to Mullen's offense. You could have easily found a guy with a much similar strategy as Mullen. Obviously i'm sure Cohen thought he had found that person.

In hindsight, Joe's overall strategy was much different. Finesse offense compared to physical power running. Terrible discipline.

Is it easy to have continuity between coaches? No. Is it impossible? Yes it 100% is possible.

 

[L4Dawg]

Actually it was one of four teams in school history to win 9, win the egg bowl, finish in top 20 and win a bowl game. But Leach was a gimmick and bad hire*. Sometimes you get what you ask for.

You still don't get it. Why Leach was a bad hire has nothing to do with record. He wasn't going to be here long even if he hadn't died. We were the pre-retirement job closer to Key West. What made him such an atrocious hire was that NOBODY runs his system anymore, and his system requires a certain types of players that don't in total really fit other systems. Those players also aren't that common in our recruiting either. Leach was a best a decent temporary band aid.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

It doesn't have to be a total and complete reset if the AD is around for multiple hires.

You might have the same exact system but you can have some continuity. Take Mullen's system. There are plenty of athletes in Mississippi to make Mullen's system or relatively close variations successful.

Spread offense with power run mixed in as your identity
Mobile qb to gain a blocking advantage at times
Play action pass
Little bit of read option
Chris Relf took us to 9-4. You can find a lot of guys like Chris Relf who you can make into decent QBs.

You don't need stud wide receivers. Bear wasn't a stud. Good but not great.
Need a decent O-line that is will coached. Dillon Day wasn't a stud. Good but not great.

Just recruit well enough to improve the player and the situation and hopefully you have the right pieces fall together for the occasional 2014 scenario. Maybe get lucky and have a 2014 year with an Ole Miss schedule.

Exactly. That works for us because that is what our recruiting base provides players for....or it did before Leach blew it up without replacing it.

You two idiots are looking at the wrong things.

On the surface, most people would probably agree with you. But that thought is way too shallow......You're trying to lead with offense, which is not a good thing for MSU, never has been. We should be leading with defense, and that's where all our best athletes should go. That's where we spend the most NIL, etc.

Offense type doesn't matter, it just needs to be unique.

 

[mstateglfr]

We should have said to hell with trying to match systems, and just hired the best available candidate. And not worry about what happens when that candidate leaves. You can’t ever make or not make a hire based on what you want the NEXT hire to look like. That’s a recipe for disaster and disappointment.

Well stated.

 

[POTUS]

Based on a quick perusal of the last few pages herein, it appears football season on SPS is now fully engaged, in all it's **** slinging, name calling glory.

You would be shocked how much more readable these threads are when you mute the right people. I haven't seen a post from a couple of the resident morons here in a while (the folks who drone on and on about how huge a mistake it was to hire the coach with the second best career winning percentage of all our coaches ever) and it's just easier to peruse the board.

 

[paindonthurt]

You two idiots are looking at the wrong things.

On the surface, most people would probably agree with you. But that thought is way too shallow......You're trying to lead with offense, which is not a good thing for MSU, never has been. We should be leading with defense, and that's where all our best athletes should go. That's where we spend the most NIL, etc.

Offense type doesn't matter, it just needs to be unique.

double digit goat
$2.9 million

I'll give you 20 to 1 odds my iq is 15 points higher than yours.

You loser.

 

[Dawgg]

Arnett was to blame for our offensive demolition. He gutted our offensive coaching staff and a lot of the players said goodbye. Good for them. If you are still blaming Leach for our offensive woes go do some research.
Personally, I thought Arnett was a good choice to keep recruits that had given us verbal commitments. Then he gutted the offensive coaching staff and my opinion changed.

Same here. I felt like we had a lot of momentum to end the season with the Egg Bowl win and an emotional Reliquest Bowl win over a Big Ten team, especially with the way the team finished the 4th quarter of the Reliquest Bowl. I thought we were going to be pretty good the next year and I thought Arnett was the right call to keep that momentum going. Barbay even said things like “we’re going to fit the scheme to the players”. Boy, was I wrong.

Then they did the same sнit JoMo did and try to fit a square peg in a round hole. Wholesale scheme changes are great when you’re losing, but when you’re winning, you need to make those offensive changes more gradually. Both of those staffs took over 9 win teams and ran them into the ground.

 

[mstateglfr]

double digit goat
$2.9 million

I'll give you 20 to 1 odds my iq is 15 points higher than yours.

You loser.

Oh damn, an IQ challenge has just been levied.

 

[Drebin]

Oh damn, an IQ challenge has just been levied.

@paindonthurt needs to be careful. Multiple Personality Disorder requires significant intelligence.

 

[paindonthurt]

@paindonthurt needs to be careful. Multiple Personality Disorder requires significant intelligence.

Thats something i haven't thought about.

A. maybe i'm not as smart as i think.
B. maybe goat is a mad genius

I highly doubt B is right!!!

 

[L4Dawg]

You two idiots are looking at the wrong things.

On the surface, most people would probably agree with you. But that thought is way too shallow......You're trying to lead with offense, which is not a good thing for MSU, never has been. We should be leading with defense, and that's where all our best athletes should go. That's where we spend the most NIL, etc.

Offense type doesn't matter, it just needs to be unique.

And Leach did EXACTLY the opposite with the athletes. Type of offense sure as heck DOES matter. You have to run what you can get athletes to run. You are too fixated on scheme and scheme alone.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

@paindonthurt needs to be careful. Multiple Personality Disorder requires significant intelligence.

Aww hell, the angry 55+ gen x brigade is getting united against me

 

[Drebin]

Aww hell, the angry 55+ gen x brigade is getting united against me

Dude, the lines have been drawn for years.

 

[CochiseCowbell]

At least we're arguing about sports this time.

 

[CaptainFalcon]

One thing in the article he said was we had $500k in our total NIL budget for all sports. I’m pretty sure that is incorrect.

Running the ball the same amount of time doesn't make the offense similar.

Slo Joe's offense was very finesse compared to Mullen's offense. You could have easily found a guy with a much similar strategy as Mullen. Obviously i'm sure Cohen thought he had found that person.

In hindsight, Joe's overall strategy was much different. Finesse offense compared to physical power running. Terrible discipline.

Is it easy to have continuity between coaches? No. Is it impossible? Yes it 100% is possible.

The Moorhead offense worked a lot better when it featured Saquon Barkley, Chris Godwin, and Mike Gesicki. Shocker, I know.

 

[paindonthurt]

The Moorhead offense worked a lot better when it featured Saquon Barkley, Chris Godwin, and Mike Gesicki. Shocker, I know.

100% but it wasn't the same as Mullen's offense by any stretch.

I mean it was similar in that he ran the ball and he threw the ball but thats about it.

 

[Perd Hapley]

NCAA created the first formal NIL committee in 2019. You have to be an absolute idiot as an athletic director to believe NIL was not a formality when making a coaching hire in 2020.

Wow. I don’t even know where to begin with this.

I’m honestly not sure which theory is the most preposterous:

1) Being able to forecast that - within 3 years of a committee forming - that the 2 most historical, sacred things that actually made NCAA athletics “college sports” would be completely flushed down the shítter.

2) Being able to know that future with such clarity that you could automatically just write off certain candidates who “wouldn’t like it” or “wouldn’t be good at it”.

Running the ball the same amount of time doesn't make the offense similar.

Slo Joe's offense was very finesse compared to Mullen's offense. You could have easily found a guy with a much similar strategy as Mullen. Obviously i'm sure Cohen thought he had found that person.

In hindsight, Joe's overall strategy was much different. Finesse offense compared to physical power running. Terrible discipline.

Is it easy to have continuity between coaches? No. Is it impossible? Yes it 100% is possible.

They were both spread offenses with very similar zone blocking schemes and a lot of similar concepts in the playbook. Both ran tons of zone read and QB power. Both started up front in the run game to open up passing lanes (hence more running plays than passes)

Psssing-wise, Moorhead wanted to attack vertically down the field more often, and utilize more play action. Mullen attacked horizontally hoping to break a big play with a shifty slot WR’s like Bump and Jameon. That’s why Fitz’s completion % dropped by 4% but he still kept the same passer rating and increased his YPA. He was attempting longer passes.

Where the “finesse” came in was with the constant changing of plays before the snap, the multiple route options for WR’s depending on alignment / leverage, and all that crap. It was too complex for an SEC roster and resulted in way too many busted plays.

But fundamentally, they were similar enough that it would have worked fine if JoMo didn’t overthink it.

 

[curseddawgs]

I am not speculating. My source was someone on staff. Your source is clearly someone who was full of ****.

But carry on.

Yeah. Sawyer didn’t watch film and was extremely immature while here. He’s grown tremendously at Baylor on and off the field but he won’t be an nfl player sorry to disappoint the air raid cohen bros

 

[paindonthurt]

But fundamentally, they were similar enough that it would have worked fine if JoMo didn’t overthink it.

No they were not.

 

[CaptainFalcon]

100% but it wasn't the same as Mullen's offense by any stretch.

I mean it was similar in that he ran the ball and he threw the ball but thats about it.

No you’re correct, there were a lot of differences. Mullen’s offense was fairly simple while he was here, Moorhead had our QB’s doing advanced calculus equations in their head on every play.

 

[Passivetrader]

Cohen is the worst hire this school has ever made for anything ever. Gross incompetence. A lot of people have been saying this about baseball for a long time.

Second worst, Larry Templeton was the worst.

 

[MedDawg]

I don’t think anyone is saying Leach is a bad coach. It was the wrong coach at the wrong time. 60 year old Leach in 2020 in the era of NIL & transfer portal was not the right hire for Mississippi State. 2000s Texas Tech Leach was a different person, in a different era of CFB, that was more suited for him.

Leach won 11 games at Washington State in 2018, so reducing him to his good years at Texas Tech is wrong. Also, there was no NIL when State hired him in January 2020.

 

[MedDawg]

Before we get too excited about what Selmon said, let's remember that this is the same guy who hired his buddy from Oklahoma with zero head coaching experience, and really only 2 years of mixed results at Oklahoma of running his own offense. He's talking big, but he hired real lazy and cheap. That was a Mississippi State hire if there every was one.

No. Lebby had successful offenses at three different schools. Had top 5 offenses at Oklahoma and UCF and top 8 at OM.

Many P4 schools, some much richer than us, hire assistants to be their HC. Some of the currently best teams in the country hired assistants.

 

[MedDawg]

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.

No, hiring Leach had nothing to do with Kiffin. That's what OM fans say. No one was worried about Kiffin in 2019. No one wanted him other than OM and Arkansas.

Leach was one of the most accomplished coaches we have hired, and he had done it at two schools more like MSU.

 

[Perd Hapley]

No you’re correct, there were a lot of differences.

There were not fundamental differences in how the offense worked. The routes run by receivers, the blocking assignments, the foundational playcalls, etc. Moorhead ran an option-based spread offense. Mullen ran an option-based spread offense. Moorhead ran RPO’s. Mullen ran RPO’s. They diverged on specific points of emphasis….Moorhead wanted downfield shots / chunk plays with air yards because based on analytics those plays pay off more than dinking and dunking. Mullen leaned more into the short / intermediate passing game.

Mullen’s offense was fairly simple while he was here, Moorhead had our QB’s doing advanced calculus equations in their head on every play.

And there’s the rub. Too much thinking by any position group is a bad thing. And it wasn’t just Fitz (or even primarily Fitz) having to do the calculus. It was the OL, receivers, and RB’s as well.

Mullen had his play calls which he repped out in practice. Receivers knew what routes to run and how to diverge from them. OL knew their blocking assignments. Not a lot changed based on defensive alignment / down / distance, other than route depth. There might be one audible from the sideline if something was noticed, but that was it. Timing was a point of emphasis so throws came out in rhythm. Mullen’s RPO’s were simple, straightforward, and not overly frequent.

Moorhead was the opposite, each receiver had up to 3 or 4 routes they might run for a single playcall, based on defensive alignment. And that was just the base route…..which would be altered for depth and direction based on down and distance. Then they also had blocking assignments on RPO’s that they had to know, and Moorhead had RPO’s going in about every other play. You can’t rep that out on an NCAA practice schedule….there’s too much variation. And perhaps more importantly, in the SEC there just isn’t the time to go through progressions or the ability for average WR’s to recover from being jammed in man coverage in that offense. It didn’t work not because the offense itself was flawed, it was because Moorhead couldn’t teach it, or cover for his inability to teach it with more remedial playcalling. That was the difference. Not the offense itself.

 

[L4MANDW]

No, hiring Leach had nothing to do with Kiffin. That's what OM fans say. No one was worried about Kiffin in 2019. No one wanted him other than OM and Arkansas.

Leach was one of the most accomplished coaches we have hired, and he had done it at two schools more like MSU.

I disagree, no one was worried about Kiff in 2019 true, but he was a recognized name who schools thought had the potential to win, save he get his act together. Leach was accomplished, no one questioned that but he was brought in as a counter to the hiring of Lane. He made great accomplishments during his time at State consistent with his coaching history at earlier stops but as I asked many State fans after his hire, he’s a good coach but do you believe he will bring Starkville a championship? Never got a yes out of that question and have several State fans hang up an not answer but when finally posed w/the closed question, give me a simple yes or no answer, the replies all reluctantly came back a resounding NO! I’m not in the know at anything State, just a fan who follows a team but I believe anyone who doesn’t believe the Leach hire was just a knee jerk response to the Kiffin hire just doesn’t want to admit that and doesn’t really accept that reality. Do I believe Leach was brought here to win? Sure. Do I believe Leach could win here? Sure and he did consistent to all his previous stops as his coaching history shows. Nobody knew what Kiffin was gonna do but everyone knew it was a known name hire and the potential was there and those at State knew they had to counter that in case Lane was successful. Most definitely Mike was the man who could bring the most attention to the program here in the quickest amount of time and do it by winning consistently but bring championships here? Maybe he could have but sadly now we’ll never know.