What ticks you off most about Croom?

DawgatAuburn · Sep 17, 2008

In the nearly five year tenure of Sly Croom, there have been many puzzling moments. I started thinking through a few of them and came up with the following list. I'm sure there are more. Which one is the one that ticks you off the most? I think for me it is the blaming of the players and their lack of execution of the offense. Those guys are killing themselves in 100 degree heat in two a days for you, then you throw them under the bus every time "your" offense looks like a bunch of blind fifth graders. Which is every game against a D-1 opponent.

2004
Insist on running the WCO
Hire Woody, who had never worked with the WCO
Stay in Green Bay during his first recruiting season
Maine
Bang it into the line over and over against LSU because "that's what we do"

 2005
Move Omarr to WR for Henig to play QB
Proclaim that MSU fans will never be embarrassed again by off the field actions, then see player after player in trouble with the law
Find a way to lose to Houston on the day your star RB sets the school's single game rushing record

2006
Say that you don't care what the fans think on your radio show after Tulane smokes you at home
Punt from the UGA 30 after going for it at the 45

2007
Allow Eric Richards to get hurt in practice and miss the season

2008
Fly to La Tech the day of the game
Punt to La Tech with 2:30 left when you had not stopped them in the second half
Suspend Pegues for missing summer classes

Bench your starting QB for a JUCO walkon in a game you should have won
Go for it on 4th and 15 against Auburn
Have your first team offense work on the Ga Tech offense in practice to give your defense a better look at it

In General
Earn the following QB commits in your coaching tenure: Mike Henig, Adron Chambers, Ty Evans, Tray Rutland, Josh Riddell, Wesley Carroll, Chris Relf, Zach Smith. In two of your five classes, you failed to sign one quarterback. These eight have combined to earn a total of seven varsity letters, three of them by Mike Henig.
Blaming players for not making plays and not executing at 100% perfection, which, according to you, is required to make your offense work
 
[Edit: switched Maine and LSU 2004 because sometimes order of operations is important. Plus we saw a guy at LSU that year wearing a Maine t-shirt. -vh]

DawgatAuburn · Sep 17, 2008

In the nearly five year tenure of Sly Croom, there have been many puzzling moments. I started thinking through a few of them and came up with the following list. I'm sure there are more. Which one is the one that ticks you off the most? I think for me it is the blaming of the players and their lack of execution of the offense. Those guys are killing themselves in 100 degree heat in two a days for you, then you throw them under the bus every time "your" offense looks like a bunch of blind fifth graders. Which is every game against a D-1 opponent.

2004
Insist on running the WCO
Hire Woody, who had never worked with the WCO
Stay in Green Bay during his first recruiting season
Maine
Bang it into the line over and over against LSU because "that's what we do"

 2005
Move Omarr to WR for Henig to play QB
Proclaim that MSU fans will never be embarrassed again by off the field actions, then see player after player in trouble with the law
Find a way to lose to Houston on the day your star RB sets the school's single game rushing record

2006
Say that you don't care what the fans think on your radio show after Tulane smokes you at home
Punt from the UGA 30 after going for it at the 45

2007
Allow Eric Richards to get hurt in practice and miss the season

2008
Fly to La Tech the day of the game
Punt to La Tech with 2:30 left when you had not stopped them in the second half
Suspend Pegues for missing summer classes

Bench your starting QB for a JUCO walkon in a game you should have won
Go for it on 4th and 15 against Auburn
Have your first team offense work on the Ga Tech offense in practice to give your defense a better look at it

In General
Earn the following QB commits in your coaching tenure: Mike Henig, Adron Chambers, Ty Evans, Tray Rutland, Josh Riddell, Wesley Carroll, Chris Relf, Zach Smith. In two of your five classes, you failed to sign one quarterback. These eight have combined to earn a total of seven varsity letters, three of them by Mike Henig.
Blaming players for not making plays and not executing at 100% perfection, which, according to you, is required to make your offense work
 
[Edit: switched Maine and LSU 2004 because sometimes order of operations is important. Plus we saw a guy at LSU that year wearing a Maine t-shirt. -vh]

Phil Wenneck.sixpack · Sep 17, 2008

thing is simply his attitude towards the fans. I think deep down he feels Mississippi State is somewhat beneath him and since long time supporters of the place haven't exactly seen alot to cheer about, he thinks we have no real authority to ever question his judgement. It's in the way he blames it all on players "not making plays", "missed a block", "blew an assignment", etc. He will only take blame when severely forced in a corner and even then finds someone to take down with him. I also hate the fact that he reminds us over and over that a few short years ago, we were getting blown out to the likes of Auburn. In year 5, moral victories are a moot point but it still goes back to point A above where he feels it's his duty to remind us that we're Mississippi State and we should be happy to simply compete. Oh yeah, and I hate the absolute dog **** out of our uniforms and helmets since Croom took over. That still may tick me off more than anything.

Center Z · Sep 17, 2008

itawambadog · Sep 17, 2008

i hear it from bama fans all the time "gald we didn't get croom" and i think "damn i wished you did it would've saved us some trouble maybe"

DerHntr · Sep 17, 2008

he looks so far down his nose at our fans you would think he is an OM homer in an expensive winter coat walking around the Egg Bowl as I enter with my camo jacket on (which probably cost more than his winter coat).

/as for me the thing i dislike the most is his inabilty to make a wholesale change in offense when it is clearly warranted. giving excuses about the players not being perfect is laughable.

BlindDawg · Sep 17, 2008

I think the thing that gets to me the most is the constant mismanagement of games - 4th and 15, punting from the 30, leaving Henig in to throw 6 INT's, and the man has serious clock management issues. That's the reason I wouldn't want Croom to stay even if he turned over the offense completely to a competent OC. He would still be the one making the poor personel decisions and the horrid game management decisions. I've seen enough of this experiment. It doesn't work. Time to move on.

dawgwhisperer · Sep 17, 2008

losing to crap teams. croom just doesn't get the team up for small schools. you can bet will play hard for auburn, alabama, ole miss... but when it comes to teams like maine and la tech he just doesn't get ready for them. those are the weeks he decides to give the team a few days off from practice because they've just been working so hard then they wind up getting their *** beat at which time he begins to blame the players. pathetic!

Coach34 · Sep 17, 2008

Is that our University hired a him to a job he was not qualified for. We put him in a position he wasnt capable of handling. There are 200 coaches in D-1 football that could have come in, recruited a few good athletes, put them on defense, and kept games closer. I could have done that easily, except I feel I would have recruited better and hired competent coordinators on BOTH sides of the ball.

Mississippi did the same thing with Orgermoron, except they knew when to pull the plug. But because we have this great social experiment, so we have to wait. I'm proud my University took a bold step in hiring Croom, and i'll be proud again when they finally take the other that is necessary. He shouldnt be allowed to keep coaching just because we scored some defensive TD's last year and lucked into a winning season. He tells everybody on the radio he calls the plays- 5 years of being the worst offense in major college football should get you fired. When you are the worst at something for 5 years, how can you justify staying or keeping it how it is?

It's time to take the next step

jackbaddawg · Sep 17, 2008

look like the genious of all -time atheletic directors by hiring the first black sec coach & for said coach to maybe be very successful in bringing MSU from the bottomless pit we were in . Then Sly comes in installing or trying to install the west coast offense ,like he was gonna look like he was as much of a genious like Bill Wlash was to pro football. 5 years later, his offense is still pitiful & always ranked in upper worst 100's in the nation & his dumbmass, arrogant, hard-headed dumbass thinks that we the fans are so stupid that'll we'll believe all the stupid ignorant dumbass excuses he comes up with. Holy **** holy hell..kiss my ***... get me some tylenol!!!... I said during his first year, he would never ever be SEC caliber head-coaching material....I'm jackbaddawg and I approve this message.

dawgoneyall · Sep 17, 2008

have Alabama talent of the 70's and 80's. We don't.

saddawg · Sep 18, 2008

jackbaddawg said:
look like the genious of all -time atheletic directors by hiring the first black sec coach & for said coach to maybe be very successful in bringing MSU from the bottomless pit we were in . Then Sly comes in installing or trying to install the west coast offense ,like he was gonna look like he was as much of a genious like Bill Wlash was to pro football. 5 years later, his offense is still pitiful & always ranked in upper worst 100's in the nation & hisdumbmass, arrogant, hard-headed dumbass thinks that we the fans are so stupid that'll we'll believe all the stupid ignorant dumbass excuses he comes up with. Holy **** holy hell..kiss my ***... get me some tylenol!!!... I said during his first year, he would never ever be SEC caliber head-coaching material....I'm jackbaddawg and I approve this message.

Now that is a Jack rant. You truly have gotten your mojo back.

Uncle Leo · Sep 18, 2008

dawgwhisperer said:
losing to crap teams. croom just doesn't get the team up for small schools. you can bet will play hard for auburn, alabama, ole miss... but when it comes to teams like maine and la tech he just doesn't get ready for them.

Aside from the obvious offensive ineptitude, of course...

But for every Florida, Auburn, and Alabama that we beat, there's a loss to Maine, UAB, Tulane, Houston, and LA Tech that we had no business losing.

I would also argue that he doesn't get the team up to play Ole Miss. Aside from the 2005 game, they've been mostly uninspired, last year included.

saddawg · Sep 18, 2008

That 4 or 5 High Schools in Mississippi have coaches who are better at coaching offense than he is.

thunderclap · Sep 18, 2008

DowntownDawg · Sep 18, 2008

....we took a gamble, and it appears we lost. My biggest gripe about you is that you fail to realize the reality of coaching hires when it comes to Mississippi State. Baseball is the exception, not the rule. You get rid of Stansbury, you are going to have a hard time finding a replacement that will be as successful or more successful. You get rid of Croom, and yeah, there is probably somebody out there that would now take the job that could do much better, but that wasn't necessarily the case in 2003. We were in a bad, bad situation. In hindsight, Jimbo probably would've been better, but based on where we were at the time, I'm not so sure it wasn't the right call. We just took a gamble and lost, like you do all the time.

StateLover · Sep 18, 2008

saddawg said:
That 45 High Schools in Mississippi have coaches who are better at coaching offense than he is.

Coach34 · Sep 18, 2008

but you know as well as everybody else does that LT didnt do much of a coaching search. Croom's name was not at the top of alot of lists and was surely recommended to him by someone (insert Slive's name there). We didnt explore half the options out there available to us. For 900,000 dollars and a free 4-5 year pass, many coaches would have taken as SEC job. But hey, we stepped out and took a chance like you said, it hasnt panned out. But it also bothers me that we compounded the mistake by giving him an extention. Stupidity at its finest.

I think basketball is going to end up like baseball. We will continue to make the tourney 3 out of every 5 years under Ricky, losing in round 1 or 2, and he will finally leave. Then we will hire someone new, with fresh ideas and such....and we will all sit here and wonder why in the hell we stuck with Ricky so long.

DowntownDawg · Sep 18, 2008

raise and extension than the intial hire. Either give him a raise or give him an extension, but not both. Keep it where we can get out of this thing if we have to.

As far as basketball goes, let me fix your quote: I think basketball is going to end up like baseball. We will continue to make the tourney 3 out of every 5 years under Ricky, losing in round 1 or 2, and he will finally leave. Then we will hire someone new, with fresh ideas and such....and we will all sit here and wonder why we can't get talented players to come to Mississippi State anymore.

We all agree that Rick isn't the greatest coach in the world, but we are going to be missing his recruiting if he leaves.

Coach34 · Sep 18, 2008

"We all agree that Rick isn't the greatest coach in the world, but we are going to be missing his recruiting if he leaves."


Cause he is the only coach in the nation that knows how to recruit

PBRME · Sep 18, 2008

The biggest problem I have with Croom is that he makes his game plan and sticks with it. He has said many times that he will not make adjustments based on what the other team is doing. His gameplan will work with the proper execution.

There is not a level of football you can play that coaches don't make adjustments. In fact, this stubborn *** was the first coach I've ever heard say he would not make adjustments.

DowntownDawg · Sep 18, 2008

....This is my opinion, but players that we wouldn't have gotten had it not been for Rick:

1) Marcus Grant
2) Dontae Jones
3) Mario Austin
4) Lawrence Roberts
5) Jamont Gordon

You can make a case for many others, but these were out of state guys that were mostly highly rated that ended up being big-time contributors to our program. That doesn't include players like Walter Sharpe, who everybody wanted but turned out to be a bust for us, or guys like Monta, Travis Outlaw, or Jonathan Bender, who would've played at State had today's rules been in place when they came through.

Everybody's favorite basketball coach, Andy Kennedy, would've never touched these guys. Rick is an average basketball coach and a great recruiter. To beat him, you are going to have to find a great basketball coach who is at least an average recruiter who wants to come to Starkville. Good luck.

Indndawg · Sep 18, 2008

McCorvey Melvin and the tireless list of sub-par coaches that he keeps.

Todd4State · Sep 18, 2008

I have several complaints:

First of all, this is petty but why MUST we look like a damn SWAC team? Why MUST we wear white helmets? I would venture to guess that the guy could almost get 10% more support back just by bringing back uniforms that the fans LIKE.

Secondly, he is smearing the name of my favorite football coach of all time, Bill Walsh, by running what he is claiming is the WCO. If you want to run the WCO, or ANY offense for that matter whether it is the spread, A-11 or whatever, I would think it would be very helpful to go to people who have actually had success running it like Bill Walsh, and beyond that hiring an OC that KNOWS how to run it. If you want your buddy to be on your staff, make him the assistant HC and leave it at that. Seriously, when was the last time an assistant HC was fired because the fans were pissed off at them?

Next, inexplicably playing people that have no business on the field for no other discernable reason than "they work hard" which is code for "I like them." See Tyson Lee. To go along with that, not playing people who probably should play because "they need to work on their blocking" code for I don't like them.

Then, running the WCO and trying to make it a power running scheme. (Really, that's an oxymoron). Also, not recruiting a QB. We could have found someone like a Josh Riddell from California EVERY year had we just went out there and did a little searching. I'll go a little further and say not recruiting a good o-line, and some good WR's.

The discipline is still a problem. It's better than it was when JWS was around, but we still line up wrong more times than we should.

The stupid coaching decisions. Ad nauseum. I said it the week of the Auburn game- I thought that we actually matched up well, and had a chance to maybe beat them, but I didn't think that we would because of the stupid coaching. When you have old ladies who are asking me why a coach would do that, there's a BIG problem.

Talking about Bear Bryant ad nauseum.

Having the AA coach agenda, while not anything as consuming as Polk with the NCAA, is still a distraction, and could potentially prevent us from hiring the best person possible.

tat2ed · Sep 18, 2008

The biggest thing that pisses me off about Croom is his hardheadedness.
1. He WILL not change offenses.
2. He WILL not fire McCorvey. If I was coaching (which I have) and my friend was on staff, I'd be loyal but I wouldn't get us both fired because he wasn't doing his job.
3. He WILL not change uniforms.

Agentdog · Sep 18, 2008

I think deep down he feels Mississippi State is somewhat beneath him and since long time supporters of the place haven't exactly seen alot to cheer about, he thinks we have no real authority to ever question his judgement.

What Panola said. He seems to comes across that way. Which pisses me off to the highest state of pisstivity.

ArrowDawg · Sep 18, 2008

....on the fly(during a game), pathetic excuses, blaming the fans, etc.

What ticks you off most about Croom?

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