What's everyone's opinion of Scott Stricklin?

[RickyWadePhilpotDVM]

I mean, I don't really follow this stuff, but I'm kind of surprised that so many people are pulling out the pitchforks for Mullen, but seemingly feel just fine about Stricklin's continued employment. The guy seems out of his depth. Greg Byrne wasn't exactly super experienced, but was so much less... clumsy. The guy doesn't even have Larry Templeton's air of semi-competence, despite having all of his GOB back-story.

I just get the sense that a mediocre AD is a much greater threat to a Mississippi university's football program than even the worst head football coach.

And just so I don't get the cries of troll or whatever, this is fireworksforjeffy, and I'm genuinely wanting to know what folks think. There was never any point where I hated any Ole Miss coaches more than I loathed Pete Boone.

I'll hang up and listen.

 

[Shmuley]

Nice. Green. Hard worker. Green. Tech savvy. Green. ......................................................

He seemed green right out of the box. Did not inspire confidence. Then his performance with the only major sport coaching search he's overseen scared the **** out of me. I have zero confidence in his ability to oversee a football search. It's one of the reasons I am absolutely convinced that there will not be one this year under any circumstances.

 

[57stratdawg]

....soft....?

 

[treeddeep]

Who, Strickland? I heard he run offt Hood

 

[AT4 Dawg]

He can't hold

Greg Byrne's jock. Byrne was a shark and everyone knew it. Scott is not and does not have the makings of a shark.


He's in over his head and he's woefully out of position.

 

[Dawgdom]

Not impressed with his pad level**

 

[GTAdawg]

The only reason I see people complaining about Stricklin

Is because he's in no way going to fire Mullen this year, and to this point has hinted that it isn't happening in the near future. What other viable ammo would you have?

 

[Resolved]

Girlyman

Too much jogging, not enough drinking.

 

[engie]

Great fundraiser. Bad at basically everything else.

At least he's going to do Dudy Noble right -- but he's got a penchant for not striking when the iron is hot or thinking proactively. It's asinine that he doesn't have that closer than he does. Davis Wade expansion is happening 2 years too late as well IMO.

He's gone against everything we've preached this year. "Atmosphere at games is most important thing" = Put another 20 minutes worth of obnoxious ads on jumbotron. "We'll play BCS teams out of conference in bowl games" = until we have a chance to play a powerhouse in a season-opening game. "We want to make sure our fans get to come to games" = schedule HALF the home SEC games on Thursday. I could go on.

He's LT with a marketing degree...

 

[af102]

On a side note, it'll be interesting to see what changes he mandates for the video board for the Egg Bowl. It's one thing to publicly acknowledge there is a problem, but it's another thing to actually kick someone's tail and make the changes.

 

[Snog]

Concave nutsack

 

[AT4 Dawg]

If you have ever seen Glengary Glen Ross, Byrne would be Alec Baldwyn and Scott would be Ed Harris.

And let me add- Greg made some mistakes along the way, but at the end of the day, I'd take Greg Byrne to make the backroom deals 10 times out of 10 over Scott. Greg had the edge and was someone you could be confident in; Scott is trying to keep his head above water.

 

[HotMop]

Well...he didn't really impress with his only hire.

 

[TDawg52]

Spends too much time on running his mouth and on Twitter.... Key rule in top level management is you don't publicly engage with the crazy wings of the fan /support base over big issues... You take any input/heat privately and if a response or action is appropriate, you handle it privately.... corrective actions or changes done privately are more meaningful....and still get the messege across that you hear what the concerns may be and will handle them. Byrne functioned this way and handle things behind the scenes....

 

[121Josey]

He's hit or miss with marketing gimmicks. Well, I just think he got carried away last season. More quality and less quantity. But he does try to think outside of the box and I really respect that.

I just think that he's not ahead of the curb on fan sentiments.

(see engie's post above).

 

[engie]

On a side note, it'll be interesting to see what changes he mandates for the video board for the Egg Bowl. It's one thing to publicly acknowledge there is a problem, but it's another thing to actually kick someone's tail and make the changes.

He's been publicly acknowledging the problem for at least 1.5 years now without even remotely actually fixing it. At what point do we admit to ourselves that he's not the right guy to get that done?

To me, it's a microcosm of the same problems we have with Mullen that never get fixed. At least Strick admits that things aren't ok, i guess...

 

[thatsbaseball]

Should have been a mid-management marketing guy for Target

 

[dawgatUSM]

To me he's got two jobs... Raise money and hire coaches in that order.

I give him very high marks on his ability to raise money. He's not setting the world on fire but he does well.

Hiring coaches... I love the softball coach (was she a Byrne hire?) and I love the girls basketball coaching hire. I'm just not so sure he did well with Ray. And I'm pulling for him, but he hired a guy that was on no ones list. It could turn out to be a genius move though.

 

[KurtRambis4]

The funny thing is no one here knows the process or guidelines that the AD is under. so they definitely cannot critique him. I always get a kick out of those on here that make judgments based on "facts" that have no clue of any process involved.

 

[RickyWadePhilpotDVM]

That's lame as hell.

The funny thing is no one here knows the process or guidelines that the AD is under. so they definitely cannot critique him. I always get a kick out of those on here that make judgments based on "facts" that have no clue of any process involved.

It's a public position, and the guy's on twitter like 24/7. Folks are entitled to their opinion.

 

[AFDawg]

DawgatUSM's opinion is more or less mine.

To add a bit, it seems to me that most of the criticism of Stricklin is based on 1) hiring Ray, 2) game atmosphere issues (including Thursday games), 3) scheduling OK State and "apologizing" for it, 4) compliance/Bracky Brett, and 5) our inept videography.

I'm not yet convinced that 1 was a bad decision--time will tell. His minor-sports hires have been solid on the whole. 2 needs to get fixed, no doubt, but it seems like a lot of that is a held up by our Learfield contract. I want to see what happens next year before I condemn him over that issue. 3 is a silly criticism. I'm for an easy OOC, and Stricklin has said numerous times that in general that's what we'll do. The OK State opportunity made sense and, besides, half the fanbase seems to gripe about the easy OOC anyway. As for the alleged apology, People have blown that tweet way out of proportion. Stricklin said himself that it wasn't an apology. We've beat that horse to death. 4 is on university policy and not the AD. Brett reports to the Keenum. 5 is getting better but has a lot of room for improvement.

I like what I see from Stricklin in terms of social media, accessibility to fans, and the new facilities. I'd like to see more on 2 and 5 above.

Byrne was great, no doubt, but he has his WTF moments. Vroom Maroon! (And the misspelled baseball sign--which was a contractor error but something people would give Stricklin all kinds of hell for.)

 

[esplanade91]

Whoa whoa whoa......... LT was at least a golf coach at some point. Scott was a cheerleader.

His willingness to fire Mullen or not makes no difference on how much I don't want him to be AD. 95% of AD's wouldn't fire him this winter. I just think he's "meh" and MSU could do a helluva lot better. If we were making a pros & cons list AAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL of his pros could be somehow linked to Greg. All of his cons could be linked to him having zero clue how to run a major D1 athletic department. To be honest, our fundraising isn't even that great (not complaining about fundraising... just pointing out that's not like "Whoa, Scott has a background in fundraising and we're great at it!"). 10,000 Bulldog Club members. 10,000. Ten. Thousand.

Put me on the list of people that think he should go but not enough to ***** and moan about it, I just think we could do a lot better. We could do a lot worse though, so that is also worth noting.

 

[engie]

Whoa whoa whoa......... LT was at least a golf coach at some point. Scott was a cheerleader.

His willingness to fire Mullen or not makes no difference on how much I don't want him to be AD. 95% of AD's wouldn't fire him this winter. I just think he's "meh" and MSU could do a helluva lot better. If we were making a pros & cons list AAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL of his pros could be somehow linked to Greg. All of his cons could be linked to him having zero clue how to run a major D1 athletic department. To be honest, our fundraising isn't even that great (not complaining about fundraising... just pointing out that's not like "Whoa, Scott has a background in fundraising and we're great at it!"). 10,000 Bulldog Club members. 10,000. Ten. Thousand.

Put me on the list of people that think he should go but not enough to ***** and moan about it, I just think we could do a lot better. We could do a lot worse though, so that is also worth noting.

We're raising over 6 times the money in the Bulldog Club that we did pre-Byrne. Our private athletics donations rival every other SEC school not named Texas A&M. He's done a tremendous job as a fundraiser and there's no need in trying to minimize it.

 

[121Josey]

The funny thing is no one here knows the process or guidelines that the AD is under. so they definitely cannot critique him. I always get a kick out of those on here that make judgments based on "facts" that have no clue of any process involved.

If you would like to clarify the situation, by all means, proceed. If not, the question was about the folks opinion - right or wrong.

 

[Joe Schmedlap]

Just doesn't inspire confidence. I say that based on the CF that was the men's basketball coach hire and not on the Mullen situation, giant video board, or nasty hot dogs (maybe Rick Stansbury took all the juicy jumbos with him on the way out).

 

[FlabLoser]

Good at social media.

Good at fundraising.

Good at building facilities.

Terrible at compliance (Bracky has a dotted line to Scott on he org chart, so he is partially Scott's). This is a massive strike against Scott. I'd say it costs us 2 wins/year. Not acceptible.

Embarrassing failure at gameday fan experience. And that's perplexing considering he made that a priority. He took hands down the best A/V system in the SEC and turned it into a liability. He gets and F- on this. Gameday has steadily gotten worse under his watch and the commercialization of the Bama game was downright offensive. The video board DOMINATED the game and dulled the senses. Not acceptible.

The jury is still out on his basketball coaching search hire. So far Ricky Ray has done everything that we would have wanted to see. Recruiting dropped off like we thought it might until the right relationships were formed to pick that back up. But its picking up and the team is playing hard. All good there. Hard to fault the results of the hire at this point, but he sure passed on some close to can't-miss candidates.

I would vote to replace Striklin primarily on compliance concerns and secondarily on the prostitution of our gameday experience. Our AD is costing us wins on the football field and also makes football less fun. That is totally not acceptable and reason enough to replace him.

 

[AFDawg]

"95% of AD's wouldn't fire him this winter." That's just laughable. No way that's true.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

Byrne was great, no doubt, but he has his WTF moments. Vroom Maroon! (And the misspelled baseball sign--which was a contractor error but something people would give Stricklin all kinds of hell for.)

You missed the biggest one...canning Flick.

 

[AFDawg]

You're right. I did. Flick saying "J... J... Johnson" is one of my earliest football memories. I realize not everyone shares this opinion, but I loved Flick.

 

[thunderclap]

I think he'd make a good assistant AD.

 

[Dawg1976]

True, but it's looking like a better hire than at first. Jury sill out.

 

[00Dawg]

We're raising over 6 times the money in the Bulldog Club that we did pre-Byrne. Our private athletics donations rival every other SEC school not named Texas A&M. He's done a tremendous job as a fundraiser and there's no need in trying to minimize it.

That's mostly a bookkeeping aberration due to the move to public records required of the Bulldog Foundation and it's subsequent folding into the Bulldog Club.

 

[dawgstudent]

I was more of a Hank Flick fan for basketball.

 

[BulldogBacker]

A Concensus of Alumni in Starkville has the opinion that Scott was a "Good Ole Boy" hire and is a lightweight. Much of the decision for hiring Scott was based on 1.) He came cheap. 2.) He was married to Bailey Howell's daughter. 3.) He was a State boy. 4.) He could be easily manipulated by the major donors. Most of the people I know say he is in over his head, and that he rolls easily.

 

[AFDawg]

He could be easily manipulated by the major donors. Most of the people I know say he is in over his head, and that he rolls easily.

I hear this a lot, and I'm not necessarily saying you're wrong, but I don't think I've ever heard a specific example of this. Didn't he defy major donors by not hiring Kenny Payne?

 

[HD6]

Man, control that message!

I was not aware we hired the quarterback of Toronto Argonauts to be our basketball coach. That is unacceptable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Ray

I know your lord and savior Coach34 likes to call him Ricky Ray for God knows what reason, but it's Rick Ray. Rick.

 

[AFDawg]

I'm pretty sure it's RickRay.

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

He's average. He makes mostly good decisions, but the mark of a good leader is making good decisions after bad ones have been made.

Has Bracky done anything that would traditionally get someone fired? No. Should he be fired completely from the university? No. Should he be moved as far away from the compliance office as humanly possible? Hell yes. Scott will probably just look at the first two questions and think everything is okay.

What's the right decision on Mullen? Fire him? Give him a contract extension? Leave his contract in place with no extension and implicitly tell him he's going to have to make some changes or else he won't be here long? I have a feeling Stricklin will give him the extension, which is a terrible decision.

 

[was21]

That scenario would seem to fit through #3 but #4 may be debatable. I don't know him personally so should probably reserve judgment.

 

[dawgstudent]

I heard some major donors wanted Kenny Payne. If that's true, he went against what they wanted and hired Rick Ray.