State of MSU at the Midway Point of SEC play

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

Once again you are comparing football coaches to baseball coaches. It is completely different because of their recruiting cycles and also because of how potential replacements view the position. Moorhead had players fighting each other. That's not happening with Lemonis. Arnett had outside influences running the program and it was actually worse than Moorhead. Again- we don't have Lemonis listening to high school coaches for advice and Ron Polk meddling with things. That was what was going on with Arnett but with football coaches. We are going to probably be at worst a regional bubble team which is a far cry from a dumpster fire like football. And "how it looks to other coaches"? Come on. No coach will shy away from our job because we fired a coach that missed Hoover in year 4 and 5. If a HC candidate fears he will be that bad that late in his tenure, we don't want him.

We have an upperclassman laden team. That's the primary reason why the freshman haven't played a lot. You may not see a ton of freshman playing a lot because of the portal. Stevens will be very good. Dotson will be very good. Makhai Grant had Tommy John and if he recovers he will be very good. Highfill has been injured. McKenzie was never going to beat out Hines. Cupp has been hurt but should play more soon. Mershon and Chance are essentially sophomores. When we add in more freshmen next year like Henry Allen and Dante Nori and hopefully Conrad Cason we will have enough talent to win like we expect. The talent we have now isn't bad- but some of it isn't being used properly. Especially Stevens. When that happens players will not be maximized and to the untrained appear to be "not talented".

1) how can you cite "recruiting cycles" as being a reason to keep Lemo but not a football coach? Lemo sucked in year 4 and 5 of the Portal era. Last year was 100% players he signed, and almost entirely guys he chose to pursue.

2) it's an "upper classman laden team": I'm not asking anyone to replace Hines at 1B. I'm asking a Fr to be able to hit (DH), or replace bad hitters at 3B and 2B. Chance is also not a stud in the OF. That's 4 spots where a Fr can get in the lineup but non are capable of it. If Mershon was a year younger he'd have replaced Larry by now. If Jordan were a year younger he'd replace Chance. If Highfill was a year younger and healthy he'd be the DH. Pitching, you're placing a lot of weight that Grant is a stud. Easy to say about injured players. If Grant was healthy but Stevens was hurt you could easily talk about the "stud lefty and hitter who if he was healthy would fill the LHP and DH role"

The fact is, we have no Fr that can hit at this point in time, and no Fr contributors on the mound, despite ample opportunity and need.

[The Federalist Engineer]

1) how can you cite "recruiting cycles" as being a reason to keep Lemo but not a football coach? Lemo sucked in year 4 and 5 of the Portal era. Last year was 100% players he signed, and almost entirely guys he chose to pursue.

2) it's an "upper classman laden team": I'm not asking anyone to replace Hines at 1B. I'm asking a Fr to be able to hit (DH), or replace bad hitters at 3B and 2B. Chance is also not a stud in the OF. That's 4 spots where a Fr can get in the lineup but non are capable of it. If Mershon was a year younger he'd have replaced Larry by now. If Jordan were a year younger he'd replace Chance. If Highfill was a year younger and healthy he'd be the DH. Pitching, you're placing a lot of weight that Grant is a stud. Easy to say about injured players. If Grant was healthy but Stevens was hurt you could easily talk about the "stud lefty and hitter who if he was healthy would fill the LHP and DH role"

The fact is, we have no Fr that can hit at this point in time, and no Fr contributors on the mound, despite ample opportunity and need.

The freshman are not just bad, they look like frat boys in store-bought uniforms pretending to be players. Is the plan that the Freshman pay for personal Hitting Coaches and learn from the summer coaches? Only Stevens looks competitive. I bet Stevens at Stanford would be a Freshman All American.

Another thing, Slate Alford and Lane Forsythe have Chipper Jones / Gary Sheffield numbers compared to Kohler. This is a sign that Jake G is not close to maximizing the players.