Quote Originally Posted by bulldawg28 View Post
I don't understand that move of hiring someone's else staff. That would make most uncomfortable. I hear and see both sides of the argument. The dude seems rejuvenated and ready to coach again. He didn't win the championship he said he would here but he established us. He'll have a easier schedule than before and the talent to get it done. I expect him to succeed and beat upper echelon teams. Mullen had no problem believing he could beat Bama our players didn't until this year. When i played and we beat Bama, Auburn, Florida etc it was because the players believed. Jackie Wayne was the same the good years and bad. I hate things happened the way they did but the guy can coach.
I don't understand or know why Byrne hired Hud and Les Koenning before hiring a staff either. I'm not sure if alumni pressure caused it to happen or if Byrne thought Hud would be really good one day and just wasn't quite ready yet and wanted to keep him around in case our then new coach left. Les was on Felker's staff and of course Rockey was still around at that time. And of course Hud has always had a lot of MSU allies.

I'm not sure that I would say that Dan established us or not. I think Jackie established us at least as much as Dan did. Literally the only thing people wanted to do when Jackie took over was beat Ole Miss and maybe go to a Liberty Bowl every once few years. As you very well know Jackie came in and started beating people and taking us to bowls every other year his first ten in an era when it was more difficult to go to bowls. I think Jackie believed in our players and he actually even won the SEC West plus 1999 was by my measure the best season we have had the past 25 years. That's why I think Jackie was better than Dan despite how it ended.

The thing about Dan is I think when he first came here with Byrne it was kind of using us as a stepping stone and I think everyone was OK with that. Then Stricklin took over and then all of a sudden it was "we need continuity!" and we ended up overpaying for a coach that only intended to use us as a stepping stone. Doing that made it really hard for him to move on. Dan got caught up in his long range career goals- and it's fine to have those and everyone probably should have those- but the problem is Dan let it interfere with his job performance at Mississippi State. And while it's OK to have long range goals you shouldn't let them interfere with your current job.

While Dan may have believed that HE could beat Alabama I'm not sure that he believed in our players being able to beat them based on how he called those games. That and he puts his own personal football ideology ahead of everything else- like running Holloway up the middle. I think that's why he called so many QB runs- because he trusted Dak and Fitz more than any of the other players on the team even if it was 4th and 14.

It was starting to get to the point where Dan was holding us back more than he was moving us forward.