Good Write Up On Mullen

[BrunswickDawg]

Think about it, we have?nt had a coach that left here and did well since the early 1950s. Mullen is the first one that left without getting pushed in over 60 years. It?s one of the main reasons we have historically had trouble hiring decent coaches. It took hiring one with some heavy NCAA baggage to start to break the cycle. If we have an ex coach out there doing well somewhere else then that helps change that perception, and it IS the perception, that MSU is a coaching graveyard. It will mean we will have a better applicant pool when you make the NEXT hire. I hope Moorhead stays a long time, but even if he does there will always be a next hire. Coaches that coach for a long time at one school are very rare, even more so now. Mullen exceeded the average tenure.

No. No. No.

The problem was not that we were a coaching graveyard. We have had terrible leadership in the ADs office who constantly made decisions based on a lack of funds and an aversion to risk. Murray Warmath and Darryl Royal saw that quickly and bolted. Wade Walker was a bad coach who moved from HC to AD, then became a very successful AD at Oklahoma. Paul Davis was hired with almost no experience, bombed, and went on to a lengthy 24 year career as an assistant - primarily at Auburn. Charlie Shira was a lazy hire (coach who had worked here under Royal) who we could pay for double duty as AD, and sell all of our home games to other schools. He bombed, and then stayed on as AD. Bob Tyler was a very good hire and coach who got destroyed by the NCAA. Emory Bellard was an excellent hire and coach, who probably could have gone on to coach other places - but would have had to overhaul his whole approach to offense (by '85 the wishbone was almost dead) at age 58. Rockey Felker was a good assistant coach - but a lazy hire as a HC. After his tenure here, he still had a successful career as an OC (Tulsa, Arkansas) and then came back home. Jackie knew it was probably his last job, or next to last job when he was hired here. Croom was Croom, but is still coaching.

So - in summary - we had 2 coaches who left and went on to HOF careers (Warmath & Royal), 2 who became our AD one of whom went on to a major power, 1 tanked by the NCAA, 2 who ended their careers here probably due to age and the game having passed them by (Bellard & Jackie), and 3 who continued on as assistant coaches for long careers (Davis, Felker, Croom).

Where is this coaching graveyard you speak of?? Almost all of our coaches continued in successful careers after they left MSU. The problem always was - until Don - the lack of funding and resources to compete and a lack leadership and real support from the university to make sure we had the facilities to compete.