Dawg4Life
09-04-2016, 08:42 AM
What is talent? Is talent potential performance or is talent actual performance? I ask because in conversations and message board posts I see the term used. Team A was beat by team B due to "talent." Or team A won in spite of team B being more "talented." We all obsess over February signing day because Scout or Rivals says this group going to State U is "talented."
Was USA more talented than MSU yesterday? Most would say NO. Yet, some of the conversations I've had since yesterday included the line "I couldn't tell much difference in the talent." Do we have more kids with higher high school rankings by Scout? Yes. Did we PLAY much better? No. So again, the question is how we define talent...actual vs. potential performance.
Two times in my life I have seen a coach come into MSU and instantly make us competitive. That was 1991 and 2009. The years prior to 1991 and 2009, nobody would have said we were anything above average talent. Yet, MSU played better, tougher, efficient and ultimately looked more talented. How could anyone explain the way we played in 2009 against LSU, Ole Miss, etc. when the year before, with basically the same players (and same talent), we were blasted against similar competition? What changed?
In 2011 we won the Egg Bowl 31-3, and it could have been MUCH worse. Freeze is hired and they go to a bowl the next year, beating us in the process. Did they upgrade talent on paper? Maybe, but not by much.
There are a million reasons why Sherrill, Mullen, and Freeze were able to make immediate changes. To boil it down to one thing is oversimplifying the result. It is equally oversimplifying to say yesterday is all about lack of talent. Talent is a factor, a HUGE factor (see Alabama) but it is not the ONLY factor.
The bottom line for MSU presently is that what we saw yesterday is the inverse effect of what we saw in 2009. I don't have all the answers but I can tell you that we didn't instantly get more talented in 2009 and we didn't instantly get less talented in 2016 to a point to getting beat by a USA team as a 30 point underdog. There is much more to this situation than that oversimplified thinking.
I realize this conversation is not as much fun as the "we should have run play X in the third quarter" or "we should play the Big Joe because he is SO much more talented" conversations I normally see on here. This post will probably fall to page 3 due to lack of interest. I don't care. If this problem is to be fixed, and I mean really fixed, then we need to understand the depths of the questions above. We can talk about what play we should have run when we lose a 2 point game to LSU, not when losing the largest upset in the history of the FPI.
Was USA more talented than MSU yesterday? Most would say NO. Yet, some of the conversations I've had since yesterday included the line "I couldn't tell much difference in the talent." Do we have more kids with higher high school rankings by Scout? Yes. Did we PLAY much better? No. So again, the question is how we define talent...actual vs. potential performance.
Two times in my life I have seen a coach come into MSU and instantly make us competitive. That was 1991 and 2009. The years prior to 1991 and 2009, nobody would have said we were anything above average talent. Yet, MSU played better, tougher, efficient and ultimately looked more talented. How could anyone explain the way we played in 2009 against LSU, Ole Miss, etc. when the year before, with basically the same players (and same talent), we were blasted against similar competition? What changed?
In 2011 we won the Egg Bowl 31-3, and it could have been MUCH worse. Freeze is hired and they go to a bowl the next year, beating us in the process. Did they upgrade talent on paper? Maybe, but not by much.
There are a million reasons why Sherrill, Mullen, and Freeze were able to make immediate changes. To boil it down to one thing is oversimplifying the result. It is equally oversimplifying to say yesterday is all about lack of talent. Talent is a factor, a HUGE factor (see Alabama) but it is not the ONLY factor.
The bottom line for MSU presently is that what we saw yesterday is the inverse effect of what we saw in 2009. I don't have all the answers but I can tell you that we didn't instantly get more talented in 2009 and we didn't instantly get less talented in 2016 to a point to getting beat by a USA team as a 30 point underdog. There is much more to this situation than that oversimplified thinking.
I realize this conversation is not as much fun as the "we should have run play X in the third quarter" or "we should play the Big Joe because he is SO much more talented" conversations I normally see on here. This post will probably fall to page 3 due to lack of interest. I don't care. If this problem is to be fixed, and I mean really fixed, then we need to understand the depths of the questions above. We can talk about what play we should have run when we lose a 2 point game to LSU, not when losing the largest upset in the history of the FPI.