Sunday Morning Thoughts

[StarkVegasSteve]

After taking 2.5-3 hours last night to be pissed off and think we may not win another game I still feel like we can save this season. It's not going to be easy, but we still have all the talent in the world. And after reading some other stuff from here and just around college football I've came to a few conclusions:

- Kentucky is probably a lot better than we gave them credit for. I still feel like we're probably the better team. But we were shown last night that we can't just roll into anywhere and outtalent teams. We gotta be willing to work. We're still Mississippi State. We still have to win by being tougher.

- We can still save the season. Heck our '98 team that won the West went to Stillwater and got beat down by an Ok State team who went on to win 5 games.Now I'm not under some grand fascination that we are still in the CFP race, but if we can shake it off and win our next two home games we're still 5-1 which is about where I thought we would be after 6 games. This is still a team that can make noise and win 8-9 games. However, if we lose Saturday this things can get sideways really fast.

- Moorhead has to show more emotion. He doesn't have to be Coach Boom or Buddy Stephens, but you have to fight for your players and I didn't see any of that last night when the refs were hosing us. And you have to corral your players when they're out of control and I didn't see him get in anyone's face after any of our 4 unsportsmanlike penalties. The team is gonna take the identity of their coach and no amount of 360 sideline dunks is gonna give this team more fight.

- KT probably needs to be the starter. Nick has given us some great moments, but at the end of the day to be successful running this offense the D has to think there's a chance you will pass on every play and with Nick starting teams are just gonna stack 7-8 in the box and take the chance that he won't be consistently accurate enough to beat them. Now saying that, I don't believe we'll make the change unless this season gets to going sideways and if that happens then I believe it'd be better for our future to play KT and live through the developmental curve.

- We're gonna know the direction of our program on the morning of Oct 7th.

[dawgday166]

After taking 2.5-3 hours last night to be pissed off and think we may not win another game I still feel like we can save this season. It's not going to be easy, but we still have all the talent in the world. And after reading some other stuff from here and just around college football I've came to a few conclusions:

- Kentucky is probably a lot better than we gave them credit for. I still feel like we're probably the better team. But we were shown last night that we can't just roll into anywhere and outtalent teams. We gotta be willing to work. We're still Mississippi State. We still have to win by being tougher.

- We can still save the season. Heck our '98 team that won the West went to Stillwater and got beat down by an Ok State team who went on to win 5 games.Now I'm not under some grand fascination that we are still in the CFP race, but if we can shake it off and win our next two home games we're still 5-1 which is about where I thought we would be after 6 games. This is still a team that can make noise and win 8-9 games. However, if we lose Saturday this things can get sideways really fast.

- Moorhead has to show more emotion. He doesn't have to be Coach Boom or Buddy Stephens, but you have to fight for your players and I didn't see any of that last night when the refs were hosing us. And you have to corral your players when they're out of control and I didn't see him get in anyone's face after any of our 4 unsportsmanlike penalties. The team is gonna take the identity of their coach and no amount of 360 sideline dunks is gonna give this team more fight.

- KT probably needs to be the starter. Nick has given us some great moments, but at the end of the day to be successful running this offense the D has to think there's a chance you will pass on every play and with Nick starting teams are just gonna stack 7-8 in the box and take the chance that he won't be consistently accurate enough to beat them. Now saying that, I don't believe we'll make the change unless this season gets to going sideways and if that happens then I believe it'd be better for our future to play KT and live through the developmental curve.

- We're gonna know the direction of our program on the morning of Oct 7th.

98 team also lost to a 7-5, 4-4 Ky team.

[Homedawg]

JM isn't going to show more emotion. It's not who he is. Can't change just because. And no Kt doesn't need to start.

[BrunswickDawg]

As I just posted in another thread - people need to get past this belief that we have more talent then Kentucky. The difference in our recruiting profile the past 5 years is negligible. Our average player rating is 86.5 compared to Kentucky’s 85.82. Now recruiting ranking is not an end all beat all - but it’s not like we are talking about the difference in Bama and us.

[StarkVegasSteve]

JM isn't going to show more emotion. It's not who he is. Can't change just because. And no Kt doesn't need to start.

I'm interested in your reasoning for that. I just don't see how Nick is going to get any better as the season progresses. Accuracy and mechanics isn't an overnight thing. He's not gonna wake up one morning and magically be able to throw an accurate go route or be able to hit the 12-15 yd routes to keep the D from packing the box

[TrapGame]

Mark Stoops is in his 6th year as Kentucky's head coach. He has built that program and team. Kentucky gave him time and hired the asst. coaches he wanted. Kentucky has been recruiting better and better over the last six years. They actually have NFL talent on both sides of the ball. Chizik pointed this out after the Florida victory. This is Moorhead's first year as head coach. New system on offense, new system on defense. I was hoping we would avoid the first year head coach growing pains but alas I was wrong. This is a learning experience for coaches and players to clean up some problems, re-focus and get better.

Nick is Nick. Nick is not really the ideal QB for Moorhead's system. If Nick doesn't overthrow an open Quidry twice and Mixon wide open in the middle of the field we could be talking about a lot closer game. If Nick made several long throws for significant yards that Kentucky box look would have thinned a little and then you're talking about some better runs from AW, Kylin and Nick.

However, next week needs to be a win. Two first year staffs going at it but we have them at our place. If Moorhead blows this game and Florida ass rapes us in DWS then I'm off the bandwagon.

[Todd4State]

We're going to go as far as Nick takes us. He needs to get his head out of his ass. Which I highly doubt he will at this point. Our offensive line has to be better too. You can't run the ball when you are constantly behind the sticks like we were last night. A nine yard gain on a run was becoming 2nd and 6 too often because of a penalty on the offensive line. If we cut out the false starts and personal fouls it's a much different game.

The thing I'm most disappointed in Moorhead about was letting Kentucky get in our heads with the smack talk. That should have been managed much better.

[Bothrops]

We're going to go as far as Nick takes us. He needs to get his head out of his ass. Which I highly doubt he will at this point. Our offensive line has to be better too. You can't run the ball when you are constantly behind the sticks like we were last night. A nine yard gain on a run was becoming 2nd and 6 too often because of a penalty on the offensive line. If we cut out the false starts and personal fouls it's a much different game.

The thing I'm most disappointed in Moorhead about was letting Kentucky get in our heads with the smack talk. That should have been managed much better.

Apparently no one played at LT last night. Hard to blame Fitz for anything in the passing game. He was frustrated all night.