Why Moorhead FAILED

[cheewgumm]

Had he embraced ( Fitz and ) KT, made it a more QB run option offense, while slowly adding his principles, what would our record be?

He really should have done this last year and this year. Good coaches do that. You play the hand dealt.

This is why Joe will be an ultimate failure here. He didn?t recognize what he had or if he did, he thought installing his system was more important. WhT he doesn?t realize is that getting transformational talent ( like Simmons and Sweat and Abraham, etc...) does not happen every year at places like Miss State. You HAVE to adjust to what you have or you?ll be waiting forever for the exact right talent to come along. Problem is you won?t make it long enough to see what would happen if you had youre right guys.

Hopefully at his next job he learns this lesson.

[redstickdawg]

He's too f'ing stubborn and is convinced of his own brilliance basically. Refuses to adapt to the personnel and the situation a total failure as a coach. Maybe in 5 years he could have a winning record in the powder puff league.

[Todd4State]

I don’t think that was as big of an issue as it was simply he lacked discipline and didn’t demand the players work hard enough in general and tried to be their friend was his undoing.

He actually let Fitz run more than Dan did. I do think that his insistence on using the same basic personnel 90% of the time limited what he could do with our talent but that wasn’t his biggest issue.

[shoeless joe]

It begins and ends with discipline and accountability...without that the other stuff doesn’t mean as much. Like him or hate him Mullen held his players to a standard on and off the field and if it wasn’t met they didn’t play. Just ask JRob

[cheewgumm]

Todd, you are right about the discipline part.

I don?t think he had an understanding of what made Fitz good. It?s not just snapping it to him and letting him run. It?s the option part of it.

I think Moorhead got sick of hearing it and his fall back was to snap to Fitz and have him just run. Fitz was good but not that good. It was just a lazy way of getting Fitz carries imo. Plus it totally eliminated our RBs. When he was running Fitz it was like Mullen would do a few times a game ( just snapping to Fitz and running ) but he did it 15 times. Just not smart.

[Todd4State]

Todd, you are right about the discipline part.

I don?t think he had an understanding of what made Fitz good. It?s not just snapping it to him and letting him run. It?s the option part of it.

I think Moorhead got sick of hearing it and his fall back was to snap to Fitz and have him just run. Fitz was good but not that good. It was just a lazy way of getting Fitz carries imo. Plus it totally eliminated our RBs. When he was running Fitz it was like Mullen would do a few times a game ( just snapping to Fitz and running ) but he did it 15 times. Just not smart.

He limited what our running backs could do by only using one of them 99% of the time. Most coaches would have seen two quality SEC backs and used both of them at least 20% of the time in the same formation.

[FriarsPoint]

It begins and ends with discipline and accountability...without that the other stuff doesn’t mean as much. Like him or hate him Mullen held his players to a standard on and off the field and if it wasn’t met they didn’t play. Just ask JRob

This. Name one successful head coach that wasn’t a hard ass.

[OLJWales]

What I was hoping for in the Fall was true QB competition but it just felt like TS was going to be the starter before he took his 1st practice snap. I'm not convinced KT got a fair shot and I DO know he had earned a fair shot. If that indeed did happen, there is no way locker room continuity can be strong. "Learning the System" ? Competitive chess players can figure out an offensive football playbook. Maybe something else happened with KT, dunno but it doesn't look like Joe took the pieces available and put them together very effectively.

He botched the offense bad last year. There's no other way to describe it when you give up 12 TD's during the regular season and parlay that into 4 losses. Then go into the bowl game and give up zero rushing yards while gaining 200 and figure out a way to lose that game as well. Joe has a very little offensive mind he operates with and can't seem to think outside it.

The only thing he's done inspiring to me was kicking a hapless confederate ass last year and having to be restrained by Cohen on the field after the game. Personally, I like the guy. You can't blame him for accepting the gig. Same as Croom. Liked him personally as well. But it takes a unique individual to successfully coach a SEC team. Especially in the West. They are not easy to find and land.

[Really Clark?]

He limited what our running backs could do by only using one of them 99% of the time. Most coaches would have seen two quality SEC backs and used both of them at least 20% of the time in the same formation.

Yep. Aeris was an already established 1,000 yard rusher in the SEC, all time leading QB rusher in SEC and good explosive back in Hill. Complete misuse of our RB’s and over use of the QB. We had 3 guys who had the potential to be 1,000 yard rushers each.

[Commercecomet24]

It begins and ends with discipline and accountability...without that the other stuff doesn?t mean as much. Like him or hate him Mullen held his players to a standard on and off the field and if it wasn?t met they didn?t play. Just ask JRob

This. It's like this in anything you do. Sports, business anything no discipline and no accountability you're setting yourself up for failure

[maroonmania]

This. Name one successful head coach that wasn’t a hard ass.

Absolutely none at MSU. Goes back to the thread I started a week or so ago about if its even possible for an MSU head football coach to be successful that isn't an SOB. I'm convinced that the Felker-Croom-Moorhead personality types, likeable as they are, have no chance to run a successful program at MSU. We do need a hardass. Most of the recruits that we get at MSU come from a home life lacking discipline in the first place. If they leave home and come into a football program that doesn't force them to toe the line they are just naturally going to be a slacker and run amok. Only other program Moorhead ran was Fordham and I am sure its a very different situation with the student-athletes there.

[ShotgunDawg]

Moorhead failed because he never got the player's respect. End of story

[NCDawg]

This. It's like this in anything you do. Sports, business anything no discipline and no accountability you're setting yourself up for failure

That's for sure, and I agree lack of discipline and no accountability has been the primary cause of Moorhead's failure as a coach.

[OLJWales]

Moorhead failed because he never got the player's respect. End of story

I think there is more to it. But you may be right, I just think there may be more.

[DownwardDawg]

All I know is that Cohen needs to be moving now!! Hopefully he’s already making agent contacts.

[Todd4State]

Yep. Aeris was an already established 1,000 yard rusher in the SEC, all time leading QB rusher in SEC and good explosive back in Hill. Complete misuse of our RB’s and over use of the QB. We had 3 guys who had the potential to be 1,000 yard rushers each.

And by using three receivers almost all the time you put more of a reliance on what was the weakest unit on the offense. Just by default.

Going with the same personnel and going slow doesn’t make sense to me. It would if we used tempo but we don’t.

[ScooterDog]

I'm still scratching my head over the crappy tackling, or lack of it. Is he not coaching the coaches? He doesn't appear to be. Anybody out there have the same thoughts?

[KB21]

Everything goes back to the lack of discipline and lack of preparation that is apparent with this team. Even if he were to change up his system, you would still have the lack of discipline and lack of preparation.

[NCDawg]

I'm still scratching my head over the crappy tackling, or lack of it. Is he not coaching the coaches? He doesn't appear to be. Anybody out there have the same thoughts?

Our defense is really bad. I thought our DE's played pretty well yesterday, but other than them, there was nobody that i saw that played well. If Arkansas has a good passer, I think we are going to be in trouble.

[Todd4State]

I'm still scratching my head over the crappy tackling, or lack of it. Is he not coaching the coaches? He doesn't appear to be. Anybody out there have the same thoughts?

See the lack of discipline comments. It carries over to defense and special teams. The defense this year is about as bad as the offense. We’re 10th in the SEC in scoring offense and 12th in scoring defense as a team.

[MarketingBully]

We should have never hired a coordinator as our HC when Mullen bolted in the first place. We are past this stupid point where we have to take chances and go with a coordinator. There were plenty of good options of head coaches at the non power five schools that would have jumped at the chance to coach here for the price we could have paid them ($3-4 mil). In retrospect, was dumb decision for Cohen to go that route.

[MarketingBully]

Our defense is really bad. I thought our DE's played pretty well yesterday, but other than them, there was nobody that i saw that played well. If Arkansas has a good passer, I think we are going to be in trouble.

They don’t have good anything. They have an okay runner but they have a very bad QB situation in Starkel (sp) and that grad transfer from SMU. Starkel threw something like 5 pics against San Jose State. Alabama was up without Tua on Arkansas 41-0 at halftime. They are generational bad. They are the worst team the SEC has seen in a decade. Right now, right now you could say we have lost to all bowl teams. Arkansas, Ole Miss, and AC are a new level of suck we haven’t seen on our schedule since ULL and Southern Miss and both of those teams could still go to bowls.

[hp22]

The thing that bothers me is seeing the culture change for the worse. We are a soft football team that folds at first sign of adversity.

Mullen had tough football teams.

[Todd4State]

The thing that bothers me is seeing the culture change for the worse. We are a soft football team that folds at first sign of adversity.

Mullen had tough football teams.

That can be changed in one offseason though. See 2008 vs 2009.