Can someone in the know

[Cowbell]

Please explain why it is the Joe is still in charge this Monday morning. I know there must be a good reason, but would like to hear it as a fact. The only thing I can think of is to give him time to find a landing spot to help with the buyout.

Other than that, I see no reason we need to let this sled keep going down the mountain. There is no way that this team could play any worse from an effort and prep standpoint so any logical interim would work.

[ShotgunDawg]

I mean, I'm not in the know, but it's been pretty proven that there is no real benefit to firing your coach before the season ends unless there is a legitimate assistant on staff that you would consider giving the job to and want to try out.

Since we don't have that guy, you have to keep the assistants trying.

[gtowndawg]

I think it's logical to assume they will give him this season to see if he can win the last three. I personally don't see that happening, things are a total mess now, but they don't have much of a choice. Just have to ride it out now.

[Dawg2003]

I would guess to keep the recruiting class together.

[DownwardDawg]

I would guess to keep the recruiting class together.

This, and hopefully we are talking to agents.

[TrapGame]

If we lose to Arkansas - God forbid - all pretenses are gone. We will hear strong rumors at that point that he is done. He can't survive losing to Chad Morris.

[Johnson85]

Please explain why it is the Joe is still in charge this Monday morning. I know there must be a good reason, but would like to hear it as a fact. The only thing I can think of is to give him time to find a landing spot to help with the buyout.

Other than that, I see no reason we need to let this sled keep going down the mountain. There is no way that this team could play any worse from an effort and prep standpoint so any logical interim would work.

There are multiple good reasons.

First and most importantly, it's hard to fire a coach after two years and we will already be dealing with some perception issues on that (probably not big issues to people that matter, i.e., prospects). IF we fire a coach before he finishes his second season, we will have a problem with candidates. We will look unstable and short sighted (which is what we would be).

Second, you don't fire a coach after even two seasons without having an agreement in principal with a replacement. It's a big deal to fire a coach after just two seasons; if you fire a coach that quickly and have a drawn out coaching search, it's turns into a dumpster fire quickly. We're not going to have a deal in place during the season with anybody that would be an acceptable replacement, unless we are pulling somebody out of retirement.

Third, to what end? Firing him mid season would be the equivalent of a toddler throwing a tantrum. Instead of having a likely lame duck coach recruiting for us, we'd have nobody recruiting for us. Instead of a likely lame duck coach attempting to save his job leading the team, we'd have a coach that knows he is out at the end of the season leading the team (whether it be Moorhead or more likely an assistant that is named interim).

[Cowbell]

All legitimate responses. I’m just concerned that this could get worse for us from a culture and recruiting standpoint. We need some hope soon.

[ShotgunDawg]

There are multiple good reasons.

First and most importantly, it's hard to fire a coach after two years and we will already be dealing with some perception issues on that (probably not big issues to people that matter, i.e., prospects). IF we fire a coach before he finishes his second season, we will have a problem with candidates. We will look unstable and short sighted (which is what we would be).

Second, you don't fire a coach after even two seasons without having an agreement in principal with a replacement. It's a big deal to fire a coach after just two seasons; if you fire a coach that quickly and have a drawn out coaching search, it's turns into a dumpster fire quickly. We're not going to have a deal in place during the season with anybody that would be an acceptable replacement, unless we are pulling somebody out of retirement.

Third, to what end? Firing him mid season would be the equivalent of a toddler throwing a tantrum. Instead of having a likely lame duck coach recruiting for us, we'd have nobody recruiting for us. Instead of a likely lame duck coach attempting to save his job leading the team, we'd have a coach that knows he is out at the end of the season leading the team (whether it be Moorhead or more likely an assistant that is named interim).

Your first point is stupid.

Literally every media guy has acknowledged how poorly Moorhead has done.

[Tbonewannabe]

I think you let him coach out the rest of the games unless there are major issues. I would expect that if we are planning on replacing him then we are already putting out feelers to agents of coaches that we might be interested in. Cohen should be getting feedback on who would be interested in interviewing and who isn't. Cohen should also be gathering info for candidates that he should reach out.

Firing Joe does nothing but make some fans feel better right now.

[Todd4State]

If it’s any consolation this will all be resolved in a month.

And I hope our administration has better foresight than to keep him for another year. We need to focus more on the process and long range projection and less about the results.

[Spiderman]

I think you let him coach out the rest of the games unless there are major issues. I would expect that if we are planning on replacing him then we are already putting out feelers to agents of coaches that we might be interested in. Cohen should be getting feedback on who would be interested in interviewing and who isn't. Cohen should also be gathering info for candidates that he should reach out.

Firing Joe does nothing but make some fans feel better right now.

I want him gone today as much as anyone. However, you have to allow him this coming game. Still has an outside chance to go to a bowl.

If he loses this week, fire him. Same for Abilene Christian, and OM. If he loses any of those, he has to go. ( I believe we lose to OM. ARK. is a toss up)

Now will he be fired if he doesn't make a bowl? Who knows? He should be, but unfortunately, I don't get to make that decision.

[MetEdDawg]

There's $9 million reasons why

This isn't a hard concept I don't think

[Johnson85]

Your first point is stupid.

Literally every media guy has acknowledged how poorly Moorhead has done.

No, that's just you.

Moorhead doing poorly does not change what the perception would be if we fired a coach mid season with no particular reason. If we fire a coach after two seasons, based on the body of evidence we have, it will be pretty easy for coaches to see that it was not an unreasonable decision (and in fact probably a necessary decision) and that they do not have to worry about us having an itchy trigger finger. If we fire a coach mid season for no other reason than we want to have a good hissy fit, then coaches will rightly see that however justified it would have been to fire Moorhead at the end of the season, we had emotional people in charge that made an irrational and harmful decision just because they thought it would make themselves or the fan base feel better in the interim. That's not a big selling point to coaches. We are going to need a smart coach and a smart coach is not going to want to work for emotional and irrational leadership unless we are way better otherwise than their next best likely options.

You should probably focus more on discussions involving heavy feet and less on discussions about how people in charge should or do make decisions.

[Really Clark?]

There's $9 million reasons why

This isn't a hard concept I don't think

That wouldn’t matter in the sense of firing mid season or end of season, buyout is the same.

[Dawgology]

First and most importantly, it's hard to fire a coach after two years and we will already be dealing with some perception issues on that (probably not big issues to people that matter, i.e., prospects). IF we fire a coach before he finishes his second season, we will have a problem with candidates. We will look unstable and short sighted (which is what we would be).

This is, simply, untrue. When it isn't working it just isn't working. Any good football coach can look at MSU this year and see what is going on. If the demand for mediocre success scares a head coach applicant away then we probably don't want them.

Second, you don't fire a coach after even two seasons without having an agreement in principal with a replacement. It's a big deal to fire a coach after just two seasons; if you fire a coach that quickly and have a drawn out coaching search, it's turns into a dumpster fire quickly. We're not going to have a deal in place during the season with anybody that would be an acceptable replacement, unless we are pulling somebody out of retirement.

This is an old philosophy and is no longer relevant in today's college football atmosphere. We are dealing with multi-million dollar contracts and millions in revenue on a weekly basis, tv contracts, bowl money, celebrity status of recruits, etc. Once upon a time a coach could take 4-6 seasons to install their system, get their players, and start building a program. This is no longer the case. It is now produce or die for head coaches in the P5...as it should be with this amount of money on the line.

Third, to what end? Firing him mid season would be the equivalent of a toddler throwing a tantrum. Instead of having a likely lame duck coach recruiting for us, we'd have nobody recruiting for us. Instead of a likely lame duck coach attempting to save his job leading the team, we'd have a coach that knows he is out at the end of the season leading the team (whether it be Moorhead or more likely an assistant that is named interim)

This part is true, though. Firing a coach mid-season smacks of a baby tantrum and poor leadership. Cohen needs to take the rest of this season to backchannel with agents and get a hire in place so that it can be announced in December. This will help hold the recruit class together and create program momentum going into signing day and sping practice.

[Really Clark?]

Another thing to consider, and I am not necessarily pro firing a coach during the season but AD’s have done so in the past to eliminate the rest of the year from the decision making. If he is done in your mind, once he it’s to the point of no return, fire him. It may give the players a little bounce back to win a game or two to end the year but more importantly it doesn’t give the HC a change to steal a few wins against horrid opponents making the win-loss record look better than the product on the field. Eliminate those games by him not being on the sidelines. You can also play it as...see got rid of HC and the players starting playing better. To me if he losses ARK, you can do that with him having only 3 wins on the year and another defeat about occur.

[MetEdDawg]

That wouldn’t matter in the sense of firing mid season or end of season, buyout is the same.

Not unless we decide to mutually part ways at the end of the season, which to me is what I could see happening.

I think we see a resignation from Moorhead and we will agree to pay some modest portion of his buyout for him to go away.

I think this is special case because I don't think he's happy. I think he's smart enough to know a square peg in a round hole when he sees it. So I could very much see a post Egg Bowl resignation that takes us off the hook for the whole buyout.

My big concern is if we do fire him mid year, we better not get some damn coordinator or G5 head coach to replace him. You fire him mid year only if you know for a fact you can get someone else that's going to move the needle substantially. You fire him mid year and have to pay all of his buyout and hamstring yourself with the next staff and that will tailspin us further. A mid year firing of a coach in year 2 at MSU better produce substantial change in who we hire or it will look really bad for us.

We have to be very smart about this process folks.

[R2Dawg]

If we lose to Arkansas - God forbid - all pretenses are gone. We will hear strong rumors at that point that he is done. He can't survive losing to Chad Morris.

Think about this, we hung like 50 on Ark last year so if we lose to them this year what does that tell you in the direction of the program. Same with Olemiss 35-3 last year.

Smart thing to do is let season play out. Getting to a bowl is positive. Getting a new coach before signing day can be good positive vibe as well.

[Dolphus Raymond]

Should we lose to Arkansas, fire him Saturday night.

[Spiderman]

Should we lose to Arkansas, fire him Saturday night.

Agree

[Johnson85]

Another thing to consider, and I am not necessarily pro firing a coach during the season but AD?s have done so in the past to eliminate the rest of the year from the decision making. If he is done in your mind, once he it?s to the point of no return, fire him. It may give the players a little bounce back to win a game or two to end the year but more importantly it doesn?t give the HC a change to steal a few wins against horrid opponents making the win-loss record look better than the product on the field. Eliminate those games by him not being on the sidelines. You can also play it as...see got rid of HC and the players starting playing better. To me if he losses ARK, you can do that with him having only 3 wins on the year and another defeat about occur.

I think this is all good logic, I just don't think you can do it in the middle of year two. I think LSU did it with Miles partly for this reason. The money men had already made the decision (for the second time), they weren't going to change their mind but there might have been more rift with their fan base (and more important, politically) if Miles had bounced back some later in the year. I think the AD also wanted to give Orgeron a chance at the job, which he could probably only do if he did well as an interim.

I just don't think we have any of the circumstances that usually accompany a situation like that apply here. We don't have an interim waiting in the wings. We don't have an obvious replacement that I know of. We don't have a reasonanby long running rift in the fan base over the status of the coach where we need to rip the bandaid off of. I will agree that if the money men have made their decision, waiting until the end of the season runs the risk of him getting to 6-6, at which point we will have a rift if we fire him, if for no other reason than a lot of fans will be inexplicably upset about the buyout costs even though they are not paying it, and we will also end up with more of a perception issue. But at this point, unless we are firing him after losing to Bama (which we aren't going to do), we aren't going to have an opportunity to fire him unless and until he puts us out of bowl contention, at which point no harm in waiting until the end of the season.

[Johnson85]

Not unless we decide to mutually part ways at the end of the season, which to me is what I could see happening.

I think we see a resignation from Moorhead and we will agree to pay some modest portion of his buyout for him to go away.

I think this is special case because I don't think he's happy. I think he's smart enough to know a square peg in a round hole when he sees it. So I could very much see a post Egg Bowl resignation that takes us off the hook for the whole buyout.

My big concern is if we do fire him mid year, we better not get some damn coordinator or G5 head coach to replace him. You fire him mid year only if you know for a fact you can get someone else that's going to move the needle substantially. You fire him mid year and have to pay all of his buyout and hamstring yourself with the next staff and that will tailspin us further. A mid year firing of a coach in year 2 at MSU better produce substantial change in who we hire or it will look really bad for us.

We have to be very smart about this process folks.

That is exactly what our next coach will probably be. What Power 5 coach do you think we are going to poach? I mean, there are definitely Power 5 schools we can poach from, but which ones do you think are going to have a HC that has done well enough for us to want him that will also be a fit and that won't have their sights set on a bigger name program? Might happen, but much more likely that we get a G5 head coach or a coordinator from a Power 5 school.

[Spiderman]

That is exactly what our next coach will probably be. What Power 5 coach do you think we are going to poach? I mean, there are definitely Power 5 schools we can poach from, but which ones do you think are going to have a HC that has done well enough for us to want him that will also be a fit and that won't have their sights set on a bigger name program? Might happen, but much more likely that we get a G5 head coach or a coordinator from a Power 5 school.

We had that chance last time. We were solid, with a good team returning. We blew it. Now we will HAVE to do what we did last time and go the assistant/smaller school route

[Johnson85]

We had that chance last time. We were solid, with a good team returning. We blew it. Now we will HAVE to do what we did last time and go the assistant/smaller school route

Did we have any P5 head coaches that were an option last time? I don't even remember any of them coming up in any rumors? But all I really remember are Moorhead and Pruitt, so obviously I'm forgetting the early names.

[Tbonewannabe]

Did we have any P5 head coaches that were an option last time? I don't even remember any of them coming up in any rumors? But all I really remember are Moorhead and Pruitt, so obviously I'm forgetting the early names.

Only name that was actually mentioned that I heard was Whittingham at Utah. Other than him, it seems like Cohen was dead set on hiring an OC and Moorhead probably had one of the best resumes of the available.

[bluelightstar]

Hindsight is 20/20, but Moorhead over Satterfield (who reportedly was interested but couldn't even get an interview) doesn't even make sense to me.

[NCDawg]

Hindsight is 20/20, but Moorhead over Satterfield (who reportedly was interested but couldn't even get an interview) doesn't even make sense to me.


I agree with this totally. I have real reservations about Cohen making another football coach hire.

[ShotgunDawg]

No, that's just you.

Moorhead doing poorly does not change what the perception would be if we fired a coach mid season with no particular reason. If we fire a coach after two seasons, based on the body of evidence we have, it will be pretty easy for coaches to see that it was not an unreasonable decision (and in fact probably a necessary decision) and that they do not have to worry about us having an itchy trigger finger. If we fire a coach mid season for no other reason than we want to have a good hissy fit, then coaches will rightly see that however justified it would have been to fire Moorhead at the end of the season, we had emotional people in charge that made an irrational and harmful decision just because they thought it would make themselves or the fan base feel better in the interim. That's not a big selling point to coaches. We are going to need a smart coach and a smart coach is not going to want to work for emotional and irrational leadership unless we are way better otherwise than their next best likely options.

You should probably focus more on discussions involving heavy feet and less on discussions about how people in charge should or do make decisions.

Nah. This is an irrational stupid fear

[MoreCowbell]

Your first point is stupid.

Literally every media guy has acknowledged how poorly Moorhead has done.

He actually had really good points. No point in saying it was stupid just because you disagree.

[Coursesuper]

I agree with this totally. I have real reservations about Cohen making another football coach hire.

Me also, I really hope there is guidance from above with this process.

[MetEdDawg]

That is exactly what our next coach will probably be. What Power 5 coach do you think we are going to poach? I mean, there are definitely Power 5 schools we can poach from, but which ones do you think are going to have a HC that has done well enough for us to want him that will also be a fit and that won't have their sights set on a bigger name program? Might happen, but much more likely that we get a G5 head coach or a coordinator from a Power 5 school.

I disagree. Go get a Schiano. Go get a Matt Campbell. Get a Clawson.

I think those names are reasonable for us and would be solid hires.

Now I wouldn't mind a G5 head coach that had been around the block a while like whittingham 2 years ago. But we need to avoid this up and comer stuff if we can. Go get someone who's done it and pay the shit out of them.

[Coursesuper]

We had that chance last time. We were solid, with a good team returning. We blew it. Now we will HAVE to do what we did last time and go the assistant/smaller school route

There have been missed opportunities that at a school like MSU it's not very easy to overcome, and always considering yourself the smartest guy in the room isn't always a good thing. It's very disappointing knowing what could have happened and what is currently looking us in the face.

[Johnson85]

I disagree. Go get a Schiano. Go get a Matt Campbell. Get a Clawson.

I think those names are reasonable for us and would be solid hires.

Now I wouldn't mind a G5 head coach that had been around the block a while like whittingham 2 years ago. But we need to avoid this up and comer stuff if we can. Go get someone who's done it and pay the shit out of them.

Clawson looks interesting and I agree would be a reasonable possibility on its face. Not sure if T4, T3, T5 in his division is going to get people excited or not, but not someone that would dismiss us out of hand unless it was for personal preferences.

Schiano is another solid name; I would have considered him a coordinator but obviously he was a head coach at P5 and NFL level.

Matt Campbell is another good name, but he might be in a position that he can be picky. Really depends on his personal preferences and how bad a result he would view it if he stalled at Iowa State and a bigger program never came calling.

So that's three solid possibilities I think, but I also would not be shocked if all three said thanks but no thanks unless we overpaid them. I think Schiano is established enough that we could justify throwing the bank at him just because it's so important that we not make two bad hires in a row and I think he has a high floor. But he might just want to go back to Rutgers and it sounds like Rutgers is willing to pay.

[Tbonewannabe]

Clawson looks interesting and I agree would be a reasonable possibility on its face. Not sure if T4, T3, T5 in his division is going to get people excited or not, but not someone that would dismiss us out of hand unless it was for personal preferences.

Schiano is another solid name; I would have considered him a coordinator but obviously he was a head coach at P5 and NFL level.

Matt Campbell is another good name, but he might be in a position that he can be picky. Really depends on his personal preferences and how bad a result he would view it if he stalled at Iowa State and a bigger program never came calling.

So that's three solid possibilities I think, but I also would not be shocked if all three said thanks but no thanks unless we overpaid them. I think Schiano is established enough that we could justify throwing the bank at him just because it's so important that we not make two bad hires in a row and I think he has a high floor. But he might just want to go back to Rutgers and it sounds like Rutgers is willing to pay.

I personally wouldn't mind Sark at Bama. As long as he has the boozing under control. He put Washington back on the map. I don't think you have to throw the bank at Schiano unless we are out bidding someone.

[MetEdDawg]

I personally wouldn't mind Sark at Bama. As long as he has the boozing under control. He put Washington back on the map. I don't think you have to throw the bank at Schiano unless we are out bidding someone.

To me the money isn't all about ability. Obviously you don't throw $6 million at an up and coming G5 coach. But to me it's about establishing our program as one willing to pay. Sets a tone and lets everyone know we are willing to compete and we mean business. If we were willing to pay Dan $6 million then we should be able to offer some big names that same money. And that word will get around.

And it sets the tone going forward.

[MetEdDawg]

Double post

[timotheus]

If he does lose saturday, we will have an interim for the remainder of the season.

[Cowbell]

If he does lose saturday, we will have an interim for the remainder of the season.

You confident in this? Likely who?