State of the Athletic Department

[Pinto]

Sorry to start another thread to beat a dead horse, but anyone remember the notes Byrne and Stricklin used to send out? Seems like they came out every Wednesday. Anyway, this was another example of them getting out in front of things and not being reactionary. All that to say this, with all the chatter why doesn't Cohen put out a state of the athletic department?

Right now would be the perfect time. Vision 20/20 - stating what is happening in the coming year. Even better would be a decade ahead video or letter. Stating what our plan is for MSU Athletics for the coming decade. What are our priorities, where are we going to be spending money, how is it going to help MSU compete in the SEC and nationally, and what Joe Q Fan can do to help.

The lack of communication is what makes me really feel we are back in the Templeton era. So what if the cigar boys know what's going on. It's the average fan on message boards and twitter that are on the streets talking your program daily. Plug them in some way, some how. A lot of chatter could be easily quieted, but in a void - darkness speaks.

[Tbonewannabe]

It definitely feels like we have started doing business like it is the 90s again. Anyone have a Dawgsbite magazine so we can find out what is happening at MSU?

[shannondawg]

Hell, it might scare you!

[timotheus]

We can't believe anything John says pertaining to the football program so it's all a waste to print fiction.

[Cooterpoot]

John recently did a big Q/A. Basically saying no beer but better experiences coming (concessions), Hump renovation starts next year, south endzone expansion after that, indoor facility after that.

[Coursesuper]

John recently did a big Q/A. Basically saying no beer but better experiences coming (concessions), Hump renovation starts next year, south endzone expansion after that, indoor facility after that.

Building the south endzone to add more premium seating is beyond a stupid expenditure of capital funds at this point. Upgrade the GD metal bleachers to chair backs, un17 the concession snafu, get people in the stadium in a more efficient manner and sell beer before adding more higher paying seating. Make it the nicest venue in the league.

[confucius say]

We do a horrible job not using video. You dont connect with fans through a q and a in the newspaper anymore. You put out a 5 minute awesome video on all social media platforms celebrating the decade?s accomplishments and turning the page to the next decade. We are just dull right now.

[confucius say]

Building the south endzone to add more premium seating is beyond a stupid expenditure of capital funds at this point. Upgrade the GD metal bleachers to chair backs, un17 the concession snafu, get people in the stadium in a more efficient manner and sell beer before adding more higher paying seating. Make it the nicest venue in the league.

Yep. How much would chairbacking it all cut the capacity?

[StateDawg44]

We do a horrible job not using video. You dont connect with fans through a q and a in the newspaper anymore. You put out a 5 minute awesome video on all social media platforms celebrating the decade?s accomplishments and turning the page to the next decade. We are just dull right now.


Our PR and media presence is virtually non-existent. It's the complete opposite of how it needs to be basically. Absolutely stagnant and not one thing to be excited about. And this is even if you do support Moorhead 100%. It's still boring.

With the future landscape of college football and players making money from their name we better learn how to market ourselves and market our players. Otherwise, the gap will become even larger from us and the blue bloods.

[Cowbell]

I am the managing partner for my business and I even have to send out a state of the company at the end of each year to all my other partners.

What’s sad is they don’t miss on those letters asking for money.

[Lumpy Chucklelips]

I was thinking that Arkansas chairbacked their stadium a few years ago and went looking to see if I could find anything on it. I found the following....

https://www.arkansasfight.com/2019/10/25/20932594/university-of-arkansas-announces-160-million-stadium-reduction-issa-joke

It took me a minute or two to realize it was a joke. But, it was funny. Just sharing if you wanted a laugh or two. It plays off of their recent demise. If not, disregard.

Now, back to looking...

[Maroonthirteen]

Building the south endzone to add more premium seating is beyond a stupid expenditure of capital funds at this point. Upgrade the GD metal bleachers to chair backs, un17 the concession snafu, get people in the stadium in a more efficient manner and sell beer before adding more higher paying seating. Make it the nicest venue in the league.

I agree!!!!; it is mind blowing dumb to add anything to the stadium at this point in time. Save that money, wait and see the long term effect TV has on attendance and then when you have the cash..... a total redo of the Westside to give you sideline luxury, premium seating. The south endzone can always be built after that.... year 2100.

Also chair backs.... looking at Nissan stadium this week..... chairbacks throughout look nice.

[BrunswickDawg]

I was thinking that Arkansas chairbacked their stadium a few years ago and went looking to see if I could find anything on it. I found the following....

https://www.arkansasfight.com/2019/10/25/20932594/university-of-arkansas-announces-160-million-stadium-reduction-issa-joke

It took me a minute or two to realize it was a joke. But, it was funny. Just sharing if you wanted a laugh or two. It plays off of their recent demise. If not, disregard.

Now, back to looking...

Do they make stadium seats wide enough for the general Hawg fan?

[Lord McBuckethead]

Yep. How much would chairbacking it all cut the capacity?

Yeah it would cut the capacity, but to be truthful the 12" per seat model they are using right now makes for some very uncomfortable seating arrangements. Luckily, on the field performance, has kept the actual attendance down since 2016. So there is that.

[Lord McBuckethead]

I agree!!!!; it is mind blowing dumb to add anything to the stadium at this point in time. Save that money, wait and see the long term effect TV has on attendance and then when you have the cash..... a total redo of the Westside to give you sideline luxury, premium seating. The south endzone can always be built after that.... year 2100.

Also chair backs.... looking at Nissan stadium this week..... chairbacks throughout look nice.

I would agree, but they should let me redesign the M-Club Building. That thing looks like ass.

[Liverpooldawg]

I swear we just look for stuff to whine about.

[DeputyDawg94]

Building the south endzone to add more premium seating is beyond a stupid expenditure of capital funds at this point. Upgrade the GD metal bleachers to chair backs, un17 the concession snafu, get people in the stadium in a more efficient manner and sell beer before adding more higher paying seating. Make it the nicest venue in the league.
Absolutely!! I don’t drink but don’t care if anyone else does or not. Not sure if the athletic department would know how to spend the extra revenue in a positive way. No need to expand anything at DWS. We need chair back seating and the Templeton troughs removed. I’m not sure there will be any sell outs for a while anyway.

[Dawgfan77]

No need to upgrade anything football related until we upgrade coaches

[dantheman4248]

I swear we just look for stuff to whine about.

Well hard not to when there isn't much to commend. We just had a top 5 Egg Bowl finish and our marketing department did nothing to capitalize on it. There was so much done after the 2013 Egg Bowl (that people love to compare this season to). Off-the-field has been more pathetic on-the-field. And it's not a contest.

Seriously, the only positives I've seen so far is the addition of "cooling" towers of free water after the major bitching about USM and the giving up of wanding people through to let the stadium fill up for Egg Bowl pre kickoff.

[Captain Falcon]

So digging through the HailState.com archives, he at one time did do a weekly “Cohen’s Corner” update where he would kind of give the lay of the land on our program. The last one published was on June 27th, 2018, right after we hired Lemonis. Not sure why he stopped doing those and kinda wish he wouldn’t have.

[parabrave]

Do they make stadium seats wide enough for the general Hawg fan?

When they were designing Suntrust field PABS were intergrated in seat designed. I think they were going to add 1-2 inches per seat.

[Lumpy Chucklelips]

So digging through the HailState.com archives, he at one time did do a weekly ?Cohen?s Corner? update where he would kind of give the lay of the land on our program. The last one published was on June 27th, 2018, right after we hired Lemonis. Not sure why he stopped doing those and kinda wish he wouldn?t have.

I always felt he didn't like doing these just from the content that he gave. His two predecessors did it and I feel like he did it just because he thought he needed to do it. Stopping in the middle of the summer when nothing was going on was a perfect time to stop and for people to forget by the time a new sports season started.

[dantheman4248]

I always felt he didn't like doing these just from the content that he gave. His two predecessors did it and I feel like he did it just because he thought he needed to do it. Stopping in the middle of the summer when nothing was going on was a perfect time to stop and for people to forget by the time a new sports season started.


New AD doesn't like doing things that previous two successful ADs liked doing.

Sums up a lot of Cohen

[Interpolation_Dawg_EX]

New AD doesn't like doing things that previous two successful ADs liked doing.

Sums up a lot of Cohen

Can you blame him? I don't like wearing loafers either.

[TheLostDawg]

I actually think the way they would do the South end zone is really smart. LSU has a hotel for the school. Ole Miss might. If we start one much like the left field lofts looking over the stadium then I think it'd be a hit. For those of you who try to rent hotels for games, graduation, etc know exactly what in talking about. It's not about adding on to the stadium as much as an investment for the future.
On the other hand, yes we've regressed in communication and that's caused turmoil in the fan base and less excitement about the future which will result in decrease in donations and regression as an athletic program. This is the worst possible time for this like someone mentioned with the pay to play coming.
Cohen better show he's paying attention and adapt or I assure you there will be too much noise for him to keep his job. He's showing the one advantage of promoting from within isn't applying to him (continuing to do the things that have been done right).

[MaroonBelle]

Well hard not to when there isn't much to commend. We just had a top 5 Egg Bowl finish and our marketing department did nothing to capitalize on it. There was so much done after the 2013 Egg Bowl (that people love to compare this season to). Off-the-field has been more pathetic on-the-field. And it's not a contest.

Seriously, the only positives I've seen so far is the addition of "cooling" towers of free water after the major bitching about USM and the giving up of wanding people through to let the stadium fill up for Egg Bowl pre kickoff.

The marketing dept did nothing to capitalize on it?

Did you somehow miss the golden egg tour that went all.over the state and even into people's homes and was photographed and video recorded for social media? Have you missed the billboards that are currently going up from the bottom to top of the state touting "Sip to State" in the home towns of our current nfl players which have a dual purpose in that they are also pushing in state recruiting? Not to mention the ones featuring the egg bowl trophy. Have you missed all our current recruits putting out images especially made for them by our marketing dept to publicize their early signing days on social media? Guaranteed they are prodding much more stuff right now to put out on the day itself.

There are is now less than a month between egg bowl and early NSD which for all intents and purposes is now actually The NSD that counts. In 2013 there was no early NSD so all they had to do was egg bowl. Personally I think NSD is way more important and am glad they are concentrating more on that in the run up to it.

[lastmajordog]

delete

[Schultzy]

It’s obviously smarter to wait until after the bowl game to put out anything like this.

[Todd4State]

The marketing dept did nothing to capitalize on it?

Did you somehow miss the golden egg tour that went all.over the state and even into people's homes and was photographed and video recorded for social media? Have you missed the billboards that are currently going up from the bottom to top of the state touting "Sip to State" in the home towns of our current nfl players which have a dual purpose in that they are also pushing in state recruiting? Not to mention the ones featuring the egg bowl trophy. Have you missed all our current recruits putting out images especially made for them by our marketing dept to publicize their early signing days on social media? Guaranteed they are prodding much more stuff right now to put out on the day itself.

There are is now less than a month between egg bowl and early NSD which for all intents and purposes is now actually The NSD that counts. In 2013 there was no early NSD so all they had to do was egg bowl. Personally I think NSD is way more important and am glad they are concentrating more on that in the run up to it.

Of course Ole Miss is doing everything that they can do try to get people to forget about the Egg Bowl. Especially this year. It's one thing to lose the Egg Bowl. It's another to completely humiliate yourself on a world wide scale in the process.

[Todd4State]

It’s obviously smarter to wait until after the bowl game to put out anything like this.

I agree. The goal for MSU right now needs to be to promote the Egg Bowl win. Thank you Joe for putting a damper on it by acting like an ass in your press conference. Finish the early signing period strong. And focus on and win the Music City Bowl. All of those things should give us a lot of momentum going into next year. I think Joe lost the momentum from the 2018 Egg Bowl win by losing the bowl game.

[HaggardDawg]

Byrne and Strickland were marketing centric ADs which is what you need in this day and age of social media. What we have now is a ball coach. Whether it's your high school baseball coach or a college or professional coach making millions, they are all the same...typically. It doesn't matter how much money they make, they enjoy a simple lifestyle, stubborn as hell, and usually are cheapskates.

[timotheus]

HaggardDawg coming in on point today.......

[TheLostDawg]

The marketing dept did nothing to capitalize on it?

Did you somehow miss the golden egg tour that went all.over the state and even into people's homes and was photographed and video recorded for social media? Have you missed the billboards that are currently going up from the bottom to top of the state touting "Sip to State" in the home towns of our current nfl players which have a dual purpose in that they are also pushing in state recruiting? Not to mention the ones featuring the egg bowl trophy. Have you missed all our current recruits putting out images especially made for them by our marketing dept to publicize their early signing days on social media? Guaranteed they are prodding much more stuff right now to put out on the day itself.

There are is now less than a month between egg bowl and early NSD which for all intents and purposes is now actually The NSD that counts. In 2013 there was no early NSD so all they had to do was egg bowl. Personally I think NSD is way more important and am glad they are concentrating more on that in the run up to it.

Continuing positive things is great. Stopping some of the positive things is not. I understand some things takes a bit to get used to before putting out statements for fans to get excited about and donate which has dropped off.
So it comes down to what have you done for me lately. Basically nothing new and stopped doing since positive things.
The staff needs to work harder getting us excited for the future by including us in the plans for the future and new creative ideas not just continuing the old ones. Beer sales would get us excited, etc. All they've shown us since Strickland is we're out of ideas. If you're going to bring up the signing day videos, that's Moorhead not the AD dept that came up with that. I feel like the AD is stuck in the mud and happy where they are. Not taking chances and looking to improve

[Cloak]

Moorehead is mass following fans on twitter right now lol. Full PR mode activated.

[Todd4State]

Moorehead is mass following fans on twitter right now lol. Full PR mode activated.

Well, at least they're starting to try.