You have the keys to the DeLorean and you're MSU AD....it post season 2017

[Indndawg]

knowing what you know............what would YOU do post Don *******?

[msstate7]

I'd hire Neal brown or Dave clawson

[Dawgfan77]

Saterfield was the guy.

[Cowbell]

Saterfield was the guy.
This

[MetEdDawg]

This is tough for me because I think the guarantees out there aren't going to ever come to MSU.

So 3 years ago it's a risk no matter who you get. And that's because at MSU we have to hire risks. Satterfield is sitting at 2-5 this year. But 3 years ago we are talking about hiring him as the Appalachian State head coach. That's a risk. Ryan Day was a risk to go after. His success at Ohio State can't be measured against HC potential at MSU.

The problem here is that there is no template for what will be good for us. Mullen is a northern roots guy that rode Urban Meyer for a long time. But there was practically no way he was going to be worse than Croom. So now we dangle $5 million out there and get Mike Leach. Who is a risk. So for me, 3 years ago, it's hard for me to be confident, but I probably go Neal Brown. SEC familiarity, HC experience in the south, but the offense is very similarly styled to what we are witnessing right now.

I think the head coaching searches of the past few years should show us that this is an MSU problem, not a hiring problem. Anyone that says they feel confident Coach X would have been successful here is outside of their mind. I'll continue to maintain that until we at least double our revenue, we will never legitimately compete in football no matter who we hire. We just don't have the resources to compete. Yes we've built nice things. But internally we can't hire competitively or recruit competitively to win.

It's a players game. Folks aren't getting outschemed as much anymore (I'm not counting Covid 2020). Teams in the SEC with worse talent are losing almost every time to teams with better talent. Money = Power and we don't have a lot of either.

Rant over

[ShotgunDawg]

Saterfield was the guy.

This

[ShotgunDawg]

This is tough for me because I think the guarantees out there aren't going to ever come to MSU.

So 3 years ago it's a risk no matter who you get. And that's because at MSU we have to hire risks. Satterfield is sitting at 2-5 this year. But 3 years ago we are talking about hiring him as the Appalachian State head coach. That's a risk. Ryan Day was a risk to go after. His success at Ohio State can't be measured against HC potential at MSU.

The problem here is that there is no template for what will be good for us. Mullen is a northern roots guy that rode Urban Meyer for a long time. But there was practically no way he was going to be worse than Croom. So now we dangle $5 million out there and get Mike Leach. Who is a risk. So for me, 3 years ago, it's hard for me to be confident, but I probably go Neal Brown. SEC familiarity, HC experience in the south, but the offense is very similarly styled to what we are witnessing right now.

I think the head coaching searches of the past few years should show us that this is an MSU problem, not a hiring problem. Anyone that says they feel confident Coach X would have been successful here is outside of their mind. I'll continue to maintain that until we at least double our revenue, we will never legitimately compete in football no matter who we hire. We just don't have the resources to compete. Yes we've built nice things. But internally we can't hire competitively or recruit competitively to win.

It's a players game. Folks aren't getting outschemed as much anymore (I'm not counting Covid 2020). Teams in the SEC with worse talent are losing almost every time to teams with better talent. Money = Power and we don't have a lot of either.

Rant over

Every team struggles with hiring the "next guy".

Baylor and Ohio State seem to be the only ones that consistently get it right.

Problems with hiring a good "next coach" is a problem for everyone

[msstate7]

Satterfield would have been better than Moorhead, but he's hardly been impressive this year. Louisville is 2-5

[Quaoarsking]

Hire Leach then and we'd be 4-1 right now.

[Lord McBuckethead]

Lane Kiffin?

[ShotgunDawg]

Hire Leach then and we'd be 4-1 right now.

Agree with this.

[msstate7]

I'm still on clawson bc he continues to win with a talent deficit. This should always be a factor when choosing a coach here... certainly not the only factor, but 1 for sure.

ETA... this is one of the main reasons I liked leach as a hire. Had no idea the 3-8 was such a killer to him.

[HailStateSZN19]

It’s Satterfield or Neal Brown, no question.

[PGHBulldogBG]

Neal Brown for sure and it?s easy.

[HoopsDawg]

Hire Leach then and we'd be 4-1 right now.

Just stop. Be objective.

[HoopsDawg]

I don't need a DeLorean. I said hire Neal Brown at the time.

[Todd4State]

Hire an experienced head coach.

[defiantdog]

I'd rather look in the future..... When Arnett leaves..... We need to go all in on Chad Staggs.

[Choctaw Dawg]

Hindsight being what it is I would have thrown the check book at Dan Mullen in early November 2017 and made him say no.

A lot of yall are saying Brown or Satterfield but I think Mississippi State seemed set on grabbing Pruitt, not saying I would have been in favor of that but he seemed to be the guy we would be set to go after if Moorhead did not want to come south

[Todd4State]

Hindsight being what it is I would have thrown the check book at Dan Mullen in early November 2017 and made him say no.

A lot of yall are saying Brown or Satterfield but I think Mississippi State seemed set on grabbing Pruitt, not saying I would have been in favor of that but he seemed to be the guy we would be set to go after if Moorhead did not want to come south

We did. Dan didn't want to be here anymore. I think we could have offered him Saban money and we still probably would have lost him. Dan did a good job here- but he was starting to neglect the program with his recruiting which was becoming more and more JUCO heavy and no one was holding Gonzalez and Hevesy accountable in recruiting and that's part of the reason why we have sucked there for the past few years. Compare how he acted yesterday when Trask got hit to how he acted when Fitz got hurt on a much dirtier play in 2017. It was just time for both of us to move in a different direction. He had been almost ten years- that's a long time for a coach nowadays.

You are correct that Cohen was set on hiring an assistant- and that's because he got terrible advice from the same guy that thought that Rick Ray would be a good basketball coach for us with this ridiculous idea that all MSU can hire is sitting assistant coaches.

[missouridawg]

Satterfield
Then Napier
Then maybe even Geoff Collins

What really sucks is that Sloppy Joe was almost perfect on paper. He just didn’t have what it takes even though he had pretty much every credential except P5 head coaching experience on his resume.

[Todd4State]

Satterfield
Then Napier
Then maybe even Geoff Collins

What really sucks is that Sloppy Joe was almost perfect on paper. He just didn’t have what it takes even though he had pretty much every credential except P5 head coaching experience on his resume.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised at all if he gets another shot somewhere in the Big 10 or PAC 12 and does OK. Like Maryland or somewhere like that. I think he's going to end up being our version of Orgeron.

[TimberBeast]

I just want the keys to the DeLorean.

[Dannyripms]

I still believe Moorehead will be a good coach too. He just has to learn discipline. As far as offense i believe he will do good.

[Todd4State]

I still believe Moorehead will be a good coach too. He just has to learn discipline. As far as offense i believe he will do good.

Exactly. And I'm sure he learned a lot about that while at MSU. The thing is once you lose control it's over and there is no turning back. I think that's what happened- and I think at some point he realized it and started to act kind of crazy- going off on fans in press conferences and things like that.

[Captain Falcon]

My personal theory is that Ryan Day was Cohen’s first choice and he turned us down because he had some assurances about being the heir apparent for the Ohio State job. MSU people have never focused on this much but it’s been talked about a bit by Ohio State and national sources.

That’s an interesting what if though. He is another Meyer disciple and in a lot of ways a Mullen clone. He simply got his big job quicker than Dan did.

[Todd4State]

Thinking about this original question- I will say that MSU we need to know what we REALLY are. In the SEC we're on the lower end of the conference spectrum. Nationally we are actually pretty good though. In terms of resources and pay we're easily top 30-40. If not higher.

So my point is we are good enough that we shouldn't have to settle for coordinators with no head coaching experience. That model has had about a 25% recent success rate for us- Felker, Croom, and Moorhead didn't work and only Dan did. I think we should follow the model that South Carolina has followed for the most part and hire experienced head coaches that are retreads (Holtz and Spurrier) or are guys like Leach have been known for doing more with less. Looking at that- Bellard was successful with much fewer resources until his recruiting caught up to him. Jackie was successful. The jury is still out on Leach but history says most likely that he will be successful. Even if Leach doesn't work out- worst case scenario we're looking a 67% success compared to 25% with assistants. With a chance at this point of the veteran guys getting to 100% best case still.

For example- we probably could hire someone like Les Miles, Mark Richt, or Rich Rodriguez if we wanted to. In a few years we probably could get someone like Mahlzahn after he leaves Auburn. I think Leach falls into this category as well.

Joe Judge could be interesting if he is available for our next coaching search too. I would be fine with an exception like that because he is an alum and I would think he would want to do really well here.

Not that I want any of these guys that I mentioned- just that we should adjust our coaching targets for football in the future.

[Todd4State]

My personal theory is that Ryan Day was Cohen’s first choice and he turned us down because he had some assurances about being the heir apparent for the Ohio State job. MSU people have never focused on this much but it’s been talked about a bit by Ohio State and national sources.

That’s an interesting what if though. He is another Meyer disciple and in a lot of ways a Mullen clone. He simply got his big job quicker than Dan did.

You're right. And I think Day did get the Ohio State job that offseason or not long after? Bad luck for us. Another MSU "what if"?

[Santiago]

Hire Leach then and we'd be 4-1 right now.

Agree. And we would have 4 and maybe 5 stars on offense across the board on skill sets.
We would have stability in a program, and possibly grooming a younger coach for down the road.
I still want to see the Air Raid with a qb that can make the correct reads, and in 2.5 seconds, with accuracy. Rogers is showing the glimpses of that possibility. We need the WR with elite speed to really take the top off.

[Cowbell]

I'm still on clawson bc he continues to win with a talent deficit. This should always be a factor when choosing a coach here... certainly not the only factor, but 1 for sure.

ETA... this is one of the main reasons I liked leach as a hire. Had no idea the 3-8 was such a killer to him.

Same here. I also thought he would make adjustments to the style of defense here. I didn't realize he was Moorehead level stubborn.

[KOdawg1]

Dave Clawson is a good football coach who has won at literally every stop along the way. He'd be my first choice. Neal Brown would be my second.

[Quaoarsking]

Just stop. Be objective.

I'm always among the most objective posters here. I wanted to put 5-0, but that would be homerish.

With a halfway competent offense we beat Kentucky and A&M, and only needed about 10% more competence or luck to beat Arkansas.

[ShotgunDawg]

I honestly wouldn't be surprised at all if he gets another shot somewhere in the Big 10 or PAC 12 and does OK. Like Maryland or somewhere like that. I think he's going to end up being our version of Orgeron.

Maybe. If he can figure out the discipline thing from day 1, he’s got a much better chance

[StarkVegasSteve]

I think a few names you'd go back and look at would've been Neal Brown, Lane Kiffin, Dana Holgorsen, Scott Satterfield, and Todd Grantham. There's no way around it, we rushed the hire. I think Cohen would admit that much. If I had to make the hire though, it probably would've been Brown or Kiffin. Both ran similar offenses to what we were running at the time and could've kept us rolling.

[Captain Falcon]

You're right. And I think Day did get the Ohio State job that offseason or not long after? Bad luck for us. Another MSU "what if"?

Day didn't get the OSU job permanently until Urban retired after 2018 (after Day was the interim coach for a few games because of the Zach Smith stuff). Day also turned down the OC job with Titans the same offseason he turned us down, so that really makes it seem like he had a strong indication Urban was getting close to being done and he was in line to be the next guy.

It's incredibly likely that even if we were able to hire Day, he would've left within a couple of years. But we'd still be in a better situation than we are now I would imagine.

One issue with Mullen during his time here was that he didn't develop much of a coaching tree with his offensive assistants. Nobody has ever tried to hire Knox, Hevesy, or Billy G as a head coach, and they were never remotely considered for our job. It seems like maybe Brian Johnson is getting to that level now that he's been promoted to OC at Florida, but Johnson wasn't at that level 3-4 years ago when he was just the QB coach here. So we didn't have anybody on staff that we could've promoted with any confidence to keep the train rolling.

[FISHDAWG]

knowing what you know............what would YOU do post Don *******?

I think I would have had serious discussions with Todd Grantham ..... he might have worked with the right OC on staff or he may have been a disaster but he waited for just a little while waiting on that phone call that never came and then he finally accepted ******* offer at Florida ... I think he was interested but then again we would have been going the coordinator route .... I don't blame Cohen for taking a chance on what appeared to be a pretty good offensive mind and he cut bait when he saw it wasn't working but if we were going to go the coordinator route then T Grantham was def worth a look ........ I don't blame him for hiring ML. It's gonna take something unusual or different to make a difference here and I think ML should at least get three years here if he shows the flexibility to adapt where he needs it

[MedDawg]

Hire Leach then and we'd be 4-1 right now.

Hire Leach after Mullen and in 2018 we'd have Leach and Gardner Minshew transferring in plus the #1 NCAA defense. I love that!

Leach/WSU/Minshew went 11-2 in 2018 with a defense no where close to MSU's 2018 #1 defense, so imagine the combo above. HOWEVER, even though Minshew was a year 1 guy at Washington State, the rest of the team had been there for years.

So would Leach still have had first season growing pains in 2018, even with an NFL QB and NFL players on defense? Did we have the WR and OL in 2018 to quickly learn the air raid in a spring and fall or would we still be seeing some of the problems we see here now?

[StarkVegasSteve]

Hire Leach after Mullen and in 2018 we'd have Leach and Gardner Minshew transferring in plus the #1 NCAA defense. I love that!

Leach/WSU/Minshew went 11-2 in 2018 with a defense no where close to MSU's 2018 #1 defense, so imagine the combo above. HOWEVER, even though Minshew was a year 1 guy at Washington State, the rest of the team had been there for years.

So would Leach still have had first season growing pains in 2018, even with an NFL QB and NFL players on defense? Did we have the WR and OL in 2018 to quickly learn the air raid in a spring and fall or would we still be seeing some of the problems we see here now?

You would have the exact same problems you're having now. You'd have an even better defense though and still have an offense who was schematically out of place. Now having a spring would've helped but it wouldn't magically give you better receivers. I mean do you really think Mitchell or Guidry make massive jumps? Would've been fun to see Dedrick Thomas in this offense and I think Mixon probably stays.

[PGHBulldogBG]

Dave Clawson is a good football coach who has won at literally every stop along the way. He'd be my first choice. Neal Brown would be my second.

These were my first two choices for 2017 as well although Matt Campbell was my dream hire. What Clawson has done at WF is pretty remarkable considering they have sun belt level talent. Neal Brown I figured would be most realistic and it seemed like it would?ve been a perfect fit for both MSU and Brown. I live near Morgantown WV and follow Brown closely. He is doing a fantastic job there after he had to completely blow up the program. Anyone wanting Holgerson he was a big mess at WVU and created a train wreck just like Moorhead if not worse.