Here Are the Facts, Fellas

[William Tecumsah Sherman]

We are Mississippi State University located in Starkville, MS. We have the greatest coach ever 90 miles away. We have an instate rival that prioritizes recruiting with booster influence more than us. We have LSU to our south who will embezzle from a children?s hospital to pay for recruits. What can we do? Do we need to improve our network? Do we need to get a charismatic coach who will blatantly cheat?

OR do we take the route I think is most likely

Hire coaches who can coach. Hire coaches who can find undervalued kids. Find players that are tough as hell with chips on their shoulders. Find players who are smart and fit a system and culture. Find players like Dak Prescott who has too much pride and integrity to bow to an LSU at the last minute and tells them to piss off. These are our options. What can or will we do? Is Leach and Co the staff that can do the above?

[R2Dawg]

That is basically what Mullen did and was successful. I'll throw in the other piece where MSU has had success. We must get the top JUCO talent which we do often. Leach must continue that with our position in other areas as you describe.

[MetEdDawg]

We need to hire coaches who can build a network, develop kids, AND cheat.

If we ever want to be serious about football, we can't be outbid on the eve of signing day every single year.

And for those that think there are other options, go look at the "on paper" recruiting budgets of the schools we lose commits to. Then imagine what their "off paper" budget is. Then imagine us trying to compete with that.

I started stumping on this a couple years ago and some said we just need to find undervalued kids and that we spend plenty of money. Teams don't win championships or compete at the highest level by basing their values on finding undervalued kids. They go get studs. And everyone of them pays to get them.

We don't or we won't at the level others do. That's a fact and it's why days like this happen. Until we wake up as a whole, we will stay at this level. Players win games. There aren't any tricks to it. Getting good players is a prerequisite to competing. Coaching pushes you over the edge. But talent gets you there. And you have to pay to get that talent.

[William Tecumsah Sherman]

I agree with what Mullen did as well. You remain competitive and build until you have a senior-laden class. The. You take your shot. He had two teams in his tenure that could take the shot to win it. I think that?s all we can ask for

[Percho]

We need to hire coaches who can build a network, develop kids, AND cheat.

If we ever want to be serious about football, we can't be outbid on the eve of signing day every single year.

And for those that think there are other options, go look at the "on paper" recruiting budgets of the schools we lose commits to. Then imagine what their "off paper" budget is. Then imagine us trying to compete with that.

I started stumping on this a couple years ago and some said we just need to find undervalued kids and that we spend plenty of money. Teams don't win championships or compete at the highest level by basing their values on finding undervalued kids. They go get studs. And everyone of them pays to get them.

We don't or we won't at the level others do. That's a fact and it's why days like this happen. Until we wake up as a whole, we will stay at this level. Players win games. There aren't any tricks to it. Getting good players is a prerequisite to competing. Coaching pushes you over the edge. But talent gets you there. And you have to pay to get that talent.

Great post. Going down the same path as our country.

I have been a Bulldog fan since around 58,59 and I AM HAPPY to be one.

[Dawgology]

We need to hire coaches who can build a network, develop kids, AND cheat.

If we ever want to be serious about football, we can't be outbid on the eve of signing day every single year.

And for those that think there are other options, go look at the "on paper" recruiting budgets of the schools we lose commits to. Then imagine what their "off paper" budget is. Then imagine us trying to compete with that.

I started stumping on this a couple years ago and some said we just need to find undervalued kids and that we spend plenty of money. Teams don't win championships or compete at the highest level by basing their values on finding undervalued kids. They go get studs. And everyone of them pays to get them.

We don't or we won't at the level others do. That's a fact and it's why days like this happen. Until we wake up as a whole, we will stay at this level. Players win games. There aren't any tricks to it. Getting good players is a prerequisite to competing. Coaching pushes you over the edge. But talent gets you there. And you have to pay to get that talent.

The truth hurts. But most MSU fans seem to want to lose their way than win another way. Apparently, winning doesn’t actually matter to MSU boosters. Whatever. Apathy and 100% set in for me.

[Dawgology]

Great post. Going down the same path as our country.

I have been a Bulldog fan since around 58,59 and I AM HAPPY to be one.

So do you think we don’t pay some recruits something? At all?

[Maroonthirteen]

I'm down with all that. The Mullen way.

Let me know when we hire a coach that can actually coach.

[HoopsDawg]

People aren't asking for a Top 10 Class. Just have to close on players like Strong and MJ. Damn LSU coming in and taking a JUCO LB from MS when the have a top 5 class every year is complete BS. Thanks a lot Ed O.

[KOdawg1]

Can I have all the above? I want a coach who can develop players but can also bring good talent in and can win these battles we need to win.

[HancockCountyDog]

People aren't asking for a Top 10 Class. Just have to close on players like Strong and MJ. Damn LSU coming in and taking a JUCO LB from MS when the have a top 5 class every year is complete BS. Thanks a lot Ed O.

Yeah - people are focusing on the bears - it is LSU that really stuck the knife in this class. I think Strong and Nabors were difference makers for next season. I'm not sure MJ plays for a while, he needs to get bigger;

[Commercecomet24]

Yeah - people are focusing on the bears - it is LSU that really stuck the knife in this class. I think Strong and Nabors were difference makers for next season. I'm not sure MJ plays for a while, he needs to get bigger;

I'm with you on that. Stronger and Nabers were the ones we really needed to close.

[Leeshouldveflanked]

Coach Prime at JSU is going to sign more 4 Stars than Leach this year.

[William Tecumsah Sherman]

Of course we all want the best players and coaches. But I think Dans blueprint with a coach that will not sack up in big games is the way to go. Whether or not Leach can do that remains to be seen

[deltadawg99]

All valid points and I believe that one of the reasons Leach was hired was his track record to do more with less.

I do really like the guys that we have signed in this class.

I?m sure this has been answered numerous times, but why aren?t we signing a full class? We have 18 signed right now with what 3-5 guys on the radar for the spring?

[Todd4State]

I agree with what Mullen did as well. You remain competitive and build until you have a senior-laden class. The. You take your shot. He had two teams in his tenure that could take the shot to win it. I think that?s all we can ask for

You're right. Dan's problem was he could only really get a junior-senior laden class once in his career- that just so happened to be 2014. And that was because of his poor roster management. Which is my biggest criticism of his recruiting as a whole. We can't take the next step with a young position group- whatever position group you want to talk about. We can't do that in the SEC and win like we want to- which would be in the 9-10 win range. We have to make sure we fill every position group every year. Sure some will miss but technically when looking at classes we just have to hit at about 50% on every group over a two year period to get a full junior and senior laden team. Even if we hit less than that and go to 40% we still can go the JUCO route or use the portal so we have options.

This is where the early NSD and the transfer portal help us. We know where we stand now and have an opportunity to fill holes. Unlike say- 2011.

[viverlibre]

On a radio show yesterday, they were talking about the tremendous amount of effort that LSU and O put into recruiting every single day. I just can't see Leach putting in the same effort.

[Todd4State]

All valid points and I believe that one of the reasons Leach was hired was his track record to do more with less.

I do really like the guys that we have signed in this class.

I?m sure this has been answered numerous times, but why aren?t we signing a full class? We have 18 signed right now with what 3-5 guys on the radar for the spring?

Are we not? I would imagine that our staff will regroup at this time and:

1. Recruit remaining high school prospects hard.

2. Figure out who is coming back and who isn't amongst the Errol's, Payton's, etc. That's going to be key to figure out where our needs actually are. And probably should be point number one.

3. Fill in the remaining spots using the portal or JUCO's.

If there is a silver lining here we probably now have enough spots to do something like get an impact running back that fits our system, a legit slot receiver, more offensive line talent, and maybe another couple of DB's. If we hit on the right players we may have a pretty quick turnaround.

[Todd4State]

On a radio show yesterday, they were talking about the tremendous amount of effort that LSU and O put into recruiting every single day. I just can't see Leach putting in the same effort.

Coach O is an elite recruiter. Nabors honestly doesn't bother me too much. He's from Louisiana and we can replace him with Kanarius Johnson from Laurel. I'm also about 90% sure they're lying to him about playing receiver- at least long term.

Strong is the one that bothers me. He's a Mississippi kid and could have made an impact for us immediately.

[hailstate88]

We need coaches that can coach, recruit, AND cheat. Cannot get stepped on repeatedly by OM, and Kiffin is for sure cheating, so I think we need all three, respectively

[Todd4State]

And I'll add- I find it odd that MSU doesn't put more into football recruiting. I'm not even talking about a Network. It's almost like MSU expects Tony Hughes and the guys in the office to do all the work.

I'm not expecting us to put in Alabama levels of money- and I don't think anyone else is. But we certainly could put in more money.

We also are terrible at perception. Always have been. It doesn't help that we have zero media support. It does make me wonder is we slipped some writers some money under the table if we would get some more positive press.

[Todd4State]

We need coaches that can coach, recruit, AND cheat. Cannot get stepped on repeatedly by OM, and Kiffin is for sure cheating, so I think we need all three, respectively

The reality is though- Ole Miss only got two Mississippi recruits that we "wanted"- Buckhaulter and Daniels. Both appear to be plants to flip. We certainly could have done the same thing with some of our in state guys. And we landed a guy that was their top o-line target in Reese.

[Extendedcab]

We need coaches that can coach, recruit, AND cheat. Cannot get stepped on repeatedly by OM, and Kiffin is for sure cheating, so I think we need all three, respectively

And Cheat? Win at all costs - what ever happened to ethics? Has everybody lost their ever loving mind?

[MetEdDawg]

And Cheat? Win at all costs - what ever happened to ethics? Has everybody lost their ever loving mind?

Depends on how good you want to be. Ethics is great. I submit that the entire college football system setup is unethical, therefore, operating within the bounds of an unethical model allows us to try and do whatever we can to get players in. Is that unethical? What's unethical is what happened to Makylan Pounders.

Point is, you don't win if you don't cheat. Period. There isn't a single successful program that sits at home and thinks about more ethical ways to acquire talent. If you don't acquire talent you don't win at a high level. So we need to find ways to acquire higher level talent. If we don't, we won't surpass where we've been.

[Brahmabull]

There are no ethics in SEC football anymore!!

[Ezsoil]

And Cheat? Win at all costs - what ever happened to ethics? Has everybody lost their ever loving mind?

Ethics are a thing of the past ....where have you been ? We have a segment of our population that rules and laws don't apply to and anyone who disrupts that or even questions it will be ostracized, and castigated from society... it's that way in the NCAA, and certainly politics.

[Mobile Bay]

Ethics are a thing of the past ....where have you been ? We have a segment of our population that rules and laws don't apply to and anyone who disrupts that or even questions it will be ostracized, and castigated from society... it's that way in the NCAA, and certainly politics.

No they are not. At the end of the day doing the right thing is more important.

How would you feel telling your son that and he goes out and kills somebody? Tell the judge ethics don't matter?

Good lord.

Some of y'all are worse than Ole Miss fans.

[ShotgunDawg]

There are no ethics in SEC football anymore!!

Anymore?

I wasn't aware there ever was

[Extendedcab]

Does that mean we have to be scum too?

[AROB44]

To Those that want to cheat ...... I hope you have ponied up your $$$$$. Or....are you just wanting to spend other people's money?

[Dawgology]

To Those that want to cheat ...... I hope you have ponied up your $$$$$. Or....are you just wanting to spend other people's money?

This is one of my favorite dumbass takes amongst the MSU fan base.

[Dawgology]

Does that mean we have to be scum too?

No. But it does mean that you have to play within the gray area as hard as you can just like every other damn program in the SEC. and sometimes you will have to step outside of that gray area for game changing athletes if you actually want to win something.

If you’d rather MSU sit there in morals and always be an “also ran” then I would posit that maybe you should not follow college football because every team does it. MSU does it...we just do it really poorly. So what you are saying is that you would rather us continue networking poorly than up our game to compete. Both are cheating. Just one actually ends with championships.

[Dawgology]

To Those that want to cheat ...... I hope you have ponied up your $$$$$. Or....are you just wanting to spend other people's money?

Even if someone wanted to help out they couldn’t. There is nothing there to really help with.

[Goldendawg]

Guys, my late SuperDawg Dad took me to my 1st MSU game in 1963 & I am a hardcore Dawg and Class of 77( 50 plus years season tickets). We have done our share of cheating in my life but seldom been very good at it if you check our record of probations over the years. Seems like every time we got pretty good the NCAA struck with UM involvement it seems. Just saying. Hail State and GTHOM! Maybe we $hould work on this!***

[Extendedcab]

No. But it does mean that you have to play within the gray area as hard as you can just like every other damn program in the SEC. and sometimes you will have to step outside of that gray area for game changing athletes if you actually want to win something.

If you’d rather MSU sit there in morals and always be an “also ran” then I would posit that maybe you should not follow college football because every team does it. MSU does it...we just do it really poorly. So what you are saying is that you would rather us continue networking poorly than up our game to compete. Both are cheating. Just one actually ends with championships.


No wonder kids come out of college with no respect for rules and regulations - laws. If the adults don't why should they? And we wonder whether are so messed up!

What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

A hundred years from now very few of us will be remembered by anybody living at that time. So if we focus all our attention on the successes of this world what will it have gained for us. When we die our money, fame, and honors will be meaningless. We own nothing in this world. Everything we think we own is in reality only being loaned to us until we die. And on our deathbed at the moment of death, no one but God can save our souls.

[Dogbone]

No wonder kids come out of college with no respect for rules and regulations - laws. If the adults don't why should they? And we wonder whether are so messed up!

What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

A hundred years from now very few of us will be remembered by anybody living at that time. So if we focus all our attention on the successes of this world what will it have gained for us. When we die our money, fame, and honors will be meaningless. We own nothing in this world. Everything we think we own is in reality only being loaned to us until we die. And on our deathbed at the moment of death, no one but God can save our souls.

Amen!

[Saltydog]

We had an evaluator that developed players but he left. Those guys aren't a dime a dozen. We're stuck with Leach for a while. Better get used to it.

[KOdawg1]

Does that mean we have to be scum too?

If you want to win? Yes, it means we have to be scum.

[Dawgology]

No wonder kids come out of college with no respect for rules and regulations - laws. If the adults don't why should they? And we wonder whether are so messed up!

What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

A hundred years from now very few of us will be remembered by anybody living at that time. So if we focus all our attention on the successes of this world what will it have gained for us. When we die our money, fame, and honors will be meaningless. We own nothing in this world. Everything we think we own is in reality only being loaned to us until we die. And on our deathbed at the moment of death, no one but God can save our souls.

You’re not wrong. But I think you’re overselling things. It’s college football. It’s entertainment. A game. You should not kill people, steal, rape, etc. but the rules of college football have changed unofficially and if we don’t keep up we might as well cut funding to it and use it for baseball and women’s basketball.

To say we aren’t already greasing some palms is silly so...is that acceptable but should we also cut that out as well?

[AROB44]

This is one of my favorite dumbass takes amongst the MSU fan base.

Well, you are entitled to your opinion, but as one who was involved back in the day (primarily Tyler days), I am of the opinion that message boards are not the optimum place for these kind of discussions. Thank goodness they didn't exist back then. We would have been caught much sooner and hammered worse.

[CaptainObvious]

Depends on how good you want to be. Ethics is great. I submit that the entire college football system setup is unethical, therefore, operating within the bounds of an unethical model allows us to try and do whatever we can to get players in. Is that unethical? What's unethical is what happened to Makylan Pounders.

Point is, you don't win if you don't cheat. Period. There isn't a single successful program that sits at home and thinks about more ethical ways to acquire talent. If you don't acquire talent you don't win at a high level. So we need to find ways to acquire higher level talent. If we don't, we won't surpass where we've been.

If you have verifiable proof of SEC teams cheating in recruiting, I suggest you reach out to NCAA enforcement. I would if I had verifiable proof. But I don?t. I know that there are 14 SEC Football programs with 14 different perceptions. And right now, as it has been for nearly 50 years, the perception is you cannot win consistently at 2 SEC programs, Vandy and MSU. But for some reason, the perception is that Ole Miss, Arkansas, UK, UT, Missouri, and South Carolina can put it together because of support that we cannot get financially.

[RocketDawg]

And Cheat? Win at all costs - what ever happened to ethics? Has everybody lost their ever loving mind?

Yeah, amazing isn't it?

[Santiago]

We had an evaluator that developed players but he left. Those guys aren't a dime a dozen. We're stuck with Leach for a while. Better get used to it.

Leach has a history of good evaluations as well. We need to upgrade our passing game personnel into this century first.(edit: Something that the great evaluator failed to do while here). Hopefully we did that by signing our highest rated QB ever by MSU and by Leach in all his years of coaching. Maybe we can find something to bitch at him about that too though***

[R2Dawg]

To Those that want to cheat ...... I hope you have ponied up your $$$$$. Or....are you just wanting to spend other people's money?

Spending other people's money is now the American way so why would MSU be any different?

You don't fix corruption by more corruption. I know no one is saying fix it but just join in. We don't have to cheat to compete, we've proven that many times.

[IMissJack]

We need a cohesive approach to expecting better and doing something to get there. It will not come from the current administration. Our program is in worse shape than our friends up north that were ?decimated? by NCAA violations just about 4 years ago. So we can continue to be the nice guys or try to win. Being in the middle sucks.

[KOdawg1]

Spending other people's money is now the American way so why would MSU be any different?

You don't fix corruption by more corruption. I know no one is saying fix it but just join in. We don't have to cheat to compete, we've proven that many times.

I hate to be the one to tell ya, but we do cheat.

We're just really bad at it.

[yjnkdawg]

I hate to be the one to tell ya, but we do cheat.

We're just really bad at it.

Bingo and if we tried to to it on a big time scale, we would get burned before that specific player, or players set foot on our campus. The OM lawyers are just waiting for us to do something stupid in football recruiting.

[State82]

I hate to be the one to tell ya, but we do cheat.

We're just really bad at it.

You nailed it.

[Dogbone]

Leach has a history of good evaluations as well. We need to upgrade our passing game personnel into this century first.(edit: Something that the great evaluator failed to do while here). Hopefully we did that by signing our highest rated QB ever by MSU and by Leach in all his years of coaching. Maybe we can find something to bitch at him about that too though***

You make a good point!

[Beaver]

If you guys want to cheat, or are fine with us knowingly cheating, then you have no room to complain about what OM, LSU, Bama or any other school does. You're either okay with cheating or not. If you are, then don't complain about LSU and OM stealing our recruits... Let's face it, whether we cheat or not, we'll never out recruit Bama, Auburn, A&M, or LSU. Starting every single year at best 5th in the SEC West in talent.

[ShotgunDawg]

We don't have to cheat to compete, we've proven that many times.

I must've missed that SEC title

[ShotgunDawg]

Bingo and if we tried to to it on a big time scale, we would get burned before that specific player, or players set foot on our campus. The OM lawyers are just waiting for us to do something stupid in football recruiting.

Then why don't we become organized and not do something stupid?

[KOdawg1]

Then why don't we become organized and not do something stupid?

Because our athletic department plays checkers while every one else plays chess. Look no further than this thread. We've got people who think we do things by the book and would rather lose by being "clean" than win by playing the game.

Fire Bracky Brett, and then we can get serious about competing in this league. Until then, we'll keep losing these battles more than we win them.

[Leeshouldveflanked]

We should purge the Athletic Department like Leach did the Football team.

[Saltydog]

Maybe the highest rated for Leach but not for MSU. We've had at least one 5 star and that was Rodney Hudson. There have been several other 4 star guys.

[Percho]

Depends on how good you want to be. Ethics is great. I submit that the entire college football system setup is unethical, therefore, operating within the bounds of an unethical model allows us to try and do whatever we can to get players in. Is that unethical? What's unethical is what happened to Makylan Pounders.

Point is, you don't win if you don't cheat. Period. There isn't a single successful program that sits at home and thinks about more ethical ways to acquire talent. If you don't acquire talent you don't win at a high level. So we need to find ways to acquire higher level talent. If we don't, we won't surpass where we've been.

Now, if we could just figure out, how to win, the next election!

Never mind.

Come out of her, My people.