Here's why I don't blame Cohen

[MetEdDawg]

Look at some of the hires of teams and be honest with yourself about how you felt about them:

1) Sam Pittman - Arkansas
2) Scott Satterfield - Louisville
3) Neal Brown - West Virginia
4) Scott Frost - Nebraska
5) Chip Kelly - UCLA
6) Mario Cristobal - Oregon

There's a lot of interesting names in this group. A lot of folks that the consensus said they wouldn't be successful and have been. One that was guaranteed to be successful and hasn't been. A couple that we were interested in that have had varied results.

If you paid everyone on this board money that you get Sam Pittman's wins in year 2 or Mike Leach the board is taking Leach.

Point is it's hard to hire the right coach in college football when you are a mid tier program. Moorhead was considered by many in the world of college football to be an A or A- hire. Didn't work out. I know a lot liked Neal Brown and his early results are very positive.

I get what Cohen tried to do with this hire and the last one. They didn't work out. I don't know the inner workings of the athletic department so folks may have their reasons to hate him. But I can at least see the vision of what he tried to do with Moorhead and Leach. They didn't work out. But I find it hard to say he should lose his job because the 2 didn't work out because at the time I don't think they were bad hires.

[lefty96]

While it is true that hiring coaches can be a craps shoot - when you fire one craps shoot to hire another that appears to be just as bad as the previous, you have to take the crap that comes with it. Playing craps is part of his job; he clearly isn?t great at it.

[HoopsDawg]

Cohen should have had his guy ready to go when Mullen left. That was such a CRUCIAL hire. And he botched it.

[BeardoMSU]

Cohen should have had his guy ready to go when Mullen left. That was such a CRUCIAL hire. And he botched it.

He hired a guy literally everyone in football considered a big time OC and a splash hire. It didn't work out, obviously, but that happens quite a bit if you pay attention.

[HoopsDawg]

He hired a guy literally everyone in football considered a big time OC and a splash hire. It didn't work out, obviously, but that happens quite a bit if you pay attention.

He hired the OC from Penn State. I don't have the energy to rehash all of the reasons it was a bad hire so I will just say Cohen got wooed by the interview.

[BeardoMSU]

He hired the OC from Penn State. I don't have the energy to rehash all of the reasons it was a bad hire so I will just say Cohen got wooed by the interview.

You're just a fan on a message board (no disrespect), though. Find me a reputable source that said Joe was a bad when we hired him and I'll find you 10 more that convey the opposite.

Again, Joe didn't work out. He was in over his head. To think that MSU is unique in this regard, as if we're the only school that hired seemingly a slam dunk to only end up being a clunker. It happens.

[Lord McBuckethead]

Maybe it?s not the hire. Maybe it is just MSU? We have never won anything worth anything in football outside of two years in our history. 1941 and 1999. Seriously. We have been a pound it cloud of dust team forever. Mullen added a gigantic wrinkle to that with his system and running the QB. We enjoyed it while it was happening but even then bitched cause we couldn?t break through.

Now we have a 100% passing offense. I mean, Leach never surprises me with his play calls. I know exactly what is coming with every snap. And it sucks. Here is what I would do to help.

1. More called jet sweeps. Have we even called one the first two years?

2. You only have 4 plays, why not go hurry up when it benefits us? Our routes are easy to have check downs. We have to force the defense to think and take chances jumping routes. Then we can exploit it. It also allows Will to get into a rhythm.

3. We have to advance the ball down field against the zone. Right now they only have to defend 11 yards and mostly the first 5. I want 20 yard throws with YAC.

Either that or go ahead and admit we are only winning 4 games from here on out.

[Dawgology]

Look at some of the hires of teams and be honest with yourself about how you felt about them:

1) Sam Pittman - Arkansas
2) Scott Satterfield - Louisville
3) Neal Brown - West Virginia
4) Scott Frost - Nebraska
5) Chip Kelly - UCLA
6) Mario Cristobal - Oregon

There's a lot of interesting names in this group. A lot of folks that the consensus said they wouldn't be successful and have been. One that was guaranteed to be successful and hasn't been. A couple that we were interested in that have had varied results.

If you paid everyone on this board money that you get Sam Pittman's wins in year 2 or Mike Leach the board is taking Leach.

Point is it's hard to hire the right coach in college football when you are a mid tier program. Moorhead was considered by many in the world of college football to be an A or A- hire. Didn't work out. I know a lot liked Neal Brown and his early results are very positive.

I get what Cohen tried to do with this hire and the last one. They didn't work out. I don't know the inner workings of the athletic department so folks may have their reasons to hate him. But I can at least see the vision of what he tried to do with Moorhead and Leach. They didn't work out. But I find it hard to say he should lose his job because the 2 didn't work out because at the time I don't think they were bad hires.

Cannizaro and Penson. Let's not act like this has been two bad hires...we are sitting at FOUR bad hires. You can keep with the "yeah but....he didn't know that would happen" or "but everyone said it was a great hire" but the fact of the matter is it's his job to KNOW. That's one of the responsibilities he get's paid for. Honestly, he knows baseball and he can identify coaching talent in that area (Cannizaro debacle withstanding) but under his tenure out football and women's basketball program have gone off the rails and I would argue that those were our two strongest programs when he took over. That CAN'T be ignored.

The smart decision when Mullen left would have been to look at what our team is built for and go after an up and coming coach that runs a similar scheme because that football team was POISED to win 10 or more games. Then you build off that. It may not be smart and edgy but you build to your strengths not what you WISH your strengths are.

Same thing with women's basketball. We were at the pinnacle and we could have had our pick of coaches out there but we decided to make political statement hire instead of getting a proven coach to take over a program at the top of the sport. Some of you are going to dig your heels in on that statement but (unbelievably) I have a bit of connection there and I can say for sure that the hire was made as a political statement and went wildly against what the major portion of boosters wanted at the time.

Nothing will change though. Why? Because we also have a university president that has let our academic standing sink as low as it's ever been. The academic faculty got who they wanted this time...and every facet of the university is paying for it because no one is being held accountable for anything. There is no drive or energy outside of collecting free money from the government.

[CaptainObvious]

Maybe it?s not the hire. Maybe it is just MSU? We have never won anything worth anything in football outside of two years in our history. 1941 and 1999. Seriously. We have been a pound it cloud of dust team forever. Mullen added a gigantic wrinkle to that with his system and running the QB. We enjoyed it while it was happening but even then bitched cause we couldn?t break through.

Now we have a 100% passing offense. I mean, Leach never surprises me with his play calls. I know exactly what is coming with every snap. And it sucks. Here is what I would do to help.

1. More called jet sweeps. Have we even called one the first two years?

2. You only have 4 plays, why not go hurry up when it benefits us? Our routes are easy to have check downs. We have to force the defense to think and take chances jumping routes. Then we can exploit it. It also allows Will to get into a rhythm.

3. We have to advance the ball down field against the zone. Right now they only have to defend 11 yards and mostly the first 5. I want 20 yard throws with YAC.

Either that or go ahead and admit we are only winning 4 games from here on out.

The thing is you don?t know what Leach wants on every play that you think you know what?s coming. Because we have an indecisive QB who makes a decision based on what he sees as time runs out. Leach does not tell his QB which guy to throw to. He signals in the patterns he wants the receivers to run. The ones that make a fool out of a DB or a LB will get the ball if he is open. As I understand this offense, no receiver can take a play off because the ball isn?t meant for him. Every guy in the pattern best be looking for the ball because they may get it.

That requires receivers making the right decision on the route and the QB picking the one that is most open.

There is no way to say this coaching hire has failed 3 games into the first real season. Memphis made plays that State didn?t. Defensively and in Special teams. Our offense scored 4 TDs and a field goal. Their offense scored 2 TDs and a field goal.

[preachermatt83]

The thing is you don?t know what Leach wants on every play that you think you know what?s coming. Because we have an indecisive QB who makes a decision based on what he sees as time runs out. Leach does not tell his QB which guy to throw to. He signals in the patterns he wants the receivers to run. The ones that make a fool out of a DB or a LB will get the ball if he is open. As I understand this offense, no receiver can take a play off because the ball isn?t meant for him. Every guy in the pattern best be looking for the ball because they may get it.

That requires receivers making the right decision on the route and the QB picking the one that is most open.

There is no way to say this coaching hire has failed 3 games into the first real season. Memphis made plays that State didn?t. Defensively and in Special teams. Our offense scored 4 TDs and a field goal. Their offense scored 2 TDs and a field goal.

I agree and would add, we have receivers open on almost every play but checkdown Charlie is scared to take chances down the feild

[CaptainObvious]

I agree and would add, we have receivers open on almost every play but checkdown Charlie is scared to take chances down the feild

Will has...HAS to improve his decision making quicker. Some of our Oline Penalties come from him taking to long and then panicking. Some of the oline penalties come from taking 28 to 35 seconds of the 40 second clock trying to hold their water. There is absolutely no reason to have a no huddle offense if you aren?t going to try to go faster. We ran 83 plays but still used and average of 20+ seconds to run a play. Even with all those plays we didn?t wear their defense down because they had time to catch their breath between plays and time to shuttle guys in and out.

[Percho]

Maybe it?s not the hire. Maybe it is just MSU? We have never won anything worth anything in football outside of two years in our history. 1941 and 1999. Seriously. We have been a pound it cloud of dust team forever. Mullen added a gigantic wrinkle to that with his system and running the QB. We enjoyed it while it was happening but even then bitched cause we couldn?t break through.

Now we have a 100% passing offense. I mean, Leach never surprises me with his play calls. I know exactly what is coming with every snap. And it sucks. Here is what I would do to help.

1. More called jet sweeps. Have we even called one the first two years?

2. You only have 4 plays, why not go hurry up when it benefits us? Our routes are easy to have check downs. We have to force the defense to think and take chances jumping routes. Then we can exploit it. It also allows Will to get into a rhythm.

3. We have to advance the ball down field against the zone. Right now they only have to defend 11 yards and mostly the first 5. I want 20 yard throws with YAC.

Either that or go ahead and admit we are only winning 4 games from here on out.

Your best post ever. We are not usually on the same page but I agree with all of this. Esp. speed up the game.

[Captain Falcon]

Look at some of the hires of teams and be honest with yourself about how you felt about them:

1) Sam Pittman - Arkansas
2) Scott Satterfield - Louisville
3) Neal Brown - West Virginia
4) Scott Frost - Nebraska
5) Chip Kelly - UCLA
6) Mario Cristobal - Oregon

There's a lot of interesting names in this group. A lot of folks that the consensus said they wouldn't be successful and have been. One that was guaranteed to be successful and hasn't been. A couple that we were interested in that have had varied results.

If you paid everyone on this board money that you get Sam Pittman's wins in year 2 or Mike Leach the board is taking Leach.

Point is it's hard to hire the right coach in college football when you are a mid tier program. Moorhead was considered by many in the world of college football to be an A or A- hire. Didn't work out. I know a lot liked Neal Brown and his early results are very positive.

I get what Cohen tried to do with this hire and the last one. They didn't work out. I don't know the inner workings of the athletic department so folks may have their reasons to hate him. But I can at least see the vision of what he tried to do with Moorhead and Leach. They didn't work out. But I find it hard to say he should lose his job because the 2 didn't work out because at the time I don't think they were bad hires.

You left out an obvious name up the road that is making our struggles look all the more worrisome. Chalk it up to whatever you want, but the optics of us struggling mightily while our rival legitimately looks like one of the best 10 or so teams in the country is a bad look for us, and our fans are fully aware of it.

Leach may end up succeeding still and I definitely hope he does. I will be at Davis Wade on Saturday rooting for him hard. But if this ends up not working out, Cohen has to go as well. No questions asked. Two bad football hires in row would completely outweigh the success of a baseball national title, it is not even a close comparison.

Kudos to Cohen on hiring Chris Lemonis, thank goodness his fourth or fifth option that none of us had ever heard of ended up being one of the best hires in school history. I think you can excuse him for one bad football hire. There are no excuses if this one doesn?t work out. Zero. We had all the momentum as the top football program in the state and have totally squandered it.

[Coldsleeve Jr.]

Who should we have hired that was reasonably attainable at the time that would've had a higher probability of success? Kiffin?

[Ifyouonlyknew]

On paper the Moorhead & Leach hires were solid to good hires. Unfortunately so far neither seem to be good hires in real life. If the Leach experiment crashes & burns there's no way you can trust Cohen to make a 3rd hire. There's just no way.

[Maverick91]

Cannizaro and Penson. Let's not act like this has been two bad hires...we are sitting at FOUR bad hires. You can keep with the "yeah but....he didn't know that would happen" or "but everyone said it was a great hire" but the fact of the matter is it's his job to KNOW. That's one of the responsibilities he get's paid for. Honestly, he knows baseball and he can identify coaching talent in that area (Cannizaro debacle withstanding) but under his tenure out football and women's basketball program have gone off the rails and I would argue that those were our two strongest programs when he took over. That CAN'T be ignored.

The smart decision when Mullen left would have been to look at what our team is built for and go after an up and coming coach that runs a similar scheme because that football team was POISED to win 10 or more games. Then you build off that. It may not be smart and edgy but you build to your strengths not what you WISH your strengths are.

Same thing with women's basketball. We were at the pinnacle and we could have had our pick of coaches out there but we decided to make political statement hire instead of getting a proven coach to take over a program at the top of the sport. Some of you are going to dig your heels in on that statement but (unbelievably) I have a bit of connection there and I can say for sure that the hire was made as a political statement and went wildly against what the major portion of boosters wanted at the time.

Nothing will change though. Why? Because we also have a university president that has let our academic standing sink as low as it's ever been. The academic faculty got who they wanted this time...and every facet of the university is paying for it because no one is being held accountable for anything. There is no drive or energy outside of collecting free money from the government.

I am going to run with you and assume all of this is fact, and that makes me really sad, to say the least.

[Dawgology]

On paper the Moorhead & Leach hires were solid to good hires. Unfortunately so far neither seem to be good hires in real life. If the Leach experiment crashes & burns there's no way you can trust Cohen to make a 3rd hire. There's just no way.

On paper. If your an AD you need to dig a lot deeper than on paper to make a 2-5 million a year coaching hire. There are posters on here that outlined why Moorhead was a bad hire based on stats, talent, and schedule but for some reason the shot callers in our athletic department didn?t look at that. Same goes for Leach. Same goes for Pinson. Same goes for Cannizzaro. Additionally, you don?t take your competition?s recommendations for a next head coach at your program. I mean?come on?that?s Business 101.

[BB30]

Maybe it?s not the hire. Maybe it is just MSU? We have never won anything worth anything in football outside of two years in our history. 1941 and 1999. Seriously. We have been a pound it cloud of dust team forever. Mullen added a gigantic wrinkle to that with his system and running the QB. We enjoyed it while it was happening but even then bitched cause we couldn?t break through.

Now we have a 100% passing offense. I mean, Leach never surprises me with his play calls. I know exactly what is coming with every snap. And it sucks. Here is what I would do to help.

1. More called jet sweeps. Have we even called one the first two years?

2. You only have 4 plays, why not go hurry up when it benefits us? Our routes are easy to have check downs. We have to force the defense to think and take chances jumping routes. Then we can exploit it. It also allows Will to get into a rhythm.

3. We have to advance the ball down field against the zone. Right now they only have to defend 11 yards and mostly the first 5. I want 20 yard throws with YAC.

Either that or go ahead and admit we are only winning 4 games from here on out.

It is definitely more of an MSU thing when it comes to football. We are the poorest football team in the conference when it comes to spending money on football. You get what you pay for. We improved under Mullen and also spent more money under Mullen on facilities etc.

You have to spend money to make money. Look at all of the other SEC home games and then look at ours. I haven't turned on many CFB games outside of maybe a KY game that the stadium wasn't pretty much packed. We played a team from the ACC that many considered to be a contender on a night where we were honoring our national championship team and the stadium may have been 60% full and thats a big maybe. Outside of the student section there were tons of seats open and it looked bad on TV.

Fan support isn't there and we spend zero money on recruiting compared to others in our conference. No surprise that we are getting bottom half of the SEC results. Those complaining should open the pocketbook up and make a donation instead of coming on here and bitching about cheap results when we are a cheap program.

[Maverick91]

It is definitely more of an MSU thing when it comes to football. We are the poorest football team in the conference when it comes to spending money on football. You get what you pay for. We improved under Mullen and also spent more money under Mullen on facilities etc.

You have to spend money to make money. Look at all of the other SEC home games and then look at ours. I haven't turned on many CFB games outside of maybe a KY game that the stadium wasn't pretty much packed. We played a team from the ACC that many considered to be a contender on a night where we were honoring our national championship team and the stadium may have been 60% full and thats a big maybe. Outside of the student section there were tons of seats open and it looked bad on TV.

Fan support isn't there and we spend zero money on recruiting compared to others in our conference. No surprise that we are getting bottom half of the SEC results. Those complaining should open the pocketbook up and make a donation instead of coming on here and bitching about cheap results when we are a cheap program.

I think it has been said numerous of times that we are EXTREMELY stingy when it comes to spending and we just like to save, save, save... if that is truly the case then why should boosters want to boost more than they do when most of that money is going to go sit in a low interest savings account instead of into boosting our program?

[TheLostDawg]

I agree and would add, we have receivers open on almost every play but checkdown Charlie is scared to take chances down the feild

This

[Dawgfan77]

Your dont blow up a football program that's been to 10 straight bowls. Your fire SloMo and go out and hire the next Mullen.
Cohen has destroyed two successful programs.

[TheLostDawg]

I think it has been said numerous of times that we are EXTREMELY stingy when it comes to spending and we just like to save, save, save... if that is truly the case then why should boosters want to boost more than they do when most of that money is going to go sit in a low interest savings account instead of into boosting our program?

Yes Cohen should take a note from the mullen playbook when he came. Spend money to improve. If we don't have it then he needs to go get it. He also better hope he didn't screw this hire up or what are we paying him for, to learn on the job. He obviously hasn't done that it seems.
Also he folded when it came to showing strength with the call this weekend. Pitiful.
Next AD better be someone outside the program that has proven themselves. We need some excitement and energy from the AD and someone who is isn't going to take crap from the SEC.

[maroonmania]

Your dont blow up a football program that's been to 10 straight bowls. Your fire SloMo and go out and hire the next Mullen.
Cohen has destroyed two successful programs.

I think Cohen thought Moorhead was the next Mullen when he hired him. Big step though going from a coordinator job to actually setting the culture and running a program. In a lot of ways we were very lucky that Mullen turned out to be as good as he was. He had no track record at all in running a program when we hired him. Actually I'm sure Cohen thought he was taking the safe route hiring Leach because I'm sure that, of any coaches out there willing to take our job, Leach had by far the best track record.

[Dawgfan77]

I think Cohen thought Moorhead was the next Mullen when he hired him. Big step though going from a coordinator job to actually setting the culture and running a program. In a lot of ways we were very lucky that Mullen turned out to be as good as he was. He had no track record at all in running a program when we hired him. Actually I'm sure Cohen thought he was taking the safe route hiring Leach because I'm sure that, of any coaches out there willing to take our job, Leach had by far the best track record.
Dan Mullen coached under urban at UF and won two National titles... SloMo coached two years under Franklin in the big ten. Truth is no one knew the future but give me a National championship OC/DC than a guy who was a big 10 OC..
We also could have hired Matt Candle, Blake Anderson, and will Healy after SloMo. But Cohen decided to blow the thing up and now look at us. Recruiting is taking, results on the field are tanking and the program as a whole is in very bad shape. This will not work here.