Talent comparison to other SEC teams

So we all acknowledge that 4-8 with a more competitive team is improvement but still not acceptable.

How did we get here? Why do Arkansas, Missouri, South Carolina, Ole Miss and Vanderbilt have more talent than Mississippi State? Why are we so far behind Auburn and Tennessee?

I know some blame Leach for only recruiting offensive skill players and some say Arnept dropped the ball completely. And others blame Cohen for not taking NIL seriously.

But there has to be a deeper dive into what pushed Mississippi State all the way to the bottom of a 16 team league.

Please help me understand why we had to go from 5-7 to 2-10 to 4-8 before we can start digging out of this hole.

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Originally Posted by CaptainObvious

So we all acknowledge that 4-8 with a more competitive team is improvement but still not acceptable.

How did we get here? Why do Arkansas, Missouri, South Carolina, Ole Miss and Vanderbilt have more talent than Mississippi State? Why are we so far behind Auburn and Tennessee?

I know some blame Leach for only recruiting offensive skill players and some say Arnept dropped the ball completely. And others blame Cohen for not taking NIL seriously.

But there has to be a deeper dive into what pushed Mississippi State all the way to the bottom of a 16 team league.

Please help me understand why we had to go from 5-7 to 2-10 to 4-8 before we can start digging out of this hole.

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In the day of the portal and how it continues to evolve with NIL being in play? 3 coaches in 3 years has emptied what little talent we had. Anyone worth looking at was poached. So we are facing a complete rebuild.

Teams with rich tradition like the top 4-5 in the league can get away with this and be fine. They have nice trophies and massive support from boosters to help refill the cupboard.

We do not have a rich tradition of winning anything worth noting. We also have had two back to back first year head coaches. Say what you want, but first head coaching job.. in the SEC. You?re already behind the 8 ball. Better figure it out quick or you will end up at Akron.

I say all of that to say this, I believe Lebby can get it done, but he was not given a whole lot to work with. His already tough task, is 10x harder. It?s going to take some special players and miracles to turn this thing around. Who knows, we could find ourselves looking at an 8 win season this year? a lot of the SEC have unproven starters at QB. It happens from time to time, we need to capitalize.

Leach's lack of recruiting
Arnett turned out to be a bad move right behind Leach's death
Our reluctance to embrace NIL got us behind
Costs us more than other teams for certain types of players
3 coaches in 3 years

Has to be deeper! I mean historically. Only Vanderbilt has a worse record as an SEC team all time!

How does a program have that much futility since the end of World War II? Did everybody who had the where-with-all to make the University something special all die in Europe or the Pacific? Short of the decade of the 90's and Mullen's 10 year run, State has been one of the worst SEC football programs ever. WHY?

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Originally Posted by CaptainObvious

Has to be deeper! I mean historically. Only Vanderbilt has a worse record as an SEC team all time!

How does a program have that much futility since the end of World War II? Did everybody who had the where-with-all to make the University something special all die in Europe or the Pacific? Short of the decade of the 90's and Mullen's 10 year run, State has been one of the worst SEC football programs ever. WHY?

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Because Mississippi State University has made some the most dumb ass ****ing decisions when it comes to football.

Spurrier was told no and went to Duke thus starting his storied career. Jimbo Fisher, when he was in his prime, was ready to bring over half the staff with him from LSU, including Muschamp as DC, and LT wouldn't return his phone calls. LT hired Croom instead.

And that's just two examples. There's plenty of others.

My opinion is that all except Vandy had already well established system of paying players before it was legal. That school up to the north of us (the fake plantation owners) were paying large sums of $$’s to players before NIL. They were buying some of the best players out from under the blue bloods and that is what got them in trouble. If the fake plantation owners had just kept paying the 3-4 star players in Ms they would have never had to deal with the NCAA. In other words “ONLY” the Bama’s, LSU’s, Georgia’s, Auburn’s etc. are allowed to purchase the 5star players and pay big bucks for them. If a have not attempts to play the big boys game they are quickly in trouble and forced to accept their mediocrity so that the blue bloods have someone in the league that they can squash on Saturday without really breaking a sweat. Oh sure there are those exceptions to this rule but it is not often. See our overall record against Bama/LSU/Tn.

While these other schools were buying players momma’s houses and buying players new expensive cars. We were buying players momma’s new furniture and buying players mopeds. And now with NIL we are doing the same.

It all comes down to money and almost always has. However, the SEC scheduling has done us few favors. Especially since they "changed formats" a few years ago and screwed up the rotation. We have a thin margin between sucking and not sucking and when we make bad decisions we bottom out. A lot of our fans forget though that OM, USc, MO, and Arky have all gone thru the same cycle we are in now over the past decade.

We had been to 13 straight bowls and were 8-4 when our coach died. Let's not act like we couldn't keep up with the ark, USCe, Mizzou, Vandy, KY, and Mississippi's.

Leach was never a recruiter so there were massive gaps in the roster that a new coach was going to have to deal with.
Arnett was way in over his head.
Cohen was so clueless about NIL that we funded our entire 2023 roster for well below 7 figures while our rival did 10 times that.
So we're having to dig out of a hole to get back to 2010-2022 level. We're on the way back though.

Actually we don't know for sure what are talent is with the turnover we had and to say vandy and arky have more talent is beyond stupidity right now!

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Originally Posted by 99jc

Actually we don't know for sure what are talent is with the turnover we had and to say vandy and arky have more talent is beyond stupidity right now!

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I started to say same. Our roster talent may be much closer to say 2012 than 2024.

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Originally Posted by TrapGame

Because Mississippi State University has made some the most dumb ass ****ing decisions when it comes to football.

Spurrier was told no and went to Duke thus starting his storied career. Jimbo Fisher, when he was in his prime, was ready to bring over half the staff with him from LSU, including Muschamp as DC, and LT wouldn't return his phone calls. LT hired Croom instead.

And that's just two examples. There's plenty of others.

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Those are great examples but if we want to go back 75 years its plainly our lack of money.

We had to sell home football games to fund our athletic programs for decades. LSU played games on campus in front of 50K plus in the 50's. State homes games in the 50's would draw 20K at most unless it was the Egg Bowl. Shit, we even sold a home game to Fla in the early 90's for One millllllllllion dollars (insert Dr Evil voice). We have literally been the poor stepchild of the SEC for most people's lifetimes.

I'm pretty sure we were the last team in the SEC to get a wooden floor for basketball. I remember watching in the early to mid-80's with us having that rubber mat basketball court like a high school team. Bob Boyd- our basketball coach- used to recruit almost exclusively by phone. We didnt have much of a recruiting budget

We built a top baseball stadium at State before we did anything big for football or basketball

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Originally Posted by Coach34

Leach's lack of recruiting
Arnett turned out to be a bad move right behind Leach's death
Our reluctance to embrace NIL got us behind
Costs us more than other teams for certain types of players
3 coaches in 3 years

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I would add Mullen leaving on the verge of pushing the DOGS to a national level team, Jo Moe.....squandering the greatest assembly of defensive talent in school history. om hiring LK that had a greater long term scheme than CML. Arenett that I wanted to do well but was a YUGE mistake. The last years of Mullen job hunting, Leach a narrow scheme so recruiting was also narrow focused. Arnett just a bad hire....Perfect storm of years of limited recruiting......and as bad as I hate to admit....LK is one heck of an overall coach that is able to keep or recruit good Assistant coaches......That being said......Go DOGS....come one Coach Lebby.....Absolutely need to beat om this year....A must.

We were 9-4 Leach's last season. Then we hired Arnett.

People want to blame Leach's recruiting but that's a lame excuse from the Arnett supporters making excuses for him destroying our program trying to make us "Mississippi State football" again.

If Leach was still alive we would have Sawyer Robertson as our QB who is a Heisman contender this year. Leach also brought in Makai Polk, Justin Robinson who became the Outback Bowl MVP, he kept Tulu after Moorhead was fired, RaRa was a good receiver for us, and so was Zavion Thomas who were both Leach recruits poached from MSU by bluebloods. Trench's? He brought in Albert Reese who won the Hull trophy last year, Charles Cross, brought in Canon Boone who might be our starting center this year and also added in Steven LaSoya who was a quality o-line recruit.

Even defensively we recruited better- he brought in Forbes who wasn't recruited by Buckley for some weird reason, Tyrus Wheat, Jackie Matthews, Decamrion Richardson, Randy Charlton, Marcus Banks, and Jordan Davis were all quality players.

And a lot of those we got out of the portal despite Cohen sucking at the portal so I don't think it was that.

The quality of players dropped off after Leach passed away and it had nothing to do with Leach or the Air Raid. There's a reason why Stonka, SanFrisco, Harrell, and MVB committed almost immediately after Lebby was hired. Arnett and the boosters friends like Brad Peterson, Will Friend, Kevin Barbay, and etc were radioactive toxic. You go from a HOF coach to a medicore coaching staff running the worst offense I have ever seen in my life and you get what we got. How MSU handled Leach's death was a really bad look and it has taken a couple of years (and maybe going) to fix it.

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Originally Posted by BrunswickDawg

It all comes down to money and almost always has. However, the SEC scheduling has done us few favors. Especially since they "changed formats" a few years ago and screwed up the rotation. We have a thin margin between sucking and not sucking and when we make bad decisions we bottom out. A lot of our fans forget though that OM, USc, MO, and Arky have all gone thru the same cycle we are in now over the past decade.

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Everyone cycles out. Even Bama. It's just that the teams with more money and tradition and resources takes longer to do it. The rest of us it's shorter and perhaps lower.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

We were 9-4 Leach's last season. Then we hired Arnett.

People want to blame Leach's recruiting but that's a lame excuse from the Arnett supporters making excuses for him destroying our program trying to make us "Mississippi State football" again.

If Leach was still alive we would have Sawyer Robertson as our QB who is a Heisman contender this year. Leach also brought in Makai Polk, Justin Robinson who became the Outback Bowl MVP, he kept Tulu after Moorhead was fired, RaRa was a good receiver for us, and so was Zavion Thomas who were both Leach recruits poached from MSU by bluebloods. Trench's? He brought in Albert Reese who won the Hull trophy last year, Charles Cross, brought in Canon Boone who might be our starting center this year and also added in Steven LaSoya who was a quality o-line recruit.

Even defensively we recruited better- he brought in Forbes who wasn't recruited by Buckley for some weird reason, Tyrus Wheat, Jackie Matthews, Decamrion Richardson, Randy Charlton, Marcus Banks, and Jordan Davis were all quality players.

And a lot of those we got out of the portal despite Cohen sucking at the portal so I don't think it was that.

The quality of players dropped off after Leach passed away and it had nothing to do with Leach or the Air Raid. There's a reason why Stonka, SanFrisco, Harrell, and MVB committed almost immediately after Lebby was hired. Arnett and the boosters friends like Brad Peterson, Will Friend, Kevin Barbay, and etc were radioactive toxic. You go from a HOF coach to a medicore coaching staff running the worst offense I have ever seen in my life and you get what we got. How MSU handled Leach's death was a really bad look and it has taken a couple of years (and maybe going) to fix it.

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Yea the fumbles were JoeMo and Arnett. People can blame Leach's recruiting but we were winning and really can't help that he happened to pass away. It was obvious to see after Will Rogers went to Washington that Leach could put anything in at QB and win games. We had a bright future at QB, Oline and the best WR room I believe we've ever had. I think defense would've gotten better (and it wasn't bad). However, it is true that Leach's scheme made hiring the next coach after him extremely important. We had options for replacement but we hired a dumpster fire that lied about the scheme he was going to run to keep the players from running off.

Leach wasnt hired until Jan 2020 so very little of that recruiting class was his. Check out his 21/22 classes and tell me he recruited well.

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Originally Posted by Coach34

Leach wasnt hired until Jan 2020 so very little of that recruiting class was his. Check out his 21/22/23 classes and tell me he recruited well.

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Every single player I mentioned was recruited by Leach. Sure you had a few like Will Rogers, Marks, Dillion Johnson, Bookie, Jett, Camron Young, and Austin Williams that were contributors in 2022 but more than half of the starting lineup were Leach recruits.

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Originally Posted by Coach34

Leach wasnt hired until Jan 2020 so very little of that recruiting class was his. Check out his 21/22/23 classes and tell me he recruited well.

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Unless he had an agreement with the ALMIGHTY to continue recruiting in 2023, he isn't responsible for December 2023 recruiting class.😳😳

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

Every single player I mentioned was recruited by Leach. Sure you had a few like Will Rogers, Marks, Dillion Johnson, Bookie, Jett, Camron Young, and Austin Williams that were contributors in 2022 but more than half of the starting lineup were Leach recruits.

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almost everybody that put up stats in 22 was recruited by someone other than Leach.

Rogers
Marks
Johnson
Harvey
Ducking
Tulu
Williams
Walley

As was most of the D

Those guys were recruited for Leach

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Originally Posted by 1eyedog

I would add Mullen leaving on the verge of pushing the DOGS to a national level team, Jo Moe.....squandering the greatest assembly of defensive talent in school history. om hiring LK that had a greater long term scheme than CML. Arenett that I wanted to do well but was a YUGE mistake. The last years of Mullen job hunting, Leach a narrow scheme so recruiting was also narrow focused. Arnett just a bad hire....Perfect storm of years of limited recruiting......and as bad as I hate to admit....LK is one heck of an overall coach that is able to keep or recruit good Assistant coaches......That being said......Go DOGS....come one Coach Lebby.....Absolutely need to beat om this year....A must.

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That defense was all world talent.

Not just school history!!