His resume from Wiki:
Alabama (GA/C, 1976)
Alabama (ILB, 1977?1981)
Alabama (OLB, 1982?1983)
Alabama (ILB, 1984?1986)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (RB, 1987?1990)
Indianapolis Colts (RB, 1991)
San Diego Chargers (RB, 1992?1996)
Detroit Lions (OC, 1997?2000)
Green Bay Packers (RB, 2001?2003)
How exactly does a resume like that, knowing what we know now, lend itself to make one an SEC head coaching candidate?
Without getting this thread thrown to the political board I think the SEC office was trying to make a statement and it was our turn to bat. I've heard rumors that we were told that if we played ball that it would be taken into consideration by the NCAA when it came sanction time. Not sure that was true but our sanctions weren't that bad for what they were trying to accuse us of.
I seem to recall that the Alabama AD, Mal Moore, (who also was responsible for the Mike Shula hire) put Croom's name into LTs ear.
Croom accomplished the #1 thing he was hired to do. Once he had done that he failed to accomplish mission #2, which was win football games.
Sorta... Mal gave him a courtesy interview to appease the black coaches association whatever it is called. LT saw he was good enough for an interview with Bama and thus we got Croom instead of Jimbo.Quote:
Originally Posted by #660000
A resume that includes a decade as an assistant at one of the top programs in college football, followed by 17 years as an NFL coach, including 4 years as an NFL OC?Quote:
Originally Posted by Taog Redloh
Seriously?
How did Mike Shula become an SEC HC candidate? How about Phil Fulmer? Ed Orgeron?
Croom coached Barry Sanders to the best year of his career and led Ahman Green to multiple 1,200 yard seasons, including almost 1,900 yards the year before we hired him. I'm not saying he was the most obvious candidate there's been, but he was no less qualified than plenty of coaches who have been hired, especially at a school like State and especially over a decade ago.
Why would what we know now play into it?
This is part of it, too. Once a guy is established as a legitimate candidate for another job, especially a job like Bama, he becomes a legitimate candidate for other jobs by default. That's just how it works.Quote:
Originally Posted by ScoobaDawg
It's funny, though, that people would question why Croom was qualified (and acknowledge he was just a courtesy candidate for the Bama job) while not questioning why Shula was qualified.
Because Bama hiring a mistake who was the son of a coaching legend after the Roll Bama Roll Price incident didn't effect MSU. Its great they hired an idiot or two. Moore fixed it next time.Quote:
Originally Posted by smootness
He was an OC in the NFL. What is being suggested here?
But the question is how Croom came to be an SEC head coaching candidate. My point is that there have been plenty of SEC head coaches who were hired with no better track record than Croom. So why would we single Croom out?Quote:
Originally Posted by ScoobaDawg
I get this is a State message board, so we're going to talk about State coaches. A question about why we thought he was the best candidate is fine. But a question about how he came to be a candidate for an SEC HC job necessitates a look at other SEC coaching hires. When doing that, it doesn't stand out as particularly bad.
Quote:
Originally Posted by drunkernhelldawg
Exactly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Taog Redloh
Do you really need to have that explained to you?
BTW, there's a new med out for non twenty four.
On another note, i think Crooms is the RB coach for the worst running team in the NFL. Shocker.
If you want to know the truth when Shula was hired (quickly) by Bama the Black coaches assoc went nuts because Bama basically told them to eat a ****. Slive got grilled on espn radio and basically promised the next sec coach would be black. I remember thinking oh **** listening to it, I still remember exactly where I was. We were up next and that was all she wrote. We were in no position to disagree with probation hanging over us, and we were cut a deal/break for "doin' the right thang". A lot of MSU losses and a lot of fired SEC coaches followed in the wake, LOL.
But it's all good now.
can't blame that on Croom. I'd rather have MSU's o-line than the Titans', and the RB our UMiss alum general manager took as the 1st overall RB in the 2014 draft has lost his job to an undrafted free agent we signed out of the same draft class. And the next best RB is don't text & drive McCluster. That said, w/ our HC being fired yesterday, I don't see anybody from the current offensive staff being retained next year. Croom is bound to land on his feet w/ that resume though.Quote:
Originally Posted by scottycameron
Croom had the resume to be a head coach. The problem was giving him so long to win football games. I guess we were scared to death of being labeled racists or something if we fired him too quickly, but it was painfully obvious after year 2 that he was never going to work out. We gave ourself the death penalty by hiring him. We just didn't know it yet.
So, we screwed ourselves worse than anything the NCAA could have handed down as punishment for our violations. I guess the ultimate punishment by the NCAA/SEC was hiring Croom.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jarius
There was no way we could have fired him after 2 years, especially given what he inherited. That just wasn't going to happen, no matter the race. You can make the argument we should have let him go after 3 years, but that's the only point at which we could have fired him before we did. If I remember correctly, I remember the fan base being restless after year 3, but I don't remember an overwhelming push for him to go.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jarius
We beat Alabama that year, we almost beat Georgia, we played a tough schedule that included a great WV team non-conference, and it would have still been difficult to let him go at that point. Things weren't quite as cut-throat in coaching even then as they are now, and 4 of our losses came by a combined 12 points. Everyone seemed to be at least ok with giving him the 4th year, and after we went to a bowl and he won COY that year, obviously he was getting year 5.
Explain going from the Lions' OC to the Packers' RB coach.Quote:
Originally Posted by smootness
He should have been fired immediately after losing to Maine. That's when it was pretty obvious that he would never be a long term solution. He wasn't fired after 2 years because, like you said, coaching wasn't near as cut-throat back then. If Mullen got us on probation, got fired, and then his replacement had 2 years like Croom did in his first 2, I would hope that he would get fired. We didn't fire him because it "wasn't acceptable" to fire someone that quickly when in reality it should have been very acceptable to fire someone that clueless. Also, he inherited a lot more than what he ended up starting with. He kicked everyone off the team that was worth a damn in the name of "doing it the right way". I mean the guy had a ten year plan. Any AD that allows a coach to have a ten year plan to get a program turned around is just absolutely crazy.Quote:
Originally Posted by smootness
I know why we hired him. My question is why he became a head coaching candidate.Quote:
Originally Posted by scottycameron
Even if LT/Slive internally decided that we wanted a black coach, we could have done much better. Why was Croom the BCA's/SEC's pet? Why not Charlie Strong? Or countless others. Guys who had AT LEAST been successful college coordinators. How does Croom go from NFL demotion to college darling?
He really didn't. Never made it higher than a specific LB coach in college. Was a RB coach in NFL, then OC, then demoted to RB coach again. What leadership roles did he ever have?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jarius
I am suggesting that a guy who failed as an OC shouldn't be a candidate for a major college head coaching position. A few steps are being skipped.Quote:
Originally Posted by drunkernhelldawg
Shula was the same as Croom. Went from NFL OC to QB coach. He failed at Alabama. Next question please. Or, perhaps the question is why are these scrubs the best that were available at that time, knowing the hiring the process as we do now?Quote:
Originally Posted by smootness
Now, continue your passive moral justice indictment of me.
Crooms was an unsuccessful OC- he couldn't even move the ball with Barry Sanders.
He was hired because of his skin color. We turned Jimbo Fisher away to hire Crooms- a waste of 5 years for the most part. The guy fell the **** asleep on a recruit's couch. Hoooooo-leeeeee-shit
I mean his resume didn't stand out as unqualified. He didn't have the greatest resume ever, but like others have said, SEC teams have hired much less qualified people than Croom.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taog Redloh
That is the second part of what has turned into a 2-part question:Quote:
Originally Posted by Coach34
1 - How did Croom become an SEC head coaching candidate with his terrible resume?
2 - Once he did, why was he (the guy with a terrible resume) the answer to the BCA's woes?
I'm sure he was a very popular candidate with the BCA. he had put in his time and paid his dues and there was a feeling he had been passed over by Bama when he should not have been. And I'm sure he was thought to be a good representative for the black coaches assoc. As far as being a good candidate in MSU's eyes, i really don't think our side had much say so in it. The deal was cut with us on the outside. We were taking whatever they agreed on and got off lightly with probation for being cooperative. Our job was a political compromise between two entities bigger than us, we were just a third party host.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taog Redloh
I thought everybody knew about this?
Name an SEC coach in the modern era who was hired that had never been a successful college coordinator before. Mike Shula is the only one I can think of.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jarius
It was painfully obvious Croominator knew nothing about the college game when he stayed at Green Bay during the playoffs instead of coming to MSU to recroot (in the most crucial part of the crootin calendar).
Does 'paid ones dues' make one think they'll be a winner?Quote:
Originally Posted by scottycameron
This isn't a government job.
How does this fire after 2 seasons idea have any credibility? Remember the previous three years? No coach of any hue would have been fired after two seasons given what he stepped into here.
I do think the athletic department made a big mistake in highlighting the racial aspect. The "Maroon is the Only Color that Matters" campaign forced people to look at it from the racial aspect. That's the source of a lot of the problems, imo.
People know but refuse to acknowledge that Croom led our only winning season of that decade. His second year was way too much in the center of that travesty to think about firing coaches..
Orgeron.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taog Redloh
Nice, that'll make your point.Quote:
Originally Posted by scottycameron
Sorry, I didn't realize that I'd have to spell out that the coach needs to be somewhat qualified and halfway competent. At least Orgeron was trending upward and had the title of Assistant Head Coach.
Derek Dooley was a pretty questionable hire. He was an average coach at La Tech. Also, we were considered to be pretty damn low on the destination list for anyone who was an up and comer. Hell, even someone who you think wasn't qualified almost turned us down. The worst program in the conference that is staring probation in the face? Um....no thanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taog Redloh
I was just listing one off the top of my head. Wasn't making any point. I don't think it was that important to be qualified in a traditional way, this was about something different that other hires. I'd compare it to condoleeza rice being qualified to decide on the NC playoff teams. She's not at all but it looks good to give her the position. And everybody is ok with it. It's not like she can cause too much damage anyway. i think that is how they viewed the MSU job.
His nuking of the entire program is why he was in the middle of a travesty. There was a little talent on the team that he inherited. Instead of trying to do what every other coach in the world does (not kick them off the team) he decided to give us the death penalty. If you didn't know that he wasn't the answer after Maine, I don't guess we will be able to see eye to eye on this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by drunkernhelldawg
I would agree with all of that, but I would have thought they wanted the first black coach to succeed. It was pretty much guaranteed that he would not succeed, if you looked at his resume.Quote:
Originally Posted by scottycameron
That begs that question of whether or not LT/Slive every truly wanted football success in the first place.
You can wonder why Dooley got the La Tech job, but not a big stretch for him to go from WAC to SEC. Tennessee was a little behind the 8-ball too, I think that was on into January/February when Kiffin left.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jarius
He was our first Rick Ray... I applaud both for being the scapegoat after a dumpster fire, and allowing us to be able to get to where we are now... end of story....
Charley Strong and one other guy turned us downQuote:
Originally Posted by Taog Redloh
Fair enough. Probably the most accurate of any.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barking 13