Giving Croom credit

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Originally Posted by drunkernhelldawg

Maybe you're forgotten the three seasons before Croom. Look it up. Also, the decision to fire Croom was made after the La Tech loss to start the season. We could have beat Ole Miss 45 -0 and he still would have been run off. Finally, I remember that team being two kicks from a winning record. My point about competiveness stands. Croom made plenty of mistakes, but he did build the program.

That whole decade was the worst in our history, but the blame does not all go to Croom. Look it up.

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Are you actually him?

I remember the 3 seasons prior just fine. We were about the same as when Croom was the coach.

Your theory about La Tech is wrong as well. Croom, for some reason, was going to be given another season in 2009 if he were willing to replace Woody McCorvey as OC. As it has been stated here before, he was stubborn and unwilling to compromise. He would not fire Woody, and it ultimately cost him his job.

Thank goodness he didn't beat Ole Miss 45-0. He might still be the coach.

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Originally Posted by BrunswickDawg

No, he absolutely did not make us competitive. We had 1 - O-N-E - season of lucky as shit football that we won 7 regular season games.

3-8, 3-8, 3-9, 8-5, 4-8 is not competing in football.

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And the coaches he did beat usually found themselves unemployed or on a very hot seat.

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Originally Posted by THE Bruce Dickinson

Are you actually him?

I remember the 3 seasons prior just fine. We were about the same as when Croom was the coach.

Your theory about La Tech is wrong as well. Croom, for some reason, was going to be given another season in 2009 if he were willing to replace Woody McCorvey as OC. As it has been stated here before, he was stubborn and unwilling to compromise. He would not fire Woody, and it ultimately cost him his job.

Thank goodness he didn't beat Ole Miss 45-0. He might still be the coach.

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I was there. The negativity toward Croom was unrelenting after the La Tech loss. I'll always believe it was over then. And it's interesting that this loss followed our only winning season of the entire decade, yet the reaction was still what it was. I'll always wonder why that is.

I do think that that the athletic department started Croom off on the wrong foot with that "the only color that matters" bullshit. It was a mistake for us to feed the racial aspect. The proper response is to ignore that as much as possible, history or not. We're a living institution, not a textbook.

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Originally Posted by BrunswickDawg

Don't get me started on the myth that he cleaned up the program. Yeah, he kicked a bunch of Jackie's guys off the team for almost no reason, but we had players of his getting busted left and right for stuff. IIRCC he had players shooting up campus.

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It's not a myth. Let me take you back in time:

Croom addresses city’s Bulldog faithful.... 2004

He got a standing ovation for this comment: “I don’t care how fast he can run, how high he can jump. If he hasn’t made it through four years of high school on his own, and have parents who have put him on the right path, I will not take them at Mississippi State.”

At that time, MSU was besieged by disciplinary problems, an NCAA investigation, and allegations of NCAA rules violations under former coach Jackie Sherrill. Those are facts nobody can deny.

He dismissed our top RB.. Why? He was charged with possession of counterfeit money.

Mills was charged with burglary and uttering forgery. Mills was the 8th in that one spring arrested. We had 6 players assault an off duty cop. They didn't know but none the less 5 players assaulted a guy who was breaking up a fight. And that's not even all of them... that's the ones I remember.


Nobody is claiming that Croom was a GREAT head coach in Xs and Os. He directed MS St through a 4 year probation and ran a tight ship.

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Originally Posted by drunkernhelldawg

I was there. The negativity toward Croom was unrelenting after the La Tech loss. I'll always believe it was over then. And it's interesting that this loss followed our only winning season of the entire decade, yet the reaction was still what it was. I'll always wonder why that is.

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Of course there was unrelenting negativity after La Tech; besides getting abused by a CUSA team in general, it was jarring confirmation of many's suspicions that 2007 was a mirage and we'd turned no corners. And even then it's still false that he was gone at that point. It's been common knowledge for years that after the Egg Bowl he was offered another season if he'd just replace McCorvey.

eta: Not CUSA, WAC at that point. Even worse.

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Originally Posted by Coach007

It's not a myth. Let me take you back in time:

Croom addresses city’s Bulldog faithful.... 2004

He got a standing ovation for this comment: “I don’t care how fast he can run, how high he can jump. If he hasn’t made it through four years of high school on his own, and have parents who have put him on the right path, I will not take them at Mississippi State.”

At that time, MSU was besieged by disciplinary problems, an NCAA investigation, and allegations of NCAA rules violations under former coach Jackie Sherrill. Those are facts nobody can deny.

He dismissed our top RB.. Why? He was charged with possession of counterfeit money.

Mills was charged with burglary and uttering forgery. Mills was the 8th in that one spring arrested. We had 6 players assault an off duty cop. They didn't know but none the less 5 players assaulted a guy who was breaking up a fight. And that's not even all of them... that's the ones I remember.


Nobody is claiming that Croom was a GREAT head coach in Xs and Os. He directed MS St through a 4 year probation and ran a tight ship.

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Nothing tight about a ship who's sailors shoot guns on campus, or when the captain of said ship throws his higher-ups under the bus for firing him....

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Originally Posted by Coach007

It's not a myth. Let me take you back in time:

Croom addresses city?s Bulldog faithful.... 2004

He got a standing ovation for this comment: ?I don?t care how fast he can run, how high he can jump. If he hasn?t made it through four years of high school on his own, and have parents who have put him on the right path, I will not take them at Mississippi State.?

At that time, MSU was besieged by disciplinary problems, an NCAA investigation, and allegations of NCAA rules violations under former coach Jackie Sherrill. Those are facts nobody can deny.

He dismissed our top RB.. Why? He was charged with possession of counterfeit money.

Mills was charged with burglary and uttering forgery. Mills was the 8th in that one spring arrested. We had 6 players assault an off duty cop. They didn't know but none the less 5 players assaulted a guy who was breaking up a fight. And that's not even all of them... that's the ones I remember.


Nobody is claiming that Croom was a GREAT head coach in Xs and Os. He directed MS St through a 4 year probation and ran a tight ship.

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Top running back? He inherited Jerious Norwood - arguably the best back we've ever had - then had Boobie. When did Croom kick them off the team?

And Mills??? The only Mills I can find was Keith Mills, an un-rated WR we signed in 2006. You want to give credit to Croom for kicking a felon off the team? That is laughable. And those players who assaulted a cop? You think any coach in the country would have kept them on the team? I don't even think Freeze at his worst would have done that - and he recruited a guy who stuck his finger in guys butts.

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Originally Posted by thf24

Of course there was unrelenting negativity after La Tech; besides getting abused by a CUSA team in general, it was jarring confirmation of many's suspicions that 2007 was a mirage and we'd turned no corners. And even then it's still false that he was gone at that point. It's been common knowledge for years that after the Egg Bowl he was offered another season if he'd just replace McCorvey.

eta: Not CUSA, WAC at that point. Even worse.

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That's the other thing that was odd about our fans' reaction to Croom. They didn't want to give him credit for winning. I can't think of another example of this happening, but there it is.

And for context, in Mullen's first season, he blew a chance to beat LSU with a jump pass call. Yet fans resisted blaming him, many putting it on Henig's lack of execution. Yet we had first and goal at the one and ultimately failed on a trick play.

It is what it is.

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Originally Posted by msu15

We got our ass kicked by Louisiana Tech in his 5th season. What a competitive program we were.

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Again... JWS had lost control of the team. We were put on a 4 year probation. ALL of which Croom had to deal with. JWS recruiting class was ranked 56th that Croom inherited.

The next season, he recruited the 26th ranked class signing 1 Five star and 2 Four stars. HE was able to sign 3 to 4 Four stars every year to a depleted team with discipline problems.

He also set in motion the #18 class prior to Mullen being hired.

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Originally Posted by BeardoMSU

Nothing tight about a ship who's sailors shoot guns on campus, or when the captain of said ship throws his higher-ups under the bus for firing him....

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And kicked them off the team. Those things were happening on JWS watch. Croom helped clean that up.

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Originally Posted by Coach007

Again... JWS had lost control of the team. We were put on a 4 year probation. ALL of which Croom had to deal with. JWS recruiting class was ranked 56th that Croom inherited.

The next season, he recruited the 26th ranked class signing 1 Five star and 2 Four stars. HE was able to sign 3 to 4 Four stars every year to a depleted team with discipline problems.

He also set in motion the #18 class prior to Mullen being hired.

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You make a lot of good points, but the 45-0 loss to Ole Miss, which Croom said he "didn't see coming", was a killer.

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Originally Posted by BrunswickDawg

Top running back? He inherited Jerious Norwood - arguably the best back we've ever had - then had Boobie. When did Croom kick them off the team?

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Parade All-American running back at Washington High who went on to lead Mississippi State University in rushing. ABOVE Norwood. Same class. Norwood finished second on the team with 66 rushes for 394 yards. Turner led the team and ranked second in the Southeastern Conference in all-purpose yardage with 138.7 per game in 2003. Turner led the Bulldogs with 745 rushing yards and seven touchdowns in 2003..... Norwood finished the season with 121 carries for 642 yards and two touchdowns.

So yes. He dismissed our TOP Running back.

Don't forget that great display of "offense" when he only lost to Auburn by 1 point, (3-2)!*** Probably, the worse display of truly "offensive" MSU football that I have every watched and I saw my first State games in 1963. I bet if you researched it, he had to kick off about as many of his guys as Jackie's, the gunfight was on his watch. Except for that one year as DC with the Lions, he was a career RB coach in the NFL, the position he returned to after MSU. His AL wins were against poor teams for them. Lazy, didn't he coach practice from a golf cart? As far as "I didn't see that one coming", 45 -0 UM, he was getting paid well to know what was coming. "Remember the Maine".

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Originally Posted by Coach007

And kicked them off the team. Those things were happening on JWS watch. Croom helped clean that up.

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The guys shooting the guns on campus was between the 2007 and 2008 season. This is ultimately what Croom said made us suck in 2008 according to that propaganda that SEC network released.

He also had his fair share of other disciplinary problems in 5 years. Your diatribe about his recruiting is just further proof how awful he was. Hes recruiting top 25 classes, yet we were only winning 3 games a year. Something doesn't add up.

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Originally Posted by NCDawg

You make a lot of good points, but the 45-0 loss to Ole Miss, which Croom said he "didn't see coming", was a killer.

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100% agree and I'm not claiming Croom should not have been fired.

I'm simply claiming he guided MS ST through probation and put needed discipline back into the team. He did not care if you were a 5 star or all american. Do it right. Mullen got that benefit.

bama hired Mike Schula instead of him. I rest my case.

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Originally Posted by THE Bruce Dickinson

The guys shooting the guns on campus was between the 2007 and 2008 season. This is ultimately what Croom said made us suck in 2008 according to that propaganda that SEC network released.

He also had his fair share of other disciplinary problems in 5 years. Your diatribe about his recruiting is just further proof how awful he was. Hes recruiting top 25 classes, yet we were only winning 3 games a year. Something doesn't add up.

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Changing a culture takes time. We had problems for 3 years prior to Croom. Fans and Alumni were sick and tired of our player issues coupled with 2 wins per season along with probation coming in.

Unless Croom was to reset the roster to zero and start over, we all knew it would take time.

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Originally Posted by Coach007

Changing a culture takes time. We had problems for 3 years prior to Croom. Fans and Alumni were sick and tired of our player issues coupled with 2 wins per season along with probation coming in.

Unless Croom was to reset the roster to zero and start over, we all knew it would take time.

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Dixon got a DUI within the first month that Mullen was here. Guess it took a little more time than we thought

I liked Croom. I wanted him to succeed probably more than any other MSU coach except Rocky Felker. Croom just didn't have it. I'm glad he had that one good year, but it was obvious even that year he wasn't going to make it.

Don't want to go back to the first post, but did Larry Templeton and ESPN start this thread?*****