Reasons many of our fans are very hesitant on changing coaches

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Originally Posted by gravedigger

Because its a knee jerk, emotional message board reaction and unsustainable at this university. In this conference, if we were to attempt to hold all future coaches to a standard of being fired after one below average season we would send a signal we are not only in denial of what it takes to win at MSU, but that we are unrealistic of the expectations of what level of success is sustainable. This will severely limit who we have to choose from to replace Moorhead and any successive coach.

Get over yourselves. Cohen isnt firing him due to the probability we will win more than 4 games and most likely will win 6. Joe may very well decide to leave on his own if he finds a better fit for him.

Everyone knew we had to let Rocky go. Tech and 10 settled that.
Everyone knew Jackie couldnt succeed during a 3 year investigation and he eventually realized that.
The many fans that said you couldnt fire Croom 1 year removed from SEC COY were a vocal minority.

Your comment about Joe being the 'worst coach MSU has ever had' or even the last 15 years, let alone 50, shows you are just willfully ignorant of our past.

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You might say this is a knee jerk message board reaction, but outside of Starkville there is very little support for this staff and I'm not talking about from message boards but from those that count when decisions are made. I not stating conjecture here, I'm stating fact. You might not like it and I'm not saying its right or wrong and you probably don't like it but that's what it is.

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Originally Posted by gravedigger

Because its a knee jerk, emotional message board reaction and unsustainable at this university. In this conference, if we were to attempt to hold all future coaches to a standard of being fired after one below average season we would send a signal we are not only in denial of what it takes to win at MSU, but that we are unrealistic of the expectations of what level of success is sustainable. This will severely limit who we have to choose from to replace Moorhead and any successive coach.

Get over yourselves. Cohen isnt firing him due to the probability we will win more than 4 games and most likely will win 6. Joe may very well decide to leave on his own if he finds a better fit for him.

Everyone knew we had to let Rocky go. Tech and 10 settled that.
Everyone knew Jackie couldnt succeed during a 3 year investigation and he eventually realized that.
The many fans that said you couldnt fire Croom 1 year removed from SEC COY were a vocal minority.

Your comment about Joe being the 'worst coach MSU has ever had' or even the last 15 years, let alone 50, shows you are just willfully ignorant of our past.

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Vanderbilt fired Caldwell after just one season (had the same record as Bobby Johnson?s last year)...they hired James Franklin. They also fired Dowhower after DiNardo who never had a winning season but at least won 4-5 games a year. And that was the mid 90?s. Should have they held on them? I mean it?s Vandy, they should have bottom basement mentality even worse than what we should expect.

Ellis Johnson...horrid but that?s a no brainer, 0 wins never a get you another season and no coach in the modern era has ever turned around a 0 win season.

WKU just fired Sanford after going 6-7 and 3-9. He underperformed at WKU and they had no problem firing him. And similarly he followed Brohm and other successful coaches, when he underperformed they did not give him a third year. The new coach is 5-3, 4-1 in conference with wins over UAB and Army, two coaches whose names pop up for bigger HC gigs

Mike Locksley was fired 4 games into his third season but he was almost fired after 2 years and they should have.

With how the game has changed and the amount of money that SEC programs receive, teams can not afford to hold on too long anymore. It is financially irresponsible at this point for the school and the program. That?s not knee jerk anymore. And for us it is beyond just record, there are massive issues with the program and it?s is showing up on the field of play. The scoreboard is almost irrelevant because we are not competitive vs teams we should be competitive with or just flat out better. The early blowouts, undisciplined play, lack of physicality, effort, etc. are just a symptom of a larger problem.

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Originally Posted by Liverpooldawg

What a perfect example of why we will never rise above what we are. THIS is the old MSU attitude to a T. I've heard this for 50 years.

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The "little man" syndrome is alive and well within the fanbase. Don't you know? The only reason why we are not Alabama is because the fans just won't demand it!1!!!

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Originally Posted by gravedigger

Because its a knee jerk, emotional message board reaction and unsustainable at this university. In this conference, if we were to attempt to hold all future coaches to a standard of being fired after one below average season we would send a signal we are not only in denial of what it takes to win at MSU, but that we are unrealistic of the expectations of what level of success is sustainable. This will severely limit who we have to choose from to replace Moorhead and any successive coach.

Get over yourselves. Cohen isnt firing him due to the probability we will win more than 4 games and most likely will win 6. Joe may very well decide to leave on his own if he finds a better fit for him.

Everyone knew we had to let Rocky go. Tech and 10 settled that.
Everyone knew Jackie couldnt succeed during a 3 year investigation and he eventually realized that.
The many fans that said you couldnt fire Croom 1 year removed from SEC COY were a vocal minority.

Your comment about Joe being the 'worst coach MSU has ever had' or even the last 15 years, let alone 50, shows you are just willfully ignorant of our past.

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Certainly many people are being emotional about firing joe, but you are no less emotional. You are "resulting" rather than looking at Joe's body of work. He has had one underachieving season where we looked poorly coached on his side of the ball. Not entirely surprising considering we were changing offenses and our returning QB was relatively inexperienced as a QB for a returning senior, spent most of his QB time as a run heavy QB, and then he missed spring practices and was returning from a serious injury.

Then there is this season, where after more time with the team, we got worse in every aspect of the game. We still can't run our offense, we look disorganized, we have to have a massive talent advantage to win, we are basket cases on the road, etc. Again, there are excuses available. We've had injuries and suspensions and Mullen left us in a bind on the defensive side of the ball with just a lack of playmakers overall and a huge hole on the interior of the DL. Joe's problem is that the stuff he is responsible for, the offense and generally looking like we don't have our heads up our asses, still look subpar. He looks like a really bad coach right now.

He's not as bad as Croom. Croom's offense struggled even against FCS teams. But he still looks bad. That is the standard that will get him fired. Average coaching for a year or two would most of the time lead to at least 4 years if not 5. He has not been average and it will be very risky for us to give him another year to see if the first two years were just a fluke or if he manages to quickly move up what appears to be a steep learning curve. It will be risky to make a new hire, because all new hires are risky (as Moorhead has shown us). Just not a good position, which is where bad hires put you.

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Originally Posted by MadDawg

The "little man" syndrome is alive and well within the fanbase. Don't you know? The only reason why we are not Alabama is because the fans just won't demand it!1!!!

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I never said that. I do expect our floor to be 7 or 8 wins a season now. Sorry if that's asking too much for some fans....

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Originally Posted by Johnson85

Certainly many people are being emotional about firing joe, but you are no less emotional. You are "resulting" rather than looking at Joe's body of work. He has had one underachieving season where we looked poorly coached on his side of the ball. Not entirely surprising considering we were changing offenses and our returning QB was relatively inexperienced as a QB for a returning senior, spent most of his QB time as a run heavy QB, and then he missed spring practices and was returning from a serious injury.

Then there is this season, where after more time with the team, we got worse in every aspect of the game. We still can't run our offense, we look disorganized, we have to have a massive talent advantage to win, we are basket cases on the road, etc. Again, there are excuses available. We've had injuries and suspensions and Mullen left us in a bind on the defensive side of the ball with just a lack of playmakers overall and a huge hole on the interior of the DL. Joe's problem is that the stuff he is responsible for, the offense and generally looking like we don't have our heads up our asses, still look subpar. He looks like a really bad coach right now.

He's not as bad as Croom. Croom's offense struggled even against FCS teams. But he still looks bad. That is the standard that will get him fired. Average coaching for a year or two would most of the time lead to at least 4 years if not 5. He has not been average and it will be very risky for us to give him another year to see if the first two years were just a fluke or if he manages to quickly move up what appears to be a steep learning curve. It will be risky to make a new hire, because all new hires are risky (as Moorhead has shown us). Just not a good position, which is where bad hires put you.

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I agree that new hires are risky as you state, but it is also the definition of insanity to keep doing what we are doing (JoMo) and expect different results. The trajectory on this program and staff is all downward, crashing down.
A question for everyone: When was the last time that this team came to play and exceeded your expectations? For me we came to play against scum last year, didn't really exceed expectations, the last time that happened was against Louisville.

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Originally Posted by Really Clark?

Vanderbilt fired Caldwell after just one season (had the same record as Bobby Johnson?s last year)...they hired James Franklin. They also fired Dowhower after DiNardo who never had a winning season but at least won 4-5 games a year. And that was the mid 90?s. Should have they held on them? I mean it?s Vandy, they should have bottom basement mentality even worse than what we should expect.

Ellis Johnson...horrid but that?s a no brainer, 0 wins never a get you another season and no coach in the modern era has ever turned around a 0 win season.

WKU just fired Sanford after going 6-7 and 3-9. He underperformed at WKU and they had no problem firing him. And similarly he followed Brohm and other successful coaches, when he underperformed they did not give him a third year. The new coach is 5-3, 4-1 in conference with wins over UAB and Army, two coaches whose names pop up for bigger HC gigs

Mike Locksley was fired 4 games into his third season but he was almost fired after 2 years and they should have.

With how the game has changed and the amount of money that SEC programs receive, teams can not afford to hold on too long anymore. It is financially irresponsible at this point for the school and the program. That?s not knee jerk anymore. And for us it is beyond just record, there are massive issues with the program and it?s is showing up on the field of play. The scoreboard is almost irrelevant because we are not competitive vs teams we should be competitive with or just flat out better. The early blowouts, undisciplined play, lack of physicality, effort, etc. are just a symptom of a larger problem.

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This is the red flag to me. We can go along and get to a bowl with a 6-6 record but we are not showing improvement in any form. You can throw out all the statistics you want to but it boils down to 90th and 94th in offense and defense in the country. We haven't been this bad ever on both sides of the ball. Even Jackie's last years, we weren't this bad on both sides of the ball. When you take over a team that had a pretty good offense and turn them into only good against shit teams then that isn't progress. And then he turns around and makes it worse.

The level of give a shit that was on that field at UT from the players, coaches, and down to the 17ing water boys should have gotten him fired that damn day. Plenty of MSU fans in the stands came to watch that bullshit. A&M wasn't a lot better. He has proven without home field advantage, he can't even get the team to compete, much less win.

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Originally Posted by Johnson85

Certainly many people are being emotional about firing joe, but you are no less emotional. You are "resulting" rather than looking at Joe's body of work. He has had one underachieving season where we looked poorly coached on his side of the ball. Not entirely surprising considering we were changing offenses and our returning QB was relatively inexperienced as a QB for a returning senior, spent most of his QB time as a run heavy QB, and then he missed spring practices and was returning from a serious injury.

Then there is this season, where after more time with the team, we got worse in every aspect of the game. We still can't run our offense, we look disorganized, we have to have a massive talent advantage to win, we are basket cases on the road, etc. Again, there are excuses available. We've had injuries and suspensions and Mullen left us in a bind on the defensive side of the ball with just a lack of playmakers overall and a huge hole on the interior of the DL. Joe's problem is that the stuff he is responsible for, the offense and generally looking like we don't have our heads up our asses, still look subpar. He looks like a really bad coach right now.

He's not as bad as Croom. Croom's offense struggled even against FCS teams. But he still looks bad. That is the standard that will get him fired. Average coaching for a year or two would most of the time lead to at least 4 years if not 5. He has not been average and it will be very risky for us to give him another year to see if the first two years were just a fluke or if he manages to quickly move up what appears to be a steep learning curve. It will be risky to make a new hire, because all new hires are risky (as Moorhead has shown us). Just not a good position, which is where bad hires put you.

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I think it would actually be more risky to let Moorhead stay and hope he can figure it out. At least Pruitt seems to have gotten UT moving in the right direction, we can't say the same. That is a coach that everyone was glad we didn't get and he looks like the better hire right now.

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Originally Posted by Dawgology

Because they are weak and afraid of believing we deserve better as a program.

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Ha ha ha. I don't know a single state fan that is "afraid of believing we deserve better as a program". What does that even mean? If your afraid of anything regarding M State athletics your taking it entirely too seriously. There are things in life to worry about, college football certainly isn't one of them.

As for our program, the biggest issue is we are getting exactly what we paid for. We are ahead of Mizzou and Vandy in donations. OM as discussed before raises a significantly larger sum of money. Heck even Ky raises more. So until fans decide to hold themselves to the same standard that they want to hold the program to we will continue to get what we paid for.

Until our budgets for recruiting and assistant coaches goes up it will be hard to consistently field a top 5-6 football team in the SEC.

It isn't that hard to understand. We simply have to put "our money where our mouths are" and start raising/spending more money albeit we could be smarter with the budget that we have but it's downright embarrassing that we can't raise more money than we do.

The people with unrealistic expectations aren't the ones that you deem "afraid" it is the people that think that there is no reason we shouldn't be a top 6 program in the SEC while only raising/ spending in the 11-14th range. People complaining about 5-6$ cokes and how a weekend traveling to a game is now to expensive when you can just watch on TV is the issue.

Bottom line is we are cheap all the way around with regards to football. From our AD to our coaching staff, to our fans.

Our head coach is the 13th highest paid coach in the SEC. So we are getting exactly what we paid for. Mason is paid more at Vandy.

Teams that pay their coaches more:

Iowa State
Louisville
Vandy
Pittsburg
NC State
Baylor
Arkansas
Illinois
Utah
Washington State
Virginia
Houston
Minnesota

We are in a tier with the following-- Georgia Tech, Duke, Cal, Texas Tech, Kansas and BC.

There are non power 5 teams that are paying about what we pay and you think we are going to go and poach a good established coach to come when he knows we don't pay assistants well on top of the fact that our job is already one of the harder positions in the conference.

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Originally Posted by Tbonewannabe

This is the red flag to me. We can go along and get to a bowl with a 6-6 record but we are not showing improvement in any form. You can throw out all the statistics you want to but it boils down to 90th and 94th in offense and defense in the country. We haven't been this bad ever on both sides of the ball. Even Jackie's last years, we weren't this bad on both sides of the ball. When you take over a team that had a pretty good offense and turn them into only good against shit teams then that isn't progress. And then he turns around and makes it worse.

The level of give a shit that was on that field at UT from the players, coaches, and down to the 17ing water boys should have gotten him fired that damn day. Plenty of MSU fans in the stands came to watch that bullshit. A&M wasn't a lot better. He has proven without home field advantage, he can't even get the team to compete, much less win.

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Yep, my trip to Knoxville just did me in with Joe. He seems satisfied with 1 explosive play every 10-12 plays and all the other plays are for negative yardage.

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Originally Posted by BB30

Ha ha ha. I don't know a single state fan that is "afraid of believing we deserve better as a program". What does that even mean? If your afraid of anything regarding M State athletics your taking it entirely too seriously. There are things in life to worry about, college football certainly isn't one of them.

As for our program, the biggest issue is we are getting exactly what we paid for. We are ahead of Mizzou and Vandy in donations. OM as discussed before raises a significantly larger sum of money. Heck even Ky raises more. So until fans decide to hold themselves to the same standard that they want to hold the program to we will continue to get what we paid for.

Until our budgets for recruiting and assistant coaches goes up it will be hard to consistently field a top 5-6 football team in the SEC.

It isn't that hard to understand. We simply have to put "our money where our mouths are" and start raising/spending more money albeit we could be smarter with the budget that we have but it's downright embarrassing that we can't raise more money than we do.

The people with unrealistic expectations aren't the ones that you deem "afraid" it is the people that think that there is no reason we shouldn't be a top 6 program in the SEC while only raising/ spending in the 11-14th range. People complaining about 5-6$ cokes and how a weekend traveling to a game is now to expensive when you can just watch on TV is the issue.

Bottom line is we are cheap all the way around with regards to football. From our AD to our coaching staff, to our fans.

Our head coach is the 13th highest paid coach in the SEC. So we are getting exactly what we paid for. Mason is paid more at Vandy.

Teams that pay their coaches more:

Iowa State
Louisville
Vandy
Pittsburg
NC State
Baylor
Arkansas
Illinois
Utah
Washington State
Virginia
Houston
Minnesota

We are in a tier with the following-- Georgia Tech, Duke, Cal, Texas Tech, Kansas and BC.

There are non power 5 teams that are paying about what we pay and you think we are going to go and poach a good established coach to come when he knows we don't pay assistants well on top of the fact that our job is already one of the harder positions in the conference.

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So using this "logic" if we pay JoMo more than Saban we will be in the playoffs correct?

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Originally Posted by Tbonewannabe

I think it would actually be more risky to let Moorhead stay and hope he can figure it out. At least Pruitt seems to have gotten UT moving in the right direction, we can't say the same. That is a coach that everyone was glad we didn't get and he looks like the better hire right now.

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I agree, which is partly why I said it would be very risky for us to give Joe another year and just said it would be risky to make a new hire.

I think Joe has to go if we go 4-8. I think he should go if we get to 5-7, but you've got to weigh interest from your likely candidates. If he goes 6-6, I still won't be optimistic about Joe, but I would expect him to come back at that point and think it will be the right thing to bring him back just because at that point, I do think coaches will at least wonder about our expectations. If we go 6-6 this year, and then fire Joe, and then the next coach goes 7-6 and 7-6, are they going to be safe? The answer is definitely, because even if they look bad, they haven't regressed and we're not going to pay two buyouts at once. The next coach can probalby go 5-7 and 5-7 and still get a third year. But I understand candidates being at least a little concerned about longevity.

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Originally Posted by redstickdawg

So using this "logic" if we pay JoMo more than Saban we will be in the playoffs correct?

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Yea that is exactly what I was saying...

No, but if you spend more than 2 million up front maybe you get someone other than Joe the first time around.... Is it just coincidence that historically speaking we have been last or close to last in the SEC and we also spend at a rate last or close to last? Save maybe what 10-12 years total in our history we have been in the bottom third of the conference. Seems like a good identifier. But keep thinking we deserve a top shelf team with a college beer budget.

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Originally Posted by BB30

Ha ha ha. I don't know a single state fan that is "afraid of believing we deserve better as a program". What does that even mean? If your afraid of anything regarding M State athletics your taking it entirely too seriously. There are things in life to worry about, college football certainly isn't one of them.

As for our program, the biggest issue is we are getting exactly what we paid for. We are ahead of Mizzou and Vandy in donations. OM as discussed before raises a significantly larger sum of money. Heck even Ky raises more. So until fans decide to hold themselves to the same standard that they want to hold the program to we will continue to get what we paid for.

Until our budgets for recruiting and assistant coaches goes up it will be hard to consistently field a top 5-6 football team in the SEC.

It isn't that hard to understand. We simply have to put "our money where our mouths are" and start raising/spending more money albeit we could be smarter with the budget that we have but it's downright embarrassing that we can't raise more money than we do.

The people with unrealistic expectations aren't the ones that you deem "afraid" it is the people that think that there is no reason we shouldn't be a top 6 program in the SEC while only raising/ spending in the 11-14th range. People complaining about 5-6$ cokes and how a weekend traveling to a game is now to expensive when you can just watch on TV is the issue.

Bottom line is we are cheap all the way around with regards to football. From our AD to our coaching staff, to our fans.

Our head coach is the 13th highest paid coach in the SEC. So we are getting exactly what we paid for. Mason is paid more at Vandy.

Teams that pay their coaches more:

Iowa State
Louisville
Vandy
Pittsburg
NC State
Baylor
Arkansas
Illinois
Utah
Washington State
Virginia
Houston
Minnesota

We are in a tier with the following-- Georgia Tech, Duke, Cal, Texas Tech, Kansas and BC.

There are non power 5 teams that are paying about what we pay and you think we are going to go and poach a good established coach to come when he knows we don't pay assistants well on top of the fact that our job is already one of the harder positions in the conference.

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Our head coaches salary is not holding us back at all. We got a very highly thought of P5 coordinator paying what we pay. We could have had Pruitt if we had wanted him (pretty sure we had already passed at the point the UT search reached dumpster fire level). We may be (probably are?) cheaping out on assistant coaches pay. And certainly if Joe had done well the price of poker would have gone up quickly. But what we are paying now is fine to get coaches in here. If they do good, we will be at $5M per year quickly.

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Originally Posted by Liverpooldawg

What a perfect example of why we will never rise above what we are. THIS is the old MSU attitude to a T. I've heard this for 50 years.

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So lay it out for us slick. Give us the plan how he becomes a winner at MState. Recruits top 10 classes every year? Out schemes better talent? Plays tough, disciplined, hard nosed football?

You're a damned fool if you think a slow methodical offense is going to compete in this conference. It would take Bama level talent and even then Saban saw a need to change to more up tempo.

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Originally Posted by Dawgology

I never said that. I do expect our floor to be 7 or 8 wins a season now. Sorry if that's asking too much for some fans....

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That is asking too much of reality. If we hire a coach that gets us to a 7 or 8 win average (regular season), that is a great hire. If we had a coach that could guarantee us a 7-8 win average, a 6 win floor (with some rare slip ups to 5 win seasons) and a 10 win ceiling, we should throw the bank at him and offer $6 or $7M per year, which is coincidentally what we were willing to pay for Mullen.

If we are going to fire a coach for winning less than 7 games, we will soon make UT look like a well run program. We might get insanely lucky and hire a coach that creates a 7 win floor, but even if we do, we still won't be a program that can demand that of future coaches.

ETA: That's not to say I think it would be unjustifiable to fire Moorhead if he goes 6-6 this year. But we wouldn't be firing him for going 6-6. If we actually fired him after he went 6-6, it would be for how poorly coached we looked over two years and the poor trajectory combined with a lack of offsetting positives.

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Originally Posted by Johnson85

I agree, which is partly why I said it would be very risky for us to give Joe another year and just said it would be risky to make a new hire.

I think Joe has to go if we go 4-8. I think he should go if we get to 5-7, but you've got to weigh interest from your likely candidates. If he goes 6-6, I still won't be optimistic about Joe, but I would expect him to come back at that point and think it will be the right thing to bring him back just because at that point, I do think coaches will at least wonder about our expectations. If we go 6-6 this year, and then fire Joe, and then the next coach goes 7-6 and 7-6, are they going to be safe? The answer is definitely, because even if they look bad, they haven't regressed and we're not going to pay two buyouts at once. The next coach can probalby go 5-7 and 5-7 and still get a third year. But I understand candidates being at least a little concerned about longevity.

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I think it is interesting that a lot of media are now saying that Moorhead just isn't a good fit for us. I think this might be the way that Joe goes to Rutgers even if he goes 6-6. I don't see us even being on the field against Bama so even if we blow out Ark, Abilene, and UM, that is what we did without a "Joe" QB last year. That still isn't progress. I agree that if we fire Joe after 6-6, we better have our coach already lined up and they better be a good fit because they will have a minimum of 3 years if not 4.

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Originally Posted by Tbonewannabe

I think it is interesting that a lot of media are now saying that Moorhead just isn't a good fit for us. I think this might be the way that Joe goes to Rutgers even if he goes 6-6. I don't see us even being on the field against Bama so even if we blow out Ark, Abilene, and UM, that is what we did without a "Joe" QB last year. That still isn't progress. I agree that if we fire Joe after 6-6, we better have our coach already lined up and they better be a good fit because they will have a minimum of 3 years if not 4.

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If we blow out Ark and Ole Miss, then Joe won't be fired. I'm not sure if he gets fired at 6-6 at all, but if he does, it will be because we squeak out wins against UM and Arkansas despite looking like a terribly coached team because Ark and UM are also poorly coached and less talented.

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Originally Posted by Johnson85

Our head coaches salary is not holding us back at all. We got a very highly thought of P5 coordinator paying what we pay. We could have had Pruitt if we had wanted him (pretty sure we had already passed at the point the UT search reached dumpster fire level). We may be (probably are?) cheaping out on assistant coaches pay. And certainly if Joe had done well the price of poker would have gone up quickly. But what we are paying now is fine to get coaches in here. If they do good, we will be at $5M per year quickly.

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It isn't just about HC and asst coach salaries. We spend significantly less on recruiting etc. We spend less in just about every facet of the program.

Name one thing in life that you don't generally get what you pay for.

If you go the cheap route you usually get cheap things. We have been cheap when it comes to quite a bit about our program in regards to the rest of the league and even a large chunk of the rest of the power 5. I don't understand how that is hard to comprehend. Yes you can catch a good up and comer like a Dan Mullen but the odds aren't in your favor of doing that repeatedly over time. All I am saying is that we could increase our odds of success if we would raise/spend more on the entire program.

So I am assuming you believe that we aren't getting what we paid for in relation to the rest of the league and that spending has little to do with success? That regardless of what we spend we should have a top 6 program in the SEC?

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Originally Posted by BB30

Ha ha ha. I don't know a single state fan that is "afraid of believing we deserve better as a program". What does that even mean? If your afraid of anything regarding M State athletics your taking it entirely too seriously. There are things in life to worry about, college football certainly isn't one of them.

As for our program, the biggest issue is we are getting exactly what we paid for. We are ahead of Mizzou and Vandy in donations. OM as discussed before raises a significantly larger sum of money. Heck even Ky raises more. So until fans decide to hold themselves to the same standard that they want to hold the program to we will continue to get what we paid for.

Until our budgets for recruiting and assistant coaches goes up it will be hard to consistently field a top 5-6 football team in the SEC.

It isn't that hard to understand. We simply have to put "our money where our mouths are" and start raising/spending more money albeit we could be smarter with the budget that we have but it's downright embarrassing that we can't raise more money than we do.

The people with unrealistic expectations aren't the ones that you deem "afraid" it is the people that think that there is no reason we shouldn't be a top 6 program in the SEC while only raising/ spending in the 11-14th range. People complaining about 5-6$ cokes and how a weekend traveling to a game is now to expensive when you can just watch on TV is the issue.

Bottom line is we are cheap all the way around with regards to football. From our AD to our coaching staff, to our fans.

Our head coach is the 13th highest paid coach in the SEC. So we are getting exactly what we paid for. Mason is paid more at Vandy.

Teams that pay their coaches more:

Iowa State
Louisville
Vandy
Pittsburg
NC State
Baylor
Arkansas
Illinois
Utah
Washington State
Virginia
Houston
Minnesota

We are in a tier with the following-- Georgia Tech, Duke, Cal, Texas Tech, Kansas and BC.

There are non power 5 teams that are paying about what we pay and you think we are going to go and poach a good established coach to come when he knows we don't pay assistants well on top of the fact that our job is already one of the harder positions in the conference.

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Well...you are on a MSU athletics forum talking in a football thread so...yeah...worrying about the state of our football program is kind of the hot topic right now...

Anyway, when I say afraid or scared what I mean is that winning and raising your annual "win floor" raises expectations and can increase the needs of a program from a funding standpoint and can, certainly, increase stress amongst donors, staff, etc. I've read several posters on here, on social media, and other forums that have mentioned that we are now back to where we are "supposed to be"...6 win seasons with down years mixed in and that we should be ok with our place in the grand scheme of things. That's a lsoer mentality and it's born of fear. Fear to get your hopes up. Fear of the commitment that winning takes. It's always much easier to show up, tailgate, leave at the half because we are getting blown out, and go tailgate for a few more hours.