Seems too early to anoint MVB just yet. And as much as I'd to see it, I don't see a path to 4-8 or 5-7.
Seems too early to anoint MVB just yet. And as much as I'd to see it, I don't see a path to 4-8 or 5-7.
we gotta somehow convince the kids to come to starkville
No path to 5-7 but 4-8 is possible if we play like we did @UGA with Ark, UMass and Missouri at home. Given the situation I would be happy to win UMass and 1 of Ark/Mizzou, but if we win both I would consider the season a success and then we can move forward and build
And there's the problem. Our fanbase doesn't realize this, and hell I didn't realize it for the longest time, but if you're not a Mississippi State fan you're not really just chomping at the bit to come to Starkville. I mean up until the last 12-15 years, Starkville never did anything to shy away from the sleepy town in the middle of nowhere moniker. Yes Starkville is a special place, but it still has a long ways to go.
Sorry, but I don't consider 2-10 to 3-9 a successful season by any means. We got embarrassed by Toledo. We will be there Saturday 8 strong as usual as our 56 year season ticket streak continues, however this feels just like the Shira years (exciting air game with Tommy Pharr, Sammy Milner & David Smith, but no "D" at all), Tech & 10 or the Croom years.
I think everyone saying we were a 5-7 to 6-6 team didn't realize how deprived of even mid tier SEC talent this roster was. For us to hit 5-7 or 6-6 this year everything was going to have to be perfect.
We had a veteran QB come in with new WRs and a completely new offensive scheme along with an entirely new OL. We didn't return a starter on offense I don't believe. It takes time for all of those guys to mesh together and I think we are just now seeing this offense start to mesh.
We had complete turnover on defense along with a scheme change we haven't recruited for and haven't recruited the D side of the ball at all the last couple of years.
I think part of the reason you are seeing things like the FSU debacle and even OM to an extent are that when you bring in that many transfers it takes time for things to gel and sometimes it never gets off the ground like in FSU's case. Bring in the wrong QB and everything burns to the ground.
The path to winning consistently is building a roster of highschool kids that come in together and hold onto them while adding a couple of needed pieces each year from the portal along with coaching continuity and scheme continuity. There just isn't enough time for a team full of transfers to gel until you are mid way through the season and by then its too late. In our case the easy part of the schedule was very front end loaded and we hadn't started to gel yet. Now we are gelling but we are playing teams with significantly more talent than what we have. At the beginning of the season I thought if we won 5 games it would be a success but expected 4. Still think we can get to 4 if everything falls just right.
We will be lightyears ahead of where we were this year next season. Still have a brutal schedule but 5-7 wins next year and then 6-8 the following and I will be happy. I think it will be year 4 before we have a legit shot at an 8/9 win season.
I know people who feel that MSU should purchase it but no idea if Keenum could get any credit for it.
It's not off topic. That's one of the biggest things holding Starkville back. The whole sell or not sell thing back in 2017 turned into a massive cluster17 because politics got involved. I wish State could buy the damn thing but with no medical school I have no clue what we'd do with it. The hope is that Baptist or NMMC would still be interested but I don't know how interested they'd be after the debacle in 17.
Either one would be miles better than what they have now with the county running it. I mean the lack of health care is a big reason, at least that I've heard, businesses don't want to move to Oktibbeha Co. And with those businesses, you'd bring families and money. It's just Starkville getting in the way of growing Starkville pt. 843.
From personal experience, I was talking to OCH when I was looking to leave Hattiesburg. I pretty much had verbally agreed with OCH to come to Starkville and start a clinic. Then it seemed like some feet started dragging, and things ultimately went radio silent. I ended up signing a contract elsewhere.
Ochsner would be an absolute Godsend to Starkville. That's a nationally recognized hospital.
It does make sense to me because Ochsner is getting more and more of a foothold in Mississippi. They have a partnership with Rush in Meridian.
And I'll make a bold prediction- in ten years or less Ochsner will either buy out or have a partnership with one of the big hospitals in Jackson. I'm talking about someone like St. Dominic's, Baptist, or Merit. They're coming. And on top of that in NOLA they're trying to become a level 2 trauma center and they're about to build their own Children's Hospital. Ochsner also has direct partnerships with MD Anderson for cancer and the Andrew's Sports Institute for sports medicine. Basically they're going to try to turn UMC into a community hospital. And knowing the leadership at UMC I wouldn't bet against Ochsner making that happen.
So if they buy out or partner with OCH it's going to give them a feeder hospital in north Mississippi which will inevitably funnel patients to whatever they buy in Jackson. It will also benefit Starkville greatly because of the medical care they will get.
Ochsner may be better than the county running it, but it's not very likely Ochsner is going to treat it as anything but a triage center and feeder for its other hospitals. The only thing that might make Starkville different is that I don't know that Ochsner has anything close enough to use OCH as a feeder for, so it might try to keep offering more services at OCH. But if somebody in Tupelo takes it over, you're going to see them keep offering high volume services at OCH and services that are not capital intensive (so maybe office visits and things like a small infusion clinic that are open some days of the week) but things like emergency care is going to be organized around stabilizing people to get them to another hospital and surgeries will be mostly other places unless they can be done outpatient. Again, all of that may be better than what OCH is doing now, but ideally the county would have moved years ago to try and compete more for medical business.