Greg McElroy on Saban in 2007
https://www.sbnation.com/a/2007-coll...ulm-nick-saban
https://i.imgur.com/dVy3bIV.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/4ruX5qq.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/FKOUhba.jpg
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Norman Dale did it in one season, and we already had the football program we could have ever hoped for before Cohen started hiring people. This notion that we're going to tear it all down and build it back up into something even better than it was under Mullen is completely ludicrous. This is the SEC, and we don't recruit well enough for that. We already had the foundation and the philosophy that suited our program best, and we threw it away.
You can talk recruiting and who the "real South" is all you want. It doesn't make one 17 of a difference because here's the simple facts, winning solves all problems. Dan was an ass to 95% of our players, but they'd go to war for him. Hev was an ass to 100% of our players but they'd run through a brick wall for him. Program toughness and pride is what we had under Dan and what we lost under Joe. He might've been a likable guy, but he was a HORRENDOUS HC and program CEO. Leach is trying to bring that back and I applaud him for that. Will it work? Who the hell knows, but I can guarandamntee you another 2 to 3 years of Moorhead would've had cultural problems that make what we're going through now a cakewalk. I'm on record as saying I don't think the pure air raid can work, but that's a discussion for another time and a year from now. Right now, the discussion needs to be who are going to be the leaders on our team. I've heard too many stories to count of the lax program attitude under Moorhead, enough to make you physically ill. I haven't heard any of that under Mike. Look, if there's fans that want to jump ship then that is completely fine. I, along with many others, were here before the Dan Mullen bandwagon fans came aboard, we'll be here after they're gone, and we'll still be here when they try to rejoin us. Whether that be with Leach or another coach.
There is no secret sauce for most college teams - you can take a few chances and maybe they pan out and maybe they don’t. Dontae Jones helped us get to a final 4 but he would have never lasted if he had come in as a freshman and barely made it through his one year here.
But you can’t have a lot of those types or you have what Jackie and Stans had at the end of their tenure. The trouble is finding enough guys that are quality people and quality athletes that you can get to Starkville. That’s the hard part and I think was a huge reason Mullen was so eager to get out.
I don't disagree that Cohen is to blame for most of this, but Leach didn't turn the team culture into a dumpster fire. He's just having to work with what he's got.
We've all blamed Cohen ad nauseum for the Moorhead hire, but at some point you just realize that there is nothing more we can do about it. What's done is done and now we only can worry about what to do next. And next has to be cleaning up the mess, which involves throwing out the trash
I agree, no Doubt DM doesn't have to work as hard as he did in Florida as Msu. We will and we have won since we hired JWS, but it's a up and down thing winning at StarkVegas.
I just hope Leach will work hard and recruit "his players". I think it's harder to win at Msu than TT and WSU, because of the conference is much tougher and way more passionate than those other two conferences.
LOL at the people wanting us to be a program that "our players like" who probably also railed Joe for a lack of discipline. Which was the result of him trying to have a program that our players liked.
Some of our issues on offense are discipline/sloppiness related- the WR's in particular.
Also- LOL at the people that think that we won't recruit Mississippi well just by looking at the rankings this year and the ins that we have for the class of 2022 already.
Some of our fans are so bad about talking out of both sides of their mouth. "We want a disciplined hard working team! But we want to the players to have fun all the time and Leach is wrong for kicking players off the team that don't follow the rules!"
This is the exact same shit from our fans that happened with Cohen as the baseball coach. The year before we hired Cohen "Our team is soft!" And then we hire Cohen "I don't like how he cusses at our players and he bunts too much."
The ONLY thing I have ever figured out about MSU fans is they want the exact OPPOSITE of whatever it is that MSU has at that moment. It seems like all of our fans want is some quick fix where the coach calls some cute play- but involving a QB run of course- otherwise that's going to get bitched about- to get us to the Liberty Bowl.
And before the "But....but....but Arkansas and Kentucky!" posts come- Arkansas had literally nowhere to go but up. They had completely turned on Morris- so of course they had nowhere to go but up. Beating us is about like beating Alabama for MSU. Stoops has been at UK for years and he has had several good teams now. Them beating us in Lexington shouldn't be a surprise since we haven't won there since 2014.
In the offseason we had fans like "I know there is going to be an adjustment". We have Leach's track record at Texas Tech and Wazzu to show that there is an adjustment period. AND YET we still have idiot stupid ass fans like "I don't know about this".
Does Leach really suspend or kick off players for failing one drug test? Has he done this at other stops?