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Thread: Leach ain't changing, so what should Cohen do?

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    Leach ain't changing, so what should Cohen do?

    A) Fire him: I don't see this as an option

    B) Have a meeting with Leach and ask for a change in scheme to attack the 3-8? Would that be an unprecedented move? Boone asked Cutliffe to make some changes and Cutliffe left.

    C) Force or request Leach to hire an offensive coordinator in the offseason. I don't see how this could work unless Leach buys in.

    D) Do nothing.

    E) Hire an analyst ala Saban and Alabama. Mainly a run game analyst to devise plan against the 3-8. This would be my move if I was hired as AD tomorrow. Try to get Leach to buy in even getting him to help pick the analyst. If he refuses, look to void contract due to insubordination.

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    He is really stuck - He will be able to blame Covid, Moorhead, not getting time to implement a new system and whatever excuse that the fanbase will tolerate.

    Leach is really unique. His twitter profile and post game interviews are genuinely him. I've always liked him from afar. Part of that uniqueness is that he is 100% genuine, he believes what he says and coaches. He genuniely believes that the reason his team is struggling is personnel and not his system. I completely understand why he would think that, he has been successful at other places with his system.

    Until he realizes that someone has figured out how to beat his system, all of this is window dressing.

    We aren't doing anything to a coach that has 15 million+ on his contract. He will get rolled over going into next year.

    We will look good next week because Vandy is terrible.

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    Quote Originally Posted by HoopsDawg View Post
    A) Fire him: I don't see this as an option

    B) Have a meeting with Leach and ask for a change in scheme to attack the 3-8? Would that be an unprecedented move? Boone asked Cutliffe to make some changes and Cutliffe left.

    C) Force or request Leach to hire an offensive coordinator in the offseason. I don't see how this could work unless Leach buys in.

    D) Do nothing.

    E) Hire an analyst ala Saban and Alabama. Mainly a run game analyst to devise plan against the 3-8. This would be my move if I was hired as AD tomorrow. Try to get Leach to buy in even getting him to help pick the analyst. If he refuses, look to void contract due to insubordination.
    If A is the wanted choice, how you gonna pay for it?
    B- having an ad tell a head football coach what he needs to do is about the same as me telling a surgeon how to operate.
    c- not much point of hiring CML if you make him have a coordinator. That's what he does. I get it, it's been bad, really bad to this point.
    D- out of e other options this is what happens, at least for now.
    E- an analyst isn't going to walk in a go wham there you go I fixed it w our mess. And we haven't played 4 straight games of 3/8. We have played 4 straight games where the other team didn't play much man, well bama played a good bit. We have guys open. We either don't see them, don't have time to throw it to them or just make a crappy throw. All those happen and happen a lot.
    Last edited by Homedawg; 11-01-2020 at 04:38 PM.

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    Senior Member Lord McBuckethead's Avatar
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    Do nothing.
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    Quote Originally Posted by HancockCountyDog View Post
    He is really stuck - He will be able to blame Covid, Moorhead, not getting time to implement a new system and whatever excuse that the fanbase will tolerate.

    Leach is really unique. His twitter profile and post game interviews are genuinely him. I've always liked him from afar. Part of that uniqueness is that he is 100% genuine, he believes what he says and coaches. He genuniely believes that the reason his team is struggling is personnel and not his system. I completely understand why he would think that, he has been successful at other places with his system.

    Until he realizes that someone has figured out how to beat his system, all of this is window dressing.

    We aren't doing anything to a coach that has 15 million+ on his contract. He will get rolled over going into next year.

    We will look good next week because Vandy is terrible.
    If Cohen rolls him back up to 4 years, I'm done. I'm serious.

    I agree with your post though. I watched the entire post game interview. He doesn't think anything is wrong with the system. It's unreal. He is either the dumbest, smart guy or he just doesn't know how to do anything else.

    I think Cohen has to step in and do something. Anyone with a brain can see what's happening.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Homedawg View Post
    If A is the wanted choice, how you gonna pay for it?
    As I said, I don't see A as an option. Unless you can fire Leach with cause or work out a settlement.

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    All Cohen can do is hope he gets this offense going at the end of this year and then over spring ball and fall camp next year, it starts clicking for these young guys and you can have that young nucleus of Rogers, Marks, D. Johnson, Walley, Tulu, Rufus, and the young OL’s that get it clicking. That’s literally it. He ain’t getting fired before Year 3, Cohen ain’t walking in there to tell him to do this or that, Leach ain’t changing. We’re going to have to hope these young guys getting reps this season, it pays off next year and the year after and by year 3, these guys can run the offense with their eyes closed.
    #SwingUrSword #HailDamnState

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    I'm still mystified that he won't make any changes this year to try to salvage some of this season. Is that because he has no clue what to change? That seems hard to believe. The only other possibility is that he's stubborn, but that serves no purpose, so I just don't know. It's just not giving me a warm feeling about next year.

    As for the question about what to do about this, if I was Cohen I'd have a meeting with ML and ask him what's going on with his thinking right now, then start asking some him some hard questions. Depending on what Leach has to say, it would give me some guidance about where we go from here.
    There's someone in my head but its not me.

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    Senior Member Lord McBuckethead's Avatar
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    What really boils my water is that Kylin could have been something. Leadership. Setting an example and getting his numbers. If nothing else, it appears as if he wasn't willing to do what needed to be done, not to let his teammates down.

    Now I have no knowledge of what is happening behind the scenes, on the practice field, or in the locker room, but it appears everyone is waiting for the next guy to be the "guy"
    Downvotes_Hype

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    Senior Member MetEdDawg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Joebob View Post
    I'm still mystified that he won't make any changes this year to try to salvage some of this season. Is that because he has no clue what to change? That seems hard to believe. The only other possibility is that he's stubborn, but that serves no purpose, so I just don't know. It's just not giving me a warm feeling about next year.

    As for the question about what to do about this, if I was Cohen I'd have a meeting with ML and ask him what's going on with his thinking right now, then start asking some him some hard questions. Depending on what Leach has to say, it would give me some guidance about where we go from here.
    He wants game reps in his system. Leach doesn't give one crap about this season. That should be obvious. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. He cares about what happens 2-3 years down the road. And these players tryi to operate this system right now is what he believes will help the team do that.

    He firmly believes that his players will eventually be able to be successful in this system with enough practice and time. And an extra win or two right now doesn't get him to the ultimate goal because you have to sacrifice game reps and practice reps for months just to win a couple extra games right now.

    It's really not that hard to understand. He wants the players getting reps and seeing this in the system now because he believes it will pay off down the road. And he deserves that chance.

    If I'm a principal asked to come in to a new school on May and change the culture, you don't fire me or replace me a couple months into the school year because it doesn't look good. Got to have time to put things in place. And that doesn't always look pretty up front. But sacrificing the future for short term gains is NOT how you operate a successful business. That's the exact wrong thing to do when you need to change the culture of a place to be successful.

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    Senior Member Hambone's Avatar
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    I don’t understand people..... You wanted Moorhead fired two years into a system.....

    Bring in a PROVEN head coach yet seriously float out firing him after a bad year during the weirdest year of everyone’s lifetime.

    Last year “The worst offense in school history”. This year: “The worst offense in school history”

    Meanwhile no one remembers the Croom years. It’s like they never once happened.

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    Quote Originally Posted by MetEdDawg View Post
    He wants game reps in his system. Leach doesn't give one crap about this season. That should be obvious. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. He cares about what happens 2-3 years down the road. And these players tryi to operate this system right now is what he believes will help the team do that.

    He firmly believes that his players will eventually be able to be successful in this system with enough practice and time. And an extra win or two right now doesn't get him to the ultimate goal because you have to sacrifice game reps and practice reps for months just to win a couple extra games right now.

    It's really not that hard to understand. He wants the players getting reps and seeing this in the system now because he believes it will pay off down the road. And he deserves that chance.

    If I'm a principal asked to come in to a new school on May and change the culture, you don't fire me or replace me a couple months into the school year because it doesn't look good. Got to have time to put things in place. And that doesn't always look pretty up front. But sacrificing the future for short term gains is NOT how you operate a successful business. That's the exact wrong thing to do when you need to change the culture of a place to be successful.
    USA Today said it best: “ Mississippi State: The way Mike Leach talks about the program he took over this year, you’d think it had never won a game before he showed up. He uses words like purges and malcontents and warns fans that more players are going to abandon ship after last week’s wave of departures, including a former four-star recruit in Tyrell Shavers and stud running back Kylin Hill, who is going to prepare for the NFL draft. But the funny thing is, Mississippi State has actually been a pretty good program for quite some time. Even last year, when things weren’t great under Joe Moorhead, the Bulldogs managed to make their 10th straight bowl game and generally not embarrass themselves. But through five games of the Leach experience, the yardage totals have declined steadily: 623 to 313 to 275 to 217 to 200, the last of which happened in a 41-0 loss to an Alabama team that hadn’t exactly been lighting the world on fire defensively. So far, Leach in the SEC has been a massive dud, and if it keeps going this way the malcontents won’t just be within his locker room.”

    Why did we bring in a coach to burn it all to the ground when that is not what we needed? Cohen cannot fire him but he has to ask him some tough questions and confirm whether Leach even thinks there is a problem.

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    Quote Originally Posted by HancockCountyDog View Post
    He is really stuck - He will be able to blame Covid, Moorhead, not getting time to implement a new system and whatever excuse that the fanbase will tolerate.

    Leach is really unique. His twitter profile and post game interviews are genuinely him. I've always liked him from afar. Part of that uniqueness is that he is 100% genuine, he believes what he says and coaches. He genuniely believes that the reason his team is struggling is personnel and not his system. I completely understand why he would think that, he has been successful at other places with his system.

    Until he realizes that someone has figured out how to beat his system, all of this is window dressing.

    We aren't doing anything to a coach that has 15 million+ on his contract. He will get rolled over going into next year.

    We will look good next week because Vandy is terrible
    .
    Yeah.... hope you don't bet on that.

    Vandy is horrible because they don't have the athletes to stop run and pass. But in a 3-8 it's more about maintaining proper spacing and discipline than anything. Now they'll have worse athletes and so windows will be a little bigger, but I certainly have no faith in our WRs and Rogers to find those soft spots. We look clueless.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Joebob View Post
    I'm still mystified that he won't make any changes this year to try to salvage some of this season. Is that because he has no clue what to change? That seems hard to believe. The only other possibility is that he's stubborn, but that serves no purpose, so I just don't know. It's just not giving me a warm feeling about next year.

    As for the question about what to do about this, if I was Cohen I'd have a meeting with ML and ask him what's going on with his thinking right now, then start asking some him some hard questions. Depending on what Leach has to say, it would give me some guidance about where we go from here.
    It is mystifying. Can you imagine your opposition literally giving you the defensive gameplan before the game and you do nothing different to attack it? Can you imagine any coach other than leach attacking a 3-8 by throwing 60 passes instead of power running? What can he be thinking when 4 teams in a row have altered their base defense b/c running the 3-8 vs Leach works like a charm? Wouldn't alarm bells be going off in your head?

    I have to think he is either delusional or just can't coach anything else. I like your suggestion in regards to Cohen. That is probably the best way to approach this situation as the Trustee of our Athletic department. I don't think firing is an option nor is Do Nothing.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Homedawg View Post
    If A is the wanted choice, how you gonna pay for it?
    B- having an ad tell a head football coach what he needs to do is about the same as me telling a surgeon how to operate.
    c- not much point of hiring CML if you make him have a coordinator. That's what he does. I get it, it's been bad, really bad to this point.
    D- out of e other options this is what happens, at least for now.
    E- an analyst isn't going to walk in a go wham there you go I fixed it w our mess. And we haven't played 4 straight games of 3/8. We have played 4 straight games where the other team didn't play much man, well bama played a good bit. We have guys open. We either don't see them, don't have time to throw it to them or just make a crappy throw. All those happen and happen a lot.
    This is basically my response.

    We can't fire him and shouldn't barring a scandal. Again- Leach is a HOF coach regardless of what happens with him here. And he was successful at Texas Tech and Wazzu. If he doesn't succeed here it says a whole hell of a lot more about US than it does HIM. And the fact that his offense worked at Kentucky doesn't help our cause either.

    We can't and shouldn't micromanage a coach like that. Who the hell is going to tell him? Our baseball coach AD? LOL. Solution one is to change the scheme to "fit" our players- but again we have no o-line so whatever we run is going to look bad no matter what and our receivers can't catch or block so I guess we could just go back to the QB running the ball himself every time which isn't really any better. Hiring an OC is micromanaging as well. Who would we hire? And even better question is who would we let go so that we could remain in the limit for coaches? There's more to it than "Hey- go hire Art Briles". Same with an analyst basically. Here's how that's going to go- "Hey run against a three man front. Oh, your o-line got confused on who to block and lost at the point of attack? Well get better offensive linemen." Saban uses his analysts mostly like scouts more than anything it seems to me. It's not like Saban is relying on Butch Jones for advice. I mean really.

    So at this point- the best thing is "do nothing". Keep developing the young players we have and let them play. It's like a free year anyway as far as eligibility so we don't have to worry about burning redshirts. Go full youth movement. Play Rogers the rest of the way. Marks assuming he is healthy. Play Tulu some and work him in the rotation like Walley. Play Cross, Dollar Bill, Smith, and Jones on the offensive line as much as possible and let them learn and get comfortable with their assignments and evaluate them and let them compete with the JUCO guys and I guess Lashley next year. Same on defense let the young guys play as much as you can there and let Errol, Kobe, and Spencer lead the young guys like they have been.

    This offense is based a lot on reps and the more we get the quicker our guys are going to get it.

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    I may have drunk as shit last night, but didn’t Will run some option read last night after the half? Hell I thought it CostelloPick, but I then realized it was Will...

    We had a really good drive when They called Heath for the Incomplete pass, then sorry ass Mitchell just said “I don’t want the ball!” The ball literally hit him in the chest and bounced right into the chest of the Bama guy. I thought it was awesome he got his ass lite up afterwards.

    Here’s my take, not that it matters or anything, but I’m willing to give Leach the benefit this yr. if we aren’t improving next yr, then we talk. We all knew this was gonna be a bad yr. just people are pissed cause it’s the offense not score if and the defense showing out.

    News flash, and everyone needs to understand this, when we have moved the ball good, Costello has thrown picks. What we have thrown like 18-20 in 5 games. That’s unreal. We should lead the nation in picks in the red zone.

    Hard to keep momentum going when you literally get close to scoring and then give it to the D.

    Bama was Bama. We can’t complain on what we knew was gonna happen. I don’t give a shit what Lane did or didn’t do. The Arkansas game broke everyone’s spirits cause we should have won that game. And bad part is, we still had a chance if we don’t fumble the punt, or Throw a pick in the end zone like twice, or throw a pick in the red zone like twice.

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    Senior Member Todd4State's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by HoopsDawg View Post
    It is mystifying. Can you imagine your opposition literally giving you the defensive gameplan before the game and you do nothing different to attack it? Can you imagine any coach other than leach attacking a 3-8 by throwing 60 passes instead of power running? What can he be thinking when 4 teams in a row have altered their base defense b/c running the 3-8 vs Leach works like a charm? Wouldn't alarm bells be going off in your head?

    I have to think he is either delusional or just can't coach anything else. I like your suggestion in regards to Cohen. That is probably the best way to approach this situation as the Trustee of our Athletic department. I don't think firing is an option nor is Do Nothing.
    How is that different than everyone putting 9 in the box against Jackie, Croom, and even Dan without Dak? When we had JJ Johnson and a good o-line it didn't matter much usually. When we had 2003 MSU it mattered a lot more.

    What's delusional is you thinking that one tweak or wrinkle will solve all of this. It won't. Case in point- look at how well we have run when we have run the ball. It's not like we're getting 10-15 yards a pop when we are running it- which given your theory is exactly what "should" be happening.

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    We most certainly have not moved the ball good — after LSU, we haven’t cracked 320 yards. One or two drives a game that could score (but don’t!) is not good offense.

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    Senior Member Todd4State's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TNDawg35 View Post
    I may have drunk as shit last night, but didn’t Will run some option read last night after the half? Hell I thought it CostelloPick, but I then realized it was Will...

    We had a really good drive when They called Heath for the Incomplete pass, then sorry ass Mitchell just said “I don’t want the ball!” The ball literally hit him in the chest and bounced right into the chest of the Bama guy. I thought it was awesome he got his ass lite up afterwards.

    Here’s my take, not that it matters or anything, but I’m willing to give Leach the benefit this yr. if we aren’t improving next yr, then we talk. We all knew this was gonna be a bad yr. just people are pissed cause it’s the offense not score if and the defense showing out.

    News flash, and everyone needs to understand this, when we have moved the ball good, Costello has thrown picks. What we have thrown like 18-20 in 5 games. That’s unreal. We should lead the nation in picks in the red zone.

    Hard to keep momentum going when you literally get close to scoring and then give it to the D.

    Bama was Bama. We can’t complain on what we knew was gonna happen. I don’t give a shit what Lane did or didn’t do. The Arkansas game broke everyone’s spirits cause we should have won that game. And bad part is, we still had a chance if we don’t fumble the punt, or Throw a pick in the end zone like twice, or throw a pick in the red zone like twice.
    And let's call it what it is with Ole Miss because that's the underlying elephant in the room here- yeah- they look better than we do on offense. They also look equally as bad on defense too relative to our offense.

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