The wheels are falling off....

[FISHDAWG]

It's been a long standing rumor that the "slush fund" you talk about was provided by Leo Seal and it's specifically earmarked for hiring and firing coaches. Probably no way to actually prove it though

Cohen himself said we were in good shape with the fund so it was no rumor ... don't know about any of the money being earmarked for specific purposes

[Extendedcab]

But hasn't our fanbase always been that way? I know that people were calling for Jackie to be fired in '95 and '96 so we could hire Bobby Wallace. We had people on here wanting to fire Mullen and bring in Hud during the '13 season.

Now, the flip side of that is that we actually have been incredibly patient from the university side and have given our coaches time - Felker and Croom were both given 5 seasons; only JoMo was cut short (and I will ALWAYS think that was the right move).

If our fans are impatient it is because, every since I was a kid anyway - I'm 62, we have never been consistent in winning and we have never won a SEC title or a NATTY. We are tired of losing for the most part and being an "also ran". I hate that frigging term! We are most of the time bottom of the SEC or middle at best, seldom in my years anyway have we been in the top tier of the SEC or even nationally. Other "elite schools", those who consistently win, look down at us even when we have a great year, by our standards, as though we do not belong there for whatever reason. Bunch of arrogant snobs!

It is hard on the fans when we lose. I hear the coaches and players take it harder but I do wonder if that is true, or maybe it is but in a different way, simply because they have within their power the ability to change tactics in a game or the effort or the toughness or mentality or whatever! We as fans can not! We sit by and watch a pitiful performance and it is very hard to do. Especially when a coach seems blind to the fact that something has to change or we will lose the rest of our games. Every game so far has been the same offensively except for maybe a shuffle in the backfield before the snap or an inside WR screen. Leach has to start thinking outside the box and learn from past mistakes. Other professions do, we learn, perform root cause analysis and correct previous tactics. Why can't Leach? With current players, he is not wining for various reasons that have been expressed in other threads. I would rather NOT watch as I feel sorry for both the team and fans alike.

This is hard to watch! I am trying my best to be patient but the older I get, the less patient I become with people that cannot or will not learn!

[R2Dawg]

Cohen himself said we were in good shape with the fund so it was no rumor ... don't know about any of the money being earmarked for specific purposes

Well there will be no need for stadium expansion for a while. Be lucky to be half full next two years. Leach couldn't max out his bandwagon right now. One positive from Covid, it will not show our pathetic true program condition.

[confucius say]

Well there will be no need for stadium expansion for a while. Be lucky to be half full next two years. Leach couldn't max out his bandwagon right now. One positive from Covid, it will not show our pathetic true program condition.

How much would it cost to take out the bleachers and add chairback everywhere in lower bowl, decreasing attendance to probably 55k?

[Bothrops]

How much would it cost to take out the bleachers and add chairback everywhere in lower bowl, decreasing attendance to probably 55k?

Why would you want to reduce the strength of the home crowd?

[Turfdawg67]

We had prominent posters on here tell us dan should have been gone in 2016. That we would look bad to fire him, but our best option was for him to leave on his own.

Well I'm no prominent poster, but the response to this has been told over and over. I didn't agree then, but I certainly do now. It wasn't that Mullen should've been fired for being a bad coach... it was because he sh*t the bed against teams he should've beaten, namely Ole Miss, due to his seeking a new job. For that alone, 17 him... he was looking at Maryland for Heaven's sake. Move on.

[Coach34]

Mike Leach will 100 % get an extension. You don't hamstring your coach on the recruiting trail like that. It screams "we are about to fire this guy".

It's one thing to extend the contract- thats fine. But the buyout should not increase with it. That is earned. We would be moronic to extend the buyout

[HancockCountyDog]

You can't seriously believe that we struggled on offense against Vandy because they "figured out our offense"? Like, you really believe that? Please stop embarrassing yourself.

I believe we struggled against Vandy because we run an outdated offense that every competent DC in the SEC has figured out.

What is your reason? That we didn't have enough starters on the OL? Really? That is why Vandy - quite possibly the worst team in SEC history with only 55 players held our team to around 250 yards of offense?

Quit embarrassing yourself.

[Cowbell]

Mike Leach will 100 % get an extension. You don't hamstring your coach on the recruiting trail like that. It screams "we are about to fire this guy".

No it doesn't

[Cowbell]

You can't seriously believe that we struggled on offense against Vandy because they "figured out our offense"? Like, you really believe that? Please stop embarrassing yourself.

I think everyone besides Bo Pelini has this offense figured out at this point in the game.

[Coach34]

I think everyone besides Bo Pelini has this offense figured out at this point in the game.

Hahahaha- how bad does he want a do-over?

[Jarius]

I believe we struggled against Vandy because we run an outdated offense that every competent DC in the SEC has figured out.

What is your reason? That we didn't have enough starters on the OL? Really? That is why Vandy - quite possibly the worst team in SEC history with only 55 players held our team to around 250 yards of offense?

Quit embarrassing yourself.

Lord have mercy guy. You think everyone in America didn’t try drop 8 on Leach before this year? Do you honestly think he is facing a different defense right now than he has faced the past 20 years? Do you really think that his teams at Texas Tech or Washington State could not put up a shit ton of yards and points on the Vanderbilt defense we played last weekend? We suck right now because we have 4 years worth of players on our roster recruited to a run heavy scheme on top of no spring training during a total offensive Overhaul. We may never be great but we are awful because of those reasons. Thinking the system has been figured out so well that garbage teams like Vandy can now stop it with garbage athletes every year is probably the absolute dumbest take on this site, and that is saying something.

[Jarius]

I think everyone besides Bo Pelini has this offense figured out at this point in the game.

They have this year’s MSU offense figured out. They don’t have this offensive system figured out. That is an insane take. When Vandy is stopping you running the same thing teams have tried and failed to stop you with for 20 years it is players and reps.

[Jarius]

No it doesn't

How much money do you want to bet that Mike Leach gets extended to 4 years?

[Jarius]

It's one thing to extend the contract- thats fine. But the buyout should not increase with it. That is earned. We would be moronic to extend the buyout

Agree completely.

[confucius say]

Lord have mercy guy. You think everyone in America didn’t try drop 8 on Leach before this year? Do you honestly think he is facing a different defense right now than he has faced the past 20 years? Do you really think that his teams at Texas Tech or Washington State could not put up a shit ton of yards and points on the Vanderbilt defense we played last weekend? We suck right now because we have 4 years worth of players on our roster recruited to a run heavy scheme on top of no spring training during a total offensive Overhaul. We may never be great but we are awful because of those reasons. Thinking the system has been figured out so well that garbage teams like Vandy can now stop it with garbage athletes every year is probably the absolute dumbest take on this site, and that is saying something.

I heard someone else making a similar argument. Basically saying that it is not that the offense won't work in the sec. if that were the case, it would have failed against real sec teams like Bama and Aggie but worked against sucky defenses like vandy, and to a lesser extent ark and ky. It's not like vandy a defense is any better than pac 12 defenses. That does lend credence to the idea that it is not the system, at least not right now.

[Todd4State]

I heard someone else making a similar argument. Basically saying that it is not that the offense won't work in the sec. if that were the case, it would have failed against real sec teams like Bama and Aggie but worked against sucky defenses like vandy, and to a lesser extent ark and ky. It's not like vandy a defense is any better than pac 12 defenses. That does lend credence to the idea that it is not the system, at least not right now.

That's correct and unfortunately it is going to take time to get those players in. That's the case for any coach unless we just hire someone that runs a very similar or the same system as the previous. Even then it's likely to be a struggle unless the previous coach was hired away because odds are the last coach was fired. The silver lining for us is we are playing a lot of young players like Cross, Dollar Bill, Rogers, Marks, etc. that are basically getting a free year eligibility wise which means that they will have more reps and we could have them a little longer than normal.

One of the biggest issues I see is we need to find a way to develop a deep passing game. I think it's a symptom of having an inexperienced and/or not confident QB and not having a WR who is a consistent deep threat that we can rely on to get a catch even 15 yards down field. Although I think Heath may be emerging as that guy. I think we also need to find a way to add more wheel routes in. If I remember correctly one of the plays that kind of kick started our offense against LSU was a wheel route to Kylin that we busted for a TD. Our screen game has also been atrocious because of poor blocking by the receivers and o-linemen not being able to get into their area to block a defender. I thought that was better against Vanderbilt- but probably mostly because it was Vanderbilt.

Some of these things have been issues for awhile now for us- going back to Dan even.

I think we're recruiting the types of players we need to run this system though. I'm not too concerned about the overall class ranking especially in a down year for the state. Having a four star QB and two four star WR's including a true slot guy tells me that we're on the right track there. The problem is those guys will be freshmen next year so they're going to need time to develop as well- and they'll be about where Marks, Walley, and Tulu are right now.

[FISHDAWG]

You can't seriously believe that we struggled on offense against Vandy because they "figured out our offense"? Like, you really believe that? Please stop embarrassing yourself.

it took 5 Vandy turnovers for us to beat them and I also believed they outgained us ...Everyone has figured out this offense

[FISHDAWG]

Whether or not Leach "should" get an extension, there is a 100% chance he will. Croom, Ray, and Moorhead got full extensions every year, and it was the right call. It would tank recruiting, coach retention, and fan support for the AD to so publicly disbelieve in our coach like that.

Mullen who was possibly our best coach ever didn't get the extension one year during his career here ... no extension was a way of sending a message to Mullen that year and most everyone here agreed with the move

[StarkVegasSteve]

Mullen who was possibly our best coach ever didn't get the extension one year during his career here ... no extension was a way of sending a message to Mullen that year and most everyone here agreed with the move

Yes and that message was sent after job hunting in 15 . He was not extended after his 7th season here and was extended after a 6-7 8th season and would've been extended after his 9th had he stayed. You can't hamstring a coach after his first year by not extending him. That's telling players that he's currently recruiting that the university doesn't believe in his ability to turn it around. So if I'm a recruit why the heck would I think any differently. It's different when the culture is built already and you have a bad season. We'll extend him but the buyout won't change.