Alright, time for the fanbase to rebound

[StateDawg44]

You are looking too hard at it. We lost because of all the reasons stated. All of those reasons fall on Moorhead and his staff.

This team is too good to look like that. I just think its funny now that we can make excuses for him but every single one of yall thought we would win the game before the season and during the week.

We should have won and we were the better team. Moorhead had a better team and lost by 3 TDs. That is not going to work. He gets another chance to prove he is capable saturday. If he fails again then we have problems. Simple as that

Ohhhhhhhh. Now that you've made the same post for the thousandth time it finally makes sense.***

We get it. You're upset and sour about it. Get past it man. Move on and get ready for Saturday. If our players have the same attitude as you we are already beat.

[smootness]

Ohhhhhhhh. Now that you've made the same post for the thousandth time it finally makes sense.***

We get it. You're upset and sour about it. Get past it man. Move on and get ready for Saturday. If our players have the same attitude as you we are already beat.

Why is an observation of what was seen Saturday sour? Sure, it gets old saying it over and over, but that's the nature of a message board. I'm certainly ready for Saturday and anxious to see what we look like.

[Dawg2003]

The more I think about it, the more I've realized that this massive freak out has everything to do with Mullen leaving. I think a lot of people have tried to convince themselves that we've upgraded and were ready to get rid of Mullen. I'll include myself in that to some extent. It's like when someone dumps you, and you suddenly start saying how awful the person was to try to convince yourself you don't want them back. I think if most people are really honest, they will admit they would have been fine with Mullen staying forever.

Deep down, we all know that a new coach could run the program into the ground, and it might not recover. It's happened to other programs that were once a lot better than ours ever were. Tennessee and Texas come to mind. I'm not saying that will happen to us, but I think Saturday was a real gut check that we aren't immune to that.

[Dawg61]

It does for me with this team. I remember many a people on this board saying in the preseason that 7-5 6-6 with this team we would know we hired the wrong guy.

If Moorhead and co. are not better than Saturday we will win 3 more games tops

We are all in on Moorhead for 3 years minimum so you're gonna just have to deal with it like Ripley said in Aliens to Bill Paxton.

[BrunswickDawg]

FWIW Fitz is on pace to rush for more TDs this year than last. He is also on pace to only have 12 less carries from last year while playing 1 less half of football and missing a cupcake game this year in which he would have easily rushed for 100 yds.

Most of his throws against KY were inside 20 yds. If we don't have a qb that can complete those fairly regularly in the SEC we are going to lose games against good defenses so it really doesn't matter.

All of yall keep talking about ruining a special season.. That depends on what your definition of special is, if its winning the west we aren't/weren't going to do that if Fitz can't complete some passes downfield so its a mute point regardless.

Would I have liked to see us run the football more against KY, absolutely but around 14 of fitz throws against KY came behind the chains in 2nd and long and 3rd and long situations(needing more than 10yds for a first down)7 passes came right before half time and after we were down 21-7 and 28-7 clearly when we needed to throw the ball. So 21 of his 32 throws came again in passing situations either due to penalty or the situation dictating we throw the football.

So there are really 11 plays that we passed the ball where we could have run the football and Fitz completed 8 of them. So he was 8/11 on plays where we could have/should have realistically run the football.

Go and look at the drive summaries..

As example the first drive:

1st down- Kylin hill rush for one yd (unsportsmanlike penalty 15 yds)
2nd and 18- pass complete for 4 yds
3rd and 14-- incomplete pass

The majority of our possessions went like that. There were maybe 5-10 throws where we were at 1st or 2nd down and under 10 yds.

That's a real interesting breakdown. It also emphasizes the impacts that the stupid penalties had.

In some ways, this game reminded me a lot of Jackie's games. Just flat out slobber-knocker games by 2 solid teams that resulted in ugly stats, ugly play, and general ineffectiveness. It was 14-7 with 8 minutes left and neither team had been that successful offensively. Snell was still under 100 yards at that point. If the game had ended 14-7 - I think as frustrated as people are about the game - they would be a little more tethered to reality.

And we had games like that under Jackie regularly - some times against Bama, and sometimes against Memphis, or Ark. State. Sometimes in sports, everything goes wrong. Jackie was very good at getting his teams to rebound from that. Hopefully, Joe is too.

[Jack Lambert]

Why is an observation of what was seen Saturday sour? Sure, it gets old saying it over and over, but that's the nature of a message board. I'm certainly ready for Saturday and anxious to see what we look like.

You are going to see a different team. Fitz will get 140 yards rushing.

[BB30]

You are looking too hard at it. We lost because of all the reasons stated. All of those reasons fall on Moorhead and his staff.

This team is too good to look like that. I just think its funny now that we can make excuses for him but every single one of yall thought we would win the game before the season and during the week.

We should have won and we were the better team. Moorhead had a better team and lost by 3 TDs. That is not going to work. He gets another chance to prove he is capable saturday. If he fails again then we have problems. Simple as that

I'm not looking at it to hard and I am not making excuses, we weren't prepared for sure and that falls on Moorhead. What I am stating is simply the premise that we threw the ball too much and that Moorhead is trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

He wasn't and isn't. Fitz rushing numbers are almost identical to last year with 1 more TD than last year. We threw the ball a lot because we started most drives in a hole and had to throw the ball. That is on the players not the play caller. We weren't in very many run friendly scenarios.

You can ignore the information all you want but it clearly shows why we didn't run the football more. When your starting 1st and 15 a bunch and looking at 2nd and 25s due to unsportsmanlikes/holdings etc you have to throw the ball more. Yes, it is on Moorhead for not having the team prepared but he isn't trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

[BB30]

That's a real interesting breakdown. It also emphasizes the impacts that the stupid penalties had.

In some ways, this game reminded me a lot of Jackie's games. Just flat out slobber-knocker games by 2 solid teams that resulted in ugly stats, ugly play, and general ineffectiveness. It was 14-7 with 8 minutes left and neither team had been that successful offensively. Snell was still under 100 yards at that point. If the game had ended 14-7 - I think as frustrated as people are about the game - they would be a little more tethered to reality.

And we had games like that under Jackie regularly - some times against Bama, and sometimes against Memphis, or Ark. State. Sometimes in sports, everything goes wrong. Jackie was very good at getting his teams to rebound from that. Hopefully, Joe is too.

Yep, it is squarely on Moorhead to get the necessary corrections made. I think we bounce back this week and you see a different team. I could be wrong and often am. We just shot ourselves in the foot too many times Saturday to get in a clear rhythm. The one drive we were able to get in a rhythm we saw what the offense can do. I fully expect our offense to look much more like that Saturday and much less like what we saw the rest of the game.

[BuckyIsAB****]

We are all in on Moorhead for 3 years minimum so you're gonna just have to deal with it like Ripley said in Aliens to Bill Paxton.

Who is we? Are you really John Cohen?

[BuckyIsAB****]

I'm not looking at it to hard and I am not making excuses, we weren't prepared for sure and that falls on Moorhead. What I am stating is simply the premise that we threw the ball too much and that Moorhead is trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

He wasn't and isn't. Fitz rushing numbers are almost identical to last year with 1 more TD than last year. We threw the ball a lot because we started most drives in a hole and had to throw the ball. That is on the players not the play caller. We weren't in very many run friendly scenarios.

You can ignore the information all you want but it clearly shows why we didn't run the football more. When your starting 1st and 15 a bunch and looking at 2nd and 25s due to unsportsmanlikes/holdings etc you have to throw the ball more. Yes, it is on Moorhead for not having the team prepared but he isn't trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

We are 10th in the SEC in rushing attempts. We are 6th in passing. That discredits your argument

[Jack Lambert]

We are 10th in the SEC in rushing attempts. We are 6th in passing. That discredits your argument

Isn't that because of Fitz reads?

[Dawg61]

Who is we? Are you really John Cohen?

Do you want to solidify us as a bottom 4 team in the SEC again by firing a new coach immediately or can you suck it up and give the man his 3 years and then evaluate? Patience isn't your strong suit.

[BrunswickDawg]

We are 10th in the SEC in rushing attempts. We are 6th in passing. That discredits your argument

Isn't that because of Fitz reads?

We were 7th in Pass Attempts in the SEC in 2017, and 3rd in Rushing Attempts. Our rushing attempts against Kentucky were 10 fewer than 2 of our games and 20 fewer than the ULL game.
We had averaged 41 rushing attempts prior to Saturday. So we were 13 attempts under our average - which follows the facts laid out by BB30. We were in down and distance situations all night that necessitated passing.
If we had been able to rush at our normal attempts level, we would be 6th in rushing attempts in the league. Overall we are still running the ball 56% of the time - about the same clip as 2014.

[BB30]

We are 10th in the SEC in rushing attempts. We are 6th in passing. That discredits your argument

We have thrown the ball 115 times while rushing it 151 times. That is including the KY game.

We are rushing the ball 56% of the time and throwing it 44% of the time. What would you like for that number to look like? We are talking about 4-5 plays a game and that would swing it to 60-40 run to pass(would that make you happy). Or are you looking for a 65-35 type feel which inevitably led to us getting beat against teams like Auburn, UGA, and Bama last year.

I thought the goal was to win the big games Mullen couldn't. Does it make a lot of sense to do exactly what he was doing if you were one of the people frustrated with Mullen's play calling? Cause his play calling for the most part kept us from getting beat by lesser opponents and rendered us to virtually taking the L vs more talented opponents according to many on this site.

You act like we are running the Mike Leach offense and we aren't.

[StateDawg44]

Why is an observation of what was seen Saturday sour? Sure, it gets old saying it over and over, but that's the nature of a message board. I'm certainly ready for Saturday and anxious to see what we look like.

Because it wasn't USA or some BS team that beat MSU. So arguing that there is absolutely no way at all that KY is a better team is just narrow minded. There is no such thing as getting a L* on your schedule with a * stating (but the better team lost). The only people that would argue that are the people that can't accept a fair loss for what it was. It's just dumb and comes across as being butt hurt if you are still hung up on it. My comment wasn't directed at one comment as a whole as much as it was his overall melt. Some people are really overreacting and are ready to jump ship after one loss 4 games into a coaches tenure. It must be absolutely miserable to be around people like this when we perform poorly. It is to share a forum with them.

Last I checked, Moorhead is part of the MSU team. If we got out coached then we aren't the better team. Simple as that.

[OrlandoLundie]

Well said. Coaches and players are working on it--becoming an elite program is not a passive process for fans either.