Joe Moorhead article in The Athletic

[RezDog7]

After reading thread after thread like this, I'm convicted we should fire Moorehead and hire C34. He was offensive assistant COY or something like that and will surely lead us to wins over Bama and LSU.

[Tbonewannabe]

After reading thread after thread like this, I'm convicted we should fire Moorehead and hire C34. He was offensive assistant COY or something like that and will surely lead us to wins over Bama and LSU.

Just don't hire Chip Kelly because he didn't improve UCLA enough.

[RezDog7]

I think some of our fans have made up their mind unfortunately. I'm going the opposite way. I'll support MSU and our coach until there is a reason not to. Giving up on him for only winning 8 games is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I mean, how many times has MSU won 8 games in the history of the program. Stop acting like your Bama or OM and give the dude another year two.

[bluelightstar]

I think some of our fans have made up their mind unfortunately. I'm going the opposite way. I'll support MSU and our coach until there is a reason not to. Giving up on him for only winning 8 games is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I mean, how many times has MSU won 8 games in the history of the program. Stop acting like your Bama or OM and give the dude another year two.

???

[confucius say]

But that's because he didn't sign enough players. If he would've signed a full 25, the average would have gone down

Depends on who he would have signed, no?

And even so, signing 4 more mid to high three stars to get to 25 would have increased the ranking from 24 to 20 anyway.

All that said, recruitingbrankings outside the top 150 players are notoriously iffy, at best.

[Liverpooldawg]

https://theathletic.com/958264/2019/...ons-sec-coach/

Interesting read. A few points:

1. Taking a larger role in the offense with Getsy's departure
2. Thought some players had success doing things a certain way and maybe were "resistant" (my words, not his) to some different offensive things.
3. Season was overall a success

Quote in there from an unidentified staffer; "it was made out like we inherited the '72 Dolphins"

The 72 Dolphin comment was spot on. We were very good on defense but the offensive talent was not nearly as strong. Many had very unrealistic expectations going in.

[Pipedream]

2 things to point out in this discussion:
1. The "72 Dolphins" quote, no matter who actually said it, is parroting off of something Joe said himself in a February Q&A with David Murray of 247. He's the one instilling that horse shit mindset.
2. Mullen recruited elite MS players better than Moorhead to this point if you go off the % of blue chips signed. I do agree that Moorhead has been more successful out of state. Overall he's been, at best, on par with our late stage Mullen recruiting profile.

[RezDog7]

???

Bama - real expectations and attainable goals
OM - real expectations with unattainable goals

[confucius say]

I still say joe will be as successful as dan was here, which was pretty damn good. And I think his ceiling is slightly higher

[RezDog7]

What's crazy to me is we only hear about the bad offensive games, not the good wins against Auburn and A&M. I'm willing to bet that A&M will be in contention to win the west this year.

[smootness]

An assistant said that about the 72' Dolphins?

What a pansy. Had arguably the most talented defense in the country and he's bitching about high expectations... in the SEC. That's Croomesque. Blaming the talent or the players for a lack of adjustments and creativity.

Yep. That quote is complete crap. Good coaches make no excuses and take responsibility, they don't question the talent level or people's expectations.

[smootness]

What's crazy to me is we only hear about the bad offensive games, not the good wins against Auburn and A&M. I'm willing to bet that A&M will be in contention to win the west this year.

I'm willing to give you that Auburn was a good game offensively. It's the kind of game we should have played all year. A&M, we put up 384 yards of offense. Pretty good, not great by any means. And the reason you hear about the bad offensive games is that there were several of them and they were really, really bad.

[RezDog7]

I'm willing to give you that Auburn was a good game offensively. It's the kind of game we should have played all year. A&M, we put up 384 yards of offense. Pretty good, not great by any means. And the reason you hear about the bad offensive games is that there were several of them and they were really, really bad.

Fair enough, but it's not like defenses didn't know what Fitz limitations were so they stacked the box and dared us to throw. Receivers were open. They were just over thrown or dropped the pass. I agree the running backs should've been more involved though. I'm hoping things improve this year, because if not, he will lose the entire fan base based on reading these message boards.

[DancingRabbit]

Yep. That quote is complete crap. Good coaches make no excuses and take responsibility, they don't question the talent level or people's expectations.

Yeah, I've never heard a good coach make excuses before.**

Tom Landry, maybe my all-time favorite coach and considered one of the best ever, made excuses after every loss. God bless him, but Tom never went into a game that he didn't have the perfect game-plan.

I've heard Saban do it. Dan was making excuses and trying to temper fan expectations in 2016 for sure. All coaches do it, but the key is if you're making excuses too much you're losing too much.

The fuss over this quote is like the fuss over the Outback rings - it shows you where people stand.

[Coach34]

Fair enough, but it's not like defenses didn't know what Fitz limitations were so they stacked the box and dared us to throw.

Yet in the 2nd half of the season he threw 12 TD's and 2 picks. Should have been 13/1 but Guidry had to bobble a pass that hit him in the chest and turn it into a pick

[Tbonewannabe]

Yet in the 2nd half of the season he threw 12 TD's and 2 picks. Should have been 13/1 but Guidry had to bobble a pass that hit him in the chest and turn it into a pick

So are you saying Fitz improved in the 2nd half of the season?

[R2Dawg]

Bottom line, Moorhead did a good job.

Some may not want to hear this, but an 8 win season is a good season. Any way you slice it.

I agree with anonymous. Defensively, we were hell. But we busted a coverage in the outback that cost us big time. So we weren?t perfect. Offensively our passing game was terrible for
Many reasons and not just on one guy.

Moorhead had a successful first year.

Agree we had a good season, not as good as it could have been but under all the newness, a successful first year. It would have taken some effort though to have not had a decent year with that D.

As with any organization that gets a new leader there is always difficulty in doing things different and the team figuring out their cheese (Book - who moved my cheese).

[smootness]

Yeah, I've never heard a good coach make excuses before.**

Tom Landry, maybe my all-time favorite coach and considered one of the best ever, made excuses after every loss. God bless him, but Tom never went into a game that he didn't have the perfect game-plan.

I've heard Saban do it. Dan was making excuses and trying to temper fan expectations in 2016 for sure. All coaches do it, but the key is if you're making excuses too much you're losing too much.

The fuss over this quote is like the fuss over the Outback rings - it shows you where people stand.

I shouldn't have said 'make no excuses,' that was definitely an overexaggeration to make a point. But I do think there's a difference in trying to lower expectations or speaking in a moment of frustration and retroactively trying to play down the talent level you had because of your results.

Moorhead himself was playing up expectations, or at the very least doing nothing to play them down, prior to the season. He said typical new-coach things like, 'We want to win championships' and that kind of thing, but he also specifically said he wanted to be ranked high preseason and that no one would have higher expectations than the coaching staff. He said nothing about the talent level not being what people thought it was, he just said he welcomed the expectations. Now he tries to come after those who had high expectations saying, 'And I know there was a lot of outside expectation and perception that we were an amalgamation of the ’85 Bears and ’72 Dolphins!' - that was literally his quote to Murray 2 months ago. That is just a tool thing to say to try to downplay, in hindsight, the expectations and talent level of the team. Just crap. Great coaches simply don't say things like that.

[Jarius]

Outside of the Alabama game (where he still didn’t play great), Fitz mainly played trash defenses the second half of the year. That was the reason his stats were better. Texas A&M was his best game of the second half of the year and their pass D was really bad.

[R2Dawg]

I get what you're saying but good offensive coaches usually turn things around in year 2. Constantly saying they don't have the right QB yet just more often than not leads to a Croom situation where a guy runs a program into the ground over 5 years.

You just simply can't give it that long. If he can't get things headed in the right direction this year, then his offense is extremely too rigid & isn't creative enough

Agree, we can't have another Croom derail. We should see stark improvement in O this year or I'm concerned.