Giving Croom credit

[Goldendawg]

Croom beat bama 2 times. Back to back.

No it wasn't the only time we beat bama in 40 years. We beat them in 96,97,98, and 2000

Re-read. He stated that the bama team we beat did not have a single player drafted that year in what may have been the 1st time in what 40 years? Those two bama teams were terrible by their standards.

[Coach34]

Croom beat bama 2 times. Back to back.

No it wasn't the only time we beat bama in 40 years. We beat them in 96,97,98, and 2000

You misunderstand. Both Bama teams Croom beat finished 6-6. They were awful. He never beat a good Bama team. He was extremely fortunate to play Bama in a state of flux

The Nick Saban Bama team he beat didnt have a player drafted that April. I think that may be the only draft in the last 40 years Bama didnt have a player drafted into the NFL. Thats how little talent it had.

Croom is one of the worst HC's in SEC history. He was ******* awful

[THE Bruce Dickinson]

What you seem to be missing is that we had players getting in trouble and discipline had to start somewhere. That culture, unless you boot everybody off, had built up over 5 years and had to change over time.



No sir.. That was JWS. Croom just did the dirty work. That happened under JWS. Croom gave him the opportunity to fix the situation and the player failed to do so. So Croom booted him.



again, it took time to reverse the culture.



Awesome.



Are we about to go into losses of all our coaches to see who has had an unexpected loss? Like to south Alabama... ETC? At least Croom beat bama. Talk about motivation. Saban lost at bama to ULM.

It's weird how much you defend him. Jackie lost control of the program, but Croom should have had a handle on it by year 2- he didn't

Everything C34 is correct. He set us back years.

Sure Mullen had a bad loss against USA, but Croom had an absolutely stunning resume of getting his ass kicked by awful teams.

Tulane pummeled State in Starkville in 2005, one year after Katrina. They maybe had 55 scholarship players and still managed to be leading us by 30 going into 4th quarter.

I could have thrown people off the team. Croom was a disaster.

[tcdog70]

Also HENIG wasn't the QB against LSU under Dan. The Croom Error was almost as awful as the Shria Error. If the Slytanic was worth a shit why has He never been more than RB coach since? Because, he hasn't not a clue how to be a head Coach. If you remember he removed Omarr and replaced Him with HENIG. He ****ing punted from the other teams 35 yard line. He lost to Maine and then said they had a better team. His clock management was a clinic for how not to manage the clock. He lost to Tulane after Katrina decimated them. He benched a great kicker and replaced with one that couldn't kick a 35 Yarder. We had 5 turn over from Ga. and still lost, because instead of kicking a winning FG, he let HENIG, TRY A STUPID PASS. AND GOT SACKED. I could go on and on, like Croom not taking all His in home visits. 007 your stance on ole Sly has stomped a mud hole in any credibility you had.

[StarkvilleGuru]

Still waiting for an analysis on why bama didn't hire him as their head coach. In the ESPN piece, Croom stated that he was mistreated by them in no uncertain terms.

The insinuation he makes is that he didn't get the Bama job is because he is black. Bit of a fall back claim, especially in hindsight after seeing his meltdown at State. I was happy that State was the first SEC team to have a black head coach, but I was equally happy when he got fired. He was a bad head coach, there's no other way to put this. There is a reason we call 2004-2008 "The Croom Years." Croom made MSU the laughing stock of the SEC. Can I say this one more time, we lost to MAINE.

[MetEdDawg]

Someone name the 10 best recruits in the Croom Error and look at how terrible it is.

He didn't recruit, he didn't push facilities improvement, and during his 5 years is when we missed the push the SEC made into the power position it holds today.

We are suffering in SEC mediocrity partially because of him. Problem is that we may never get out of the hole that period of time dug us into.

And yes he straight up didn't get hired at Bama because he was black. Numerous accounts of folks saying they were afraid the fan base wouldn't accept him even though he played and was groomed under Bear

[R2Dawg]

The myth of croom grew because finebaum loved croom and hated jackie. That plus ol ears knew croom would keep us at the bottom of the sec, where he thought we belonged.

Boy so true. SEC and PF hated JWS because he was a threat to make MSU a year end, year out contender. JWS started to own Bama and others and they were all upset at Jackie.

[R2Dawg]

You misunderstand. Both Bama teams Croom beat finished 6-6. They were awful. He never beat a good Bama team. He was extremely fortunate to play Bama in a state of flux

The Nick Saban Bama team he beat didnt have a player drafted that April. I think that may be the only draft in the last 40 years Bama didnt have a player drafted into the NFL. Thats how little talent it had.

Croom is one of the worst HC's in SEC history. He was ******* awful

Also Bama lost to ULM at home like the week after MSU beat them. That is how bad Bama was that year. Saban's margin for error was dang small after that first year.

Croom was not a good coach, good man I believe but other than the feel good story, wasn't much else good came from 5 years. The Croom special still doesn't sit well with me the way ESPN and Croom as well made MSU look and it gets showed over and over reminding people how bad we were.

[Political Hack]

He fell asleep during a recruiting visit and drove a golf cart everywhere he went. I wouldn't say he wasn't lazy... he was and is a good man though. I just don't think he realized how much work running an SEC program requires in modern days. In a lot of ways it's way tougher on a coach than the pros.

[Goldendawg]

He couldn't even wear his cap on straight.*** BTW, who ended up with the best overall record as a SEC head coach, Croom or Mike Schula?

[Hot Rock]

I don’t know why everyone says he was a good man. How do you know? What I have seen from afar is a terrible coach that blamed his getting fired on some one besides himself. Nothing about that sounds “ good” to me. Maybe you guys saw him helping little old ladies cross the road or have first hand info on him donating his millions to charity that he took from State for worse than mediocre teams. To me, he will always be a joke and a punchline.

[BeardoMSU]

It's weird how much you defend him. Jackie lost control of the program, but Croom should have had a handle on it by year 2- he didn't

Everything C34 is correct. He set us back years.

Sure Mullen had a bad loss against USA, but Croom had an absolutely stunning resume of getting his ass kicked by awful teams.

Tulane pummeled State in Starkville in 2005, one year after Katrina. They maybe had 55 scholarship players and still managed to be leading us by 30 going into 4th quarter.

I could have thrown people off the team. Croom was a disaster.

Exactly. The revisionist history going on in this thread is baffling. While we're at it, might as well start fluffin' Larry Templeton....

[BeardoMSU]

he will always be a joke and a punchline.

/insert pic of him in helmet and pads here

Seriously, what legit SEC coach would do that shit?

[The Federalist Engineer]

Proof that Croom is great coach was that he was always being interviewed for other jobs and there was never an opening that didn't include him. ESPN was always speculating about his next gig.

Also, what about the Croom QBs. Probably every recruit in the nation wanted to be the next Henig or Tyson Lee. Even if the kid had no MSU ties, he probably dreamt about it. Croom era players basically own all MSU records.

Then, the nail on the coffin, is that Croom finally left us for that big glamorous job, still doing his thing as a head coach, and probably will make a big run for a NC someday soon.

[BeardoMSU]

Proof that Croom is great coach was that he was always being interviewed for other jobs and there was never an opening that didn't include him. ESPN was always speculating about his next gig.

Also, what about the Croom QBs. Probably every recruit in the nation wanted to be the next Henig or Tyson Lee. Even if the kid had no MSU ties, he probably dreamt about it. Croom era players basically own all MSU records.

Then, the nail on the coffin, is that Croom finally left us for that big glamorous job, still doing his thing as a head coach, and probably will make a big run for a NC someday soon.

Yikes...(especially the part in bold)



But yeah, we were lucky to have him when we did.**

[BankerDog]

The guys shooting the guns on campus was between the 2007 and 2008 season. This is ultimately what Croom said made us suck in 2008 according to that propaganda that SEC network released.

He also had his fair share of other disciplinary problems in 5 years. Your diatribe about his recruiting is just further proof how awful he was. Hes recruiting top 25 classes, yet we were only winning 3 games a year. Something doesn't add up.

To his credit, Johnson and Brown were both NFL draft picks.

He also did get Boobie, Fletcher Cox, Josh Boyd, KJ Wright, Chaney, DP, Fitzhugh, McPhee, Banks, Nickoe, Deontae Skinner, and Gabe Jackson. Most of those were in that last class when I think he started figuring out the recruiting portion just a tad bit. Credit to Mullen for holding onto those guys though.

[BankerDog]

Someone name the 10 best recruits in the Croom Error and look at how terrible it is.

He didn't recruit, he didn't push facilities improvement, and during his 5 years is when we missed the push the SEC made into the power position it holds today.

We are suffering in SEC mediocrity partially because of him. Problem is that we may never get out of the hole that period of time dug us into.

And yes he straight up didn't get hired at Bama because he was black. Numerous accounts of folks saying they were afraid the fan base wouldn't accept him even though he played and was groomed under Bear

1) Fletcher Cox
2) Gabe Jackson
3)KJ Wright
4) Boobie
5) Johnathan Banks
6) Derek Pegues
7) Derek Sherrod
8) Pernell McPhee
9) Charles Mitchell
10) Jamar Chaney
11) Kyle Love
12) Deontae Skinner
13) Nickoe Whitley

I wouldn?t really call that list terrible when the top 3 guys are three of the highest paid players in the NFL, an additional two are still playing, and 11 of the 13 played in the NFL. As I said in the post above, Anthony Johnson and Mike Brown were sure fire NFL picks. Yes the on field results absolutely sucked and yes I was pissed when he ran off Nick Turner and Darren Williams, but you have to give him a little more credit. He is also the last coach to beat Bama for us and did it in twice.

[Really Clark?]

That's the other thing that was odd about our fans' reaction to Croom. They didn't want to give him credit for winning. I can't think of another example of this happening, but there it is.

And for context, in Mullen's first season, he blew a chance to beat LSU with a jump pass call. Yet fans resisted blaming him, many putting it on Henig's lack of execution. Yet we had first and goal at the one and ultimately failed on a trick play.

It is what it is.

The goal line play vs LSU at the end of the game in Mullen?s first year wasn?t a jump pass. We ran an option and Tyson (Henig wasn’t the QB) decided to keep instead of pitching to Dixon. I still believe Dixon scores easily, Tyson just made the wrong decision. The play call was there for a score and win.

[shoeless joe]

I am not particularly a Croom fan. But two people I highly respect within the game that played for both jackie and Croom gush over him as a man and as a coach. And both think he deserved better than what he got in the end.

I’m sure there are guys that played for him that feel differently.

[KOdawg1]

Reading this thread is reminding me of it all again. Seriously, you could use this thread to induce vomit. Those were some awful times