The fact that nobody is defending Moorhead anywhere should be telling

[Irondawg]

The fans piling on shouldn't be surprising.

But most of the national media that has written/talked about our program blames him and doesn't make any excuses for him (injuries, youth, needing more time, etc etc).

Ex players aren't actively endorsing him and rallying around him.

Current players don't act like they are motivated to save his job so while they may like him, I get the feeling they blame him as well.

Lastly and maybe most importantly I think Joe blames himself. His ego seems absolutely crushed. He watches and the film and sees even more than we do that what has always worked for him is not working at all here. So he keeps trying to solve it and keeps failing. There is nothing more frustrating to a coach then knowing you should be better than you are yet and you can't seem to fix it.

The TN game just broke the program's back it seems. A good showing at TAMU might could have turned the tide a bit but then we faceplanted there as well. Getting to 6-6 might get him a good exit strategy, but unless we win these next three games by an average of 50-10 I think a divorce is inevitable.

[Dawgtini]

Tom Lugenbill (sp?) just spoke well of him on Bo Bounds show. Did say he wonders if the fit is just not good.

[Churchill]

Joe screwed up his locker room with his QB debacle. It's gonna be extremely hard to put this "humpty dumpty" back together again.

[confucius say]

Joe screwed up his locker room with his QB debacle. It's gonna be extremely hard to put this "humpty dumpty" back together again.

I said I was worried about this back in April and I think you are right. It also has not gotten talked about enough. I get both sides of it, but the last time we had a divided locker room over qb play was 2016 and that team never recovered either.

[TrapGame]

Tom Lugenbill (sp?) just spoke well of him on Bo Bounds show. Did say he wonders if the fit is just not good.

That's the narrative it seems. Finebaum was talking about Joe being a poor fit here on Monday.

[ShotgunDawg]

Joe's issues as a head coach are so deep that I wouldn't know where to start in fixing them, which is why both sides need a divorce here & a new start.

As I wrote yesterday, Joe entered into a difficult situation to get buy in due to the team feeling like a lover that has been cheated on.

Let this be a lesson, when you have a great coach, you can't lose him. Not sure what else MSU could've done to keep Mullen, but whatever can be done must be done.

[bluelightstar]

Joe screwed up his locker room with his QB debacle. It's gonna be extremely hard to put this "humpty dumpty" back together again.

All over a career backup who still couldn't win the job.

[Irondawg]

Poor fit is a nice way of saying he's doing a poor job and we're still not quite sure why. Everybody seems to like him personally and nothing in his past would lead you to believe he'd be terrible coach.

I hope we get to 6-6 and he gets offered and takes the Rutgers job. Everybody wins.

[ShotgunDawg]

We've seen this with Arkansas as well. When you make a coaching change, unless you have elite talent, you can't dramatically alter the offensive philosophy. Doing so will not allow the new coach a chance to get his feet underneath him

[dawgday166]

I said I was worried about this back in April and I think you are right. It also has not gotten talked about enough. I get both sides of it, but the last time we had a divided locker room over qb play was 2016 and that team never recovered either.

Actually by the 6th or 7th game they were recovering. Certainly by the 8th (not counting Bama beatdown).

[confucius say]

Actually by the 6th or 7th game they were recovering. Certainly by the 8th (not counting Bama beatdown).

Good point. It did get better after there was fitz buy in after fitz proved he was a warrior.

[msstate7]

Dave bartoo thinks Moorhead is a plus coach.

[dawgday166]

Dave bartoo thinks Moorhead is a plus coach.

Bartoo bases every W/L analytic off of recruiting rankings only. So according to him 8 wins last year was about right. I'm also starting to question whether he's shooting straight each time he comes onto Bo's show. Wonder if his website shows the analytics or not ... hadn't looked.

[dawgday166]

Still a lot of fluffiness over on Gene's Page.

[BeastMan]

Was JoMo a poor fit at UConn? Was he a good fit at PSU or did he have an NFL QB, TE, lottery pick RB, a more talented roster than most everyone he played, and James Franklin’s program standards? Maybe he’s Butch Jones

[dawgday166]

Was JoMo a poor fit at UConn? Was he a good fit at PSU or did he have an NFL QB, TE, lottery pick RB, a more talented roster than most everyone he played, and James Franklin’s program standards? Maybe he’s Butch Jones

Butch had actually been a pretty successful HC at Cincy hadn't he?

[bulldog20]

Was JoMo a poor fit at UConn? Was he a good fit at PSU or did he have an NFL QB, TE, lottery pick RB, a more talented roster than most everyone he played, and James Franklin?s program standards? Maybe he?s Butch Jones

Not trying to disagree with anything you said, but Franklin was struggling for 2 years before Moorhead got there and helped turn things around. A lot of what they do now is still pretty similiar to what Moorhead ran there. I think personally the biggest thing with Moorhead's offense here is SEC defenses are so fast generally that the longer developing plays he runs don't work as well. If you really watch most of the games, we have people running free a decent amount and just can't seem to hit the big plays. It works in the Big 10 because generally the athletes there are not on SEC level. Which is why most programs up there struggle against SEC defenses majority of the time except Ohio State. They have SEC talent playing in the Big 10. He should adapt his system to fit here, but seems adamant on making it work which in turn is going south quickly. I don't post here ever, but that is my 2 cents which doesn't mean much.

[Really Clark?]

Butch had actually been a pretty successful HC at Cincy hadn't he?

The question mark about Butch was he inherited Brian Kelly teams twice, staying 3 years, before getting Tenn. Same reason I would want to see what Josh Huepel at UCF does for 4-5 years there. How much riding former success helped him. Although winning 9 games back to back suggests he was not bad but there was always issues at Tenn and was a dumpster fire his last 2 years.

[dawgday166]

The question mark about Butch was he inherited Brian Kelly teams twice, staying 3 years, before getting Tenn. Same reason I would want to see what Josh Huepel at UCF does for 4-5 years there. How much riding former success helped him. Although winning 9 games back to back suggests he was not bad but there was always issues at Tenn and was a dumpster fire his last 2 years.

Thanks ... didn't go look it up. Amazing how some coaches can use good talent they inherit to do well, and another totally screws up top 10 talent he inherits and sets the program inherited back and probably can't get another HC gig himself.

[MoreCowbell]

The fans piling on shouldn't be surprising.

But most of the national media that has written/talked about our program blames him and doesn't make any excuses for him (injuries, youth, needing more time, etc etc).

Ex players aren't actively endorsing him and rallying around him.

Current players don't act like they are motivated to save his job so while they may like him, I get the feeling they blame him as well.

Lastly and maybe most importantly I think Joe blames himself. His ego seems absolutely crushed. He watches and the film and sees even more than we do that what has always worked for him is not working at all here. So he keeps trying to solve it and keeps failing. There is nothing more frustrating to a coach then knowing you should be better than you are yet and you can't seem to fix it.

The TN game just broke the program's back it seems. A good showing at TAMU might could have turned the tide a bit but then we faceplanted there as well. Getting to 6-6 might get him a good exit strategy, but unless we win these next three games by an average of 50-10 I think a divorce is inevitable.

Good post