Quote Originally Posted by Todd4State View Post
Why are we worried about failure at a program that hasn't won any kind of football championship since 1998 and hasn't won the SEC outright since 1941?

Arkansas just had a run where they were the most absolutely atrocious football program I have ever seen in the SEC including Vanderbilt. They weren't able to beat San Jose State and North Texas. And yet- despite that it didn't destroy their program. Just like neither Croom nor Joe could ruin ours. Historically we've had even worse coaches than them- see Charley Shira and Wade Walker may have been even worse than him. If Leach fails or mails it in MSU could EASILY hire some coach that is a good recruiter on the cheap and then hire two elite coordinators by paying above board to run our offense and defense like Arkansas and LSU. That's actually almost what kind of happened when we almost hired Joe Judge so Cohen certainly isn't above doing that.

Heck- if anything we should be taking risks. And a coach with a 20 year track record of success is about as safe as we could go.
Exactly. At the end of the day, keep your program top 30 in talent and the right coach can IMMEDIATELY right back in it with Kentucky, Arky, Ole Miss, the mediocre P5 non-con opponent, and one of the SEC powers if their team is falling apart. You're a good hire from a bowl game and top 25 classes year 1.

Let's not forget that the new SEC TV deal is about to give us $23M more money per year. Yeah it might not help us jump up in the SEC since they have the same deal, BUT it does allow us to afford buyouts should Leach not work out, it allows us to offer a $15M total coaching pay vs the $10M we do now. We'll be able to attract and keep better coaches than we can now. It's all up to the Ad to make the right hire when the time comes