When Did The Football Downfall Start

[Coursesuper]

Keenum got played on that one. He will tell you that as well. Mark got backed into a corner by the old Templeton boosters and the baseball boosters and caved. Cohen was not going to be the baseball coach the next season anyways. He had already decided that in his mind. He was either going to be our AD or sit out the year and then go get the Bama job in the offseason.

It wasn’t the old Tempelton boosters. These guys are much younger and very politically connected. And the prez got outmaneuvered by this bunch with a little inside help. In true MSU fashion we are our own worst enemy.

[Pancho]

^^^^^^^^^^^

[BuckyIsAB****]

Moorhead tanked it as bad as Arnett, Leach saved it despite our fans never being fully behind him. Dudek was by far the worst thing Leach did. Then he passed and Keenum had to be a leader. And here we are

[viverlibre]

I would say it was 3a. - Leach's passing.

While Moorhead sucked, Leach stabilized the program and we were competitive. The program went completely off the rails when we had to hire a new coach without much time for a system that no one on this planet knew how to run to the level he did.

In saying all that, had we hired someone other than Arnett - we may still be where we are today. At some point, Leach would have retired and we would have had to reboot the philosophy. Maybe though, we would have had enough time in this portal era to do so without the pains we've experienced over the past couple seasons.

When Mike died, we were coming off an 9 win season and would have put up another 9 wins the following year. Where we would be now is anyone's guess though.

[Coach34]

Its a combination of things.

Mullen leaving when he had built the best team in school history started it.
Moorhead was a bad hire and then because of that we went "outside the box" with Leach. His lack of recruiting was going to end up showing but he preempted that by dying before it showed. Then we went with Arnett because of the dissaray to try and hold things together. And that didnt work.

Then we got an AD that made a hire that is always iffy. Mullen was a top OC and worked out. Lebby was a Top OC- we'll see what happens.

But aGAIN- 2022 happened with NIL and you cant compare Mullen with Lebbo. Mullen built this program on being "developmental"- which is what our school had to be. We dont have that option anymore. I dont think anybody can win here now. Football is done at State under this current system

[BigDawg81]

They definitely did their part. While Moorhead wasn?t great , We still went to bowl games and beat our rivals. While Leach was a great coach and a legend, he recruited to his system. There were always going to be a recovery period after Leach because of the players that was on the roster. You had to know that when you was hiring Leach that it will be a complete rebuild after Leach. Cohen really screwed us by not getting a head start on NIL. I really don?t blame Arnett anymore. He just wasn?t ready but you can?t blame him for taking a 4 million dollar job. You can blame Kennum. He rushed a hire but he is not the only one to blame. The boosters had to approve it also. Hindsight is 20/20 but they could have done search easily.

[Todd4State]

Loosely saw this topic on another board regarding the Arnett stuff and just wanted to get everyone's thoughts on it. It's obvious our football program hit rock bottom last year. There's no way around it. I do think we're on the way back now though. With that being said, when did this all start? What was the first snowball that got things rolling?

1. Mullen leaving. There's definitely some substance to this one. I mean we had 9 years of stability under Dan and now we are on our 4th coach in 8 years.

2. NIL and the portal. There's definitely a lot here because I think the portal took those guys like Bernardrick McKinney, Darius Slay, Ben Beckwith, etc that would've stayed to be developed and they entered the portal. We've always been a developmental program and the portal killed that. Developmental programs just don't exist anymore.

3. Leach's Recruiting. Say all you want about Mike and how he got every bit of talent out of his guys, and most played above their level. But there was no way to keep those same guys performing at that level outside of Leach's system. Dudek and Emerick just killed us with getting in late on guys, missing on guys, bad evals, etc. Mike also hated recruiting defense and that hurt us. Especially last year because the guys that he and that staff recruited were the upperclassmen. We had one SEC playmaker on the team and Gibson and Hughes did the heavy lifting in that recruitment.

4. Leach dying, hiring Arnett, and Arnett completely torpedoing the only system the players we had could run and switching to a run first offense. I honestly think this may have been the least detrimental. We gave him 10 games and not even a full recruiting cycle. He was a god awful HC and a sleazy human but we got out of that quickly. It was one of the great tragedies in the history of college football to lose Leach, but from a program standpoint we probably had 1 more year with him. He looked like he was tired and was ready to hang it up. I think he would've ultimately lobbied for Zach to get the job.


Me personally, I think it's probably a mix of the first 3 with number 1 being the biggest one. I think Mullen leaving and being replaced by Moorhead killed our edge. Yea we had it with Jeff and that D but Moorhead was too much of a player's coach and you could see the cracks forming. I mean go back to the UK game where we get 4 unsportsmanlike penalties. Had that edge carried into Leach, I think it's a seamless transition from a culture standpoint and we don't miss a beat. I will always wonder what would've happened had we hired Leach after Mullen and had Minshew with that 18 defense. NIL and Leach are kind of two fold. Leach hated NIL until his last couple of months and we were just going to have to continue to revamp the roster each and every year because we were going to lose guys who put up numbers in the offense. We were never going to be able to consistently keep guys 2-3 years. Also our defensive recruiting was crap. Arnett sucked and how it came to me was unfathomable, but credit to Selmon for moving quick and credit to Keenum and Bracky for structuring that contract to basically have him be an interim HC.

1. Dan leaving was not a bad thing for MSU. It's MSU's responsibility to replace coaches and MSU has failed to do so two out of three times with Lebby being wait and see. Dan being unhappy at MSU wasn't going to change and he would have left us years ago even if he stayed for 2018. I am of the belief that is someone doesn't want to be with you then you should let them go and leave because eventually if you force them to stay then no one is happy. Besides we overcame Dan when we hired Leach. We had two very high profile wins in 2020 over LSU and 2021 over Auburn and then in 2022 we won 9 games. 2022 was basically as good as almost all of Dan's best seasons. But it's the same thing- MSU has failed to replace Leach.

2. That's on Cohen. We don't choose the environment we are in. It is our athletic dept. leader's responsibility to work within the framework of the current environment. I think a lot of fans liked the developmental program idea because MSU fans do not like recruiting. Why? Because MSU fans don't like the drama associated with it especially back in the hat party days and they are not mature enough to handle losing a recruit. Plus MSU fans like the idea of players being around 4-5 years because then they become part of the community. Cohen did not embrace NIL and therefore Leach did not until the end. Which logically makes me think that had we promoted NIL Leach would have been all in for it. Honestly, knowing his personality I could actually see him liking it. Heck- his best QB ever came out of the portal in Gardner Minchew. But as far as NIL and the portal we got behind and we are only now catching up. But once we do thanks to Charlie Winfield we will be fine. To me, there is a lot of opportunity for MSU and the portal. You talk about the 2015 team- we could have easily attracted talent to fill in holes on the defense that year with the portal. We can get recruits we lose back sometimes because of the portal. With NIL Ole Miss can't just throw a bunch of money at a player while we're over here scared to counter because we might get on probation anymore. And that is one of the biggest problems with MSU fans and the AD in general is we tend to look at problems and not possibilities.

3. OK well a couple of things on Leach's recruiting. He recruited players that fit his system. How many times have we complained about a coach running something and the players didn't fit? That was like every year under Croom. And now we're complaining because Leach recruited players that didn't fit what Barbay wanted to run? The offense wasn't the main issue last year. Secondly, if Gibson and Hughes did the heavy lifting on defensive recruiting why are they not getting more blame? Leach gave the defensive staff carte blanche and they dropped the ball. And then the boosters spun keeping them because of their recruiting.

4. Leach passing away AND not having an AD at the same time really hurt us. And even though it was a tragic event MSU handled that as poorly as you possibly could. We had a senior laden team coming back. What MSU should have done is hire an interim- I would have begged Spurrier, Sr or Stoops to take the job for a year and give them what we would have paid Leach plus a reasonable bonus for doing a good job. Try to retain as many assistants as possible. If Arnett leaves he leaves, you hire a new DC. That could have very well happened after 2022 anyway had Leach lived. What MSU decided to do was let the boosters- the same ones that forced in Cohen and started this shitshow by the way- prioritize their friends and access to keep a recruiting class together which wasn't that impressive anyway. When fans saw Leach's assistants fired for the booster's friends and the offense being changed even though we were told the changes would be minimal plus stuff like finding out that fans were lied to about the interlocking MSU- I think that was just the final last straw for a lot of fans.

I'm going to go further back and say after the 2015 season under Dan Mullen.

Post Dak, Dan realized that he couldn't win at MSU unless he worked harder then he wanted to and/or cheated like Ole Miss.
He also knew that cheating like Ole Miss would never be tolerated at MSU by the NCAA/SEC. He tried to get out, and couldn't.
So he pouted. And that pissed people off. He made a terrible and lazy hire at DC in Sirmon. We then lost a lot in the 2016 recruiting class on Signing Day (which took a great class down to a good class). He refused to do what was best for the program and name Nick Fitz QB1 after spring camp in '16 and split the team. That season really started the chain of events that caused a lot of the issues - for football and the athletic department as a whole. Yes, he recovered for 2017 - saved by a ridiculously large JUCO haul that blessed us but also created a majorly unbalanced roster that hurt Leach as he was coming in. It also helped push Stricklin out the door and puts Cohen in the drivers seat.

And yet we have fans that would take Dan back right now.

But there is a common theme here- who put Cohen in charge and who put Arnett in charge? That group of people should not ever have any say whatsoever into who MSU hires. They have ruined MSU athletics.

And I'll say this about the portal and NIL. It's really ironic because MSU fans hated the old football recruiting stuff but NIL and the portal pretty much killed old school football recruiting. And now those fans hate the portal and NIL!

[Rawdawg]

Allowing Mullen to leave, not Mullen leaving was mistake number 1. Joe was mistake number 2. Leach’s recruitjng sucked yes but the fact we were so unorganized for so long with NIL is the reason it’s taking so long to dig out. The past two rosters were G5 at best.

[Todd4State]

They definitely did their part. While Moorhead wasn?t great , We still went to bowl games and beat our rivals. While Leach was a great coach and a legend, he recruited to his system. There were always going to be a recovery period after Leach because of the players that was on the roster. You had to know that when you was hiring Leach that it will be a complete rebuild after Leach. Cohen really screwed us by not getting a head start on NIL. I really don?t blame Arnett anymore. He just wasn?t ready but you can?t blame him for taking a 4 million dollar job. You can blame Kennum. He rushed a hire but he is not the only one to blame. The boosters had to approve it also. Hindsight is 20/20 but they could have done search easily.

But if we had a strong NIL base and had embraced the portal we could have- and should have- turned over the roster fairly quickly for 2023. You have teams that are signing 40+ players out of the portal sometimes. We signed 25 alone this offseason so far if you include Burroughs the DT that sat out a year and are going to add a few more in the spring. For 2023 we signed 12 transfers out of the portal.

[Todd4State]

Allowing Mullen to leave, not Mullen leaving was mistake number 1. Joe was mistake number 2. Leach’s recruitjng sucked yes but the fact we were so unorganized for so long with NIL is the reason it’s taking so long to dig out. The past two rosters were G5 at best.

I mean- there was no stopping Dan. We counter offered more than Florida. He still left.

[MoreCowbell]

Loosely saw this topic on another board regarding the Arnett stuff and just wanted to get everyone's thoughts on it. It's obvious our football program hit rock bottom last year. There's no way around it. I do think we're on the way back now though. With that being said, when did this all start? What was the first snowball that got things rolling?

1. Mullen leaving. There's definitely some substance to this one. I mean we had 9 years of stability under Dan and now we are on our 4th coach in 8 years.

2. NIL and the portal. There's definitely a lot here because I think the portal took those guys like Bernardrick McKinney, Darius Slay, Ben Beckwith, etc that would've stayed to be developed and they entered the portal. We've always been a developmental program and the portal killed that. Developmental programs just don't exist anymore.

3. Leach's Recruiting. Say all you want about Mike and how he got every bit of talent out of his guys, and most played above their level. But there was no way to keep those same guys performing at that level outside of Leach's system. Dudek and Emerick just killed us with getting in late on guys, missing on guys, bad evals, etc. Mike also hated recruiting defense and that hurt us. Especially last year because the guys that he and that staff recruited were the upperclassmen. We had one SEC playmaker on the team and Gibson and Hughes did the heavy lifting in that recruitment.

4. Leach dying, hiring Arnett, and Arnett completely torpedoing the only system the players we had could run and switching to a run first offense. I honestly think this may have been the least detrimental. We gave him 10 games and not even a full recruiting cycle. He was a god awful HC and a sleazy human but we got out of that quickly. It was one of the great tragedies in the history of college football to lose Leach, but from a program standpoint we probably had 1 more year with him. He looked like he was tired and was ready to hang it up. I think he would've ultimately lobbied for Zach to get the job.


Me personally, I think it's probably a mix of the first 3 with number 1 being the biggest one. I think Mullen leaving and being replaced by Moorhead killed our edge. Yea we had it with Jeff and that D but Moorhead was too much of a player's coach and you could see the cracks forming. I mean go back to the UK game where we get 4 unsportsmanlike penalties. Had that edge carried into Leach, I think it's a seamless transition from a culture standpoint and we don't miss a beat. I will always wonder what would've happened had we hired Leach after Mullen and had Minshew with that 18 defense. NIL and Leach are kind of two fold. Leach hated NIL until his last couple of months and we were just going to have to continue to revamp the roster each and every year because we were going to lose guys who put up numbers in the offense. We were never going to be able to consistently keep guys 2-3 years. Also our defensive recruiting was crap. Arnett sucked and how it came to me was unfathomable, but credit to Selmon for moving quick and credit to Keenum and Bracky for structuring that contract to basically have him be an interim HC.

2018 loss to Florida at home on Dans return. That was the turning point and when, at least for me, my outlook on our entire program went from positive and hopeful to negative. It was a reality check that we were still Miss. State.

[Dawgology]

A/B Leach passing WHILE we were without an AD was what killed the program. I would say the hire of Moorhead is what started the decline which was precipitated by Mullen leaving. But Mullen leaving was inevitable so our response as a program should have been better thought out and executed more efficiently

[Lord McBuckethead]

How about the single play that did us in?.Ole Miss breaking Fitz leg on a cheap shot. That was the start of it.

[Santiago]

All these posts seem to make sense.
Summing it up, it seems it started with alumni forcing the hand of Keenum to hire a baseball coach as AD because "he is one of us".
The only thing to add about Coach Leach, was that he provided us an offense that equalized the talent differential of the top tier SEC teams. I think we still need something like that and a Head coach that knows defense. Vanderbilt has it figured out.

A common theme in all the mistakes is the interference of some boosters who are really bad at this, and have soldiers help carry their message on these boards because they get a couple of pennies of information for it.

[R2Dawg]

Its a combination of things.

Mullen leaving when he had built the best team in school history started it.
Moorhead was a bad hire and then because of that we went "outside the box" with Leach. His lack of recruiting was going to end up showing but he preempted that by dying before it showed. Then we went with Arnett because of the dissaray to try and hold things together. And that didnt work.

Then we got an AD that made a hire that is always iffy. Mullen was a top OC and worked out. Lebby was a Top OC- we'll see what happens.

But aGAIN- 2022 happened with NIL and you cant compare Mullen with Lebbo. Mullen built this program on being "developmental"- which is what our school had to be. We dont have that option anymore. I dont think anybody can win here now. Football is done at State under this current system

Agree with your take.

I'll add something I haven't seen mentioned and I think is as big as NIL and portal for MSU and that is the fall of the JUCO system. This happened in the past 20 years or so.

Yeah MS JUCO is still good nationally but what happened is with everyone dropping academic standards, all these great athletes no longer had to go JUCO to clean up their school record before going D1. That is how JWS built MSU. Mullen took the develop route similar to JWS taking the JUCO route.

Now it is cheat on every level - money, academics, whatever. The ethics of it all is completely gone. It is a game of who can do the most of anything to win.

Bad hires many in a row and bad luck kicked us in the teeth and yes NIL and transfer all with no limits has finished us off.

[StarkVegasSteve]

How about the single play that did us in?.Ole Miss breaking Fitz leg on a cheap shot. That was the start of it.

I knew walking into the stadium that night that Mullen was gone. It was heavily rumored to be Tennessee at that point, obviously it ended up being Florida but the point remains. We had a chance to hire a SITTING P5 HC, and we hired an OC that the HC probably would've chartered a jet to get him out of State College. Nothing that happened in that game affected this.

[Matt3467]

NIL definitely hurts us and it's harder than ever but seeing Ole Miss be successful gives me hope that *we can be* as well. The difference is when it comes to football they've always been willing to do whatever it takes. It wasn't that long ago they were floundering at the bottom. from '10-'20 they went 65/69 overall with a 30/63 conference record and that includes the Freeze years. However having said all that aside from JWS we've shown we care too much about what others think and we'll continue to hire projects hoping to catch a needle in a haystick with Mullen again.

[Coach34]

NIL definitely hurts us and it's harder than ever but seeing Ole Miss be successful gives me hope that *we can be* as well. The difference is when it comes to football they've always been willing to do whatever it takes.

Here is the difference tho- its rumored that Mississippi spent about $15MM on last year's team. You have to figure they will continue to do that as long as they have to.

We, on the other hand, are excited, EXCITED!!!!! that we have upped our spending to $10MM or so. We're not playing the same game as the top of the SEC.

[State82]

We're not playing the same game as the top of the SEC.

They are playing high stakes No-Limit Hold'em and we are playing Go Fish.

[Matt3467]

Here is the difference tho- its rumored that Mississippi spent about $15MM on last year's team. You have to figure they will continue to do that as long as they have to.

We, on the other hand, are excited, EXCITED!!!!! that we have upped our spending to $10MM or so. We're not playing the same game as the top of the SEC.

Is it because we can't match what they are doing spending wise or because we won't?