Quote Originally Posted by Todd4State View Post
I think a lot of things that we are seeing with Dan is what Croom wanted and envisioned, but he couldn't implement them. And thus, he was fired.

The thing I like the best about Dan is he appears to be very detail oriented from a fundamentals standpoint, and overall he has done a good job with recruiting players that work hard and seem to be good people. And I think that's a lot of what killed Croom. It's one thing to talk it, but you have to walk it. And that's not easy- and Dan really should be commended for what he has done in that respect, which I think gets overlooked a lot.

I also think he didn't get Mississippi and that hurt him a lot too. Instead of recruiting Alabama so hard, he probably should have done what Dan is doing now- focus on Mississippi guys and try to beat the bushes for the Benardrick McKinney's and Chris Jones's. I don't think he fully understood the Egg Bowl rivalry either- see 45-0. We never had the focus and intensity that we should have had for that game other than maybe 2005 when Norwood carried us to a win.
Nailed it. Everyone overlooks this aspect of the Crxxm Error. He was convinced you couldn't win with MS players, so he tried to get the "overlooked" players in Alabama. The problem is those "overlooked" players all sucked and never had even a sniff of interest from any legit D-I program. In contrast, look at Bear Wilson. Yeah, he was "overlooked," but the Auburn was after him hard the final 6 weeks or so of his recruitment. They new he was a player and desperately wanted to sign him.

You're also correct that he never understood the importance of the Battle for the Golden Egg (starting now, I'm gonna bring back the REAL name of this game). Furthermore, he didn't care to understand its importance. By contrast, look at his predecessor. After losing to TSUN for the first time and catching serious hell, JWS said he hadn't understood how important that game was to our people. But he went on to say that he understood now and winning the Battle for the Golden Egg would be a priority. Before the wheels came off, The Kang was 6-3 in 9 games against the BearSharks. Crxxm, however, stressed beating Alabama. He was pissed they hired Shula over him and wanted blood. In a way, 45-0 is actually the worst example of Crxxm's inability to understand the Battle for the Golden Egg. Sure, that's the worst blowout by either side in the game's history. However, it really wasn't that big a shock. The signs had been there for weeks that the players had given up on Crxxm. I'd say the previous year, 2007, was a better example. Bowl eligibility on the line. Golden Egg Trophy at stake. No way a team is flat in that scenario.....oh wait. We were. It took us 3.5 Quarters to show up for that game. Just totally ridiculous, even though we wound up winning.