I think he is the absolute worst AD we have ever had, and THAT is saying something. He had the benefit of more money that we have ever had.....and he reverted to Larry Templeton penny pinching except for baseball (and sort of even there). The thing is, Templeton HAD to penny pinch for almost all of his tenure. We really didn't have much money to spend those days. Cohen didn't have to. He certainly didn't have to in gameday operations for football, and he did it in spades. Our Gameday experience in every sport for fans drastically regressed under Cohen compared to what we had under his two predecessors. That wasn't all that slipped. He was a baseball coach, NOT a professional athletic administrator, and that hurt us tremendously. It STILL boggles my mind that Auburn hired him. All I can say is THANK YOU AUBURN.
Cohen's Legacy: Good , Mediocre or Lousy?
- Thread starter Cantdoitsal
- Start date
You left out a LOT of very important stuff. The stuff you left out is where Cohen TOTALLY sucked.
Leach was a good hire. Morehead was a swing and miss but everyone thought he would be another Mullen. I can't fault him for hiring the best OC at the time. Leach did improve football. We are all happy with Jans. Give the devil his due.
Cohen botched the 2018 season with the hire of Moorhead. That alone is reason for a failing grade. The 2018 season with a competent HC is one of the biggest what ifs in MSU football history. Not a good HC, but just a decent one, would’ve won 10+ games with that team.
I put a lot of that blame on Danny Boy. He's the one who left us in an impossible situation, when we were willing to roll out the red carpet for him (and always had been). I know he's rich now and may not care, but a part of him has to regret that decision, especially considering he did nothing at Florida, just another fired coach on the trash heap. Again, I realize he got rich, but every true competitor has that fire burning in them that actually wants to accomplish tangible things. And before some smartass says he won the East at Florida and went to a few Big 6 bowls, that's nothing. You must compare it against the expectations and he could have been a hero forever at MSU with say an 11-2 year with a Big 6 win.
Part of me thinks that Mullen knew he didn't have much coming back after that 2018 year, since he had went so heavy in JUCOs and stacking classes together so he could win his way out. Just imagine what he could have done had he stayed, and not been lazy in the 2017 class. We had some big holes in that one.
Then add an AJ Brown in 2016 and holy crap.
I judge his tenure by how he left things relative to how he found it.
Head baseball coach - A He took a 1980s style program that finally ran off the rails after limping along years longer than it should have on Polk's name alone and took it into the 21st century.
AD - C- On the positive , his baseball hires kept the program going in the direction he started. He also hired MIke Leach. But, he hired duds in Morehead, Howland, and McCrae-Penson. He also ran off the best coach we ever had in any sport. I also was not impressed with his management skills.
Overall I give him a C+
Head baseball coach - A He took a 1980s style program that finally ran off the rails after limping along years longer than it should have on Polk's name alone and took it into the 21st century.
AD - C- On the positive , his baseball hires kept the program going in the direction he started. He also hired MIke Leach. But, he hired duds in Morehead, Howland, and McCrae-Penson. He also ran off the best coach we ever had in any sport. I also was not impressed with his management skills.
Overall I give him a C+
Mullen has said in an interview that he knew what he had coming back and while he didn't say he regretted leaving he kind of implied he wondered what if. The main reason Mullen left was because he was offered the FL job where he had a very positive history. I don't think he leaves for any other job that season but would have been good as gone in 2019. If I blame anyone it's that traitor loaferz who didn't wait until his chair got cold at his alma mater before he was poaching our football coach. That guy never deserves to walk the streets of vegas unharassed I don't care who his FIL is.
Mullen was going to Tennessee. It was done. Unfortunately it just seemed that the situation for him at MSU was untenable (in his own eyes). I tend to think it was his recruiting effort, which made him continually swim upstream.
Mullen leaving that team behind was Pearl Harbor Esque. Shoulda happened a year later.
He did some good things; he did some bad things for someone without experience. I don't remember him being an Athletic Director before doing it for us. It doesn't 17ing matter anymore. He is gone. All the gripping and bitching about it doesn't accomplish anything unless you're just happy to gripe an *****. I think we would be better off if you would put all the energy into something for the continued development of our athletic department.
I could see (maybe) where Auburn thought they were hiring a tenured, well experienced SEC AD who had made his mistakes at State and was now a "finished product". The problem is the S.O.B. never learned a damn thing from his mistakes because he was too arrogant to admit he ever made any. He was just as apt to make a huge mistake when he left as he was when he started. On top of that he is also an obnoxious prick.
I never actually got to meet the man. The two times that I tried to say hello and introduce myself he ignored me like I was invisible. He once lived next door to some of our family. He acted like a complete a$$ to them. We are all State grads, members of the Bulldog club, and life long fans. Not that that matters.
He was a sorry liberal,piece of ****. So was Nelle and her rainbow colored cowbell!
Nelle oushing the transgender agenda because of her she she son made me want to vomit! There is no place for that ******** Mississippi State. Good riddance to that ***** and to that prick.