Hiring Arnett was the right move at the time.......

[OG Goat Holder]

.....so I wish everybody would get off that high horse and quit blaming Keenum. I've done it too, I've said he should have hired Spurrier, yada yada, but it was pretty much unanimous at the time that Arnett would be the best guy to stabilize everything. And I've said we should have made him keep people too, but that ship has sailed. We now simply have to move on, and criticizing Keenum gets us nowhere. We made the decisions, and now Arnett made his, and we are where we are. The next 2 weeks will play out and we will fire him Friday after Thanksgiving. Keenum has presided over a very successful time at MSU so we need to put that silly notion of getting rid of him, to bed.

The bigger problem here is how all this happened? We finally get a competent coach with name cache and he dies out of nowhere at a relative young age. And the new guy, hired for continuity, promptly goes back to what we've always done. Why did he do this? Who was he talking to? What was he thinking? Everybody who attempts to do things differently here (Foglesong, Byrne, Mullen, Cohen) end up moving on or semi-pushed out. Leach was never really embraced. Even our own guys betray us (Stricklin). What is our issue here? The only thing we seem to get right is the baseball program and we almost let that disintegrate, thank the Lord for Cohen.

So many people think about right now, this detail or that detail. I like to think big picture, very general. I'm still wondering what really happened with Cohen. That loss, and the loss of Leach, and now this, really has me pretty indifferent about football. I've never been this close to just forgetting about it. And we've got a new AD hired for NIL, one of our weakest points where we'll never really compete with the big boys. This seems like the opposite of what we should be doing.

We have a real problem. Everybody likes to say this, but what IS the problem?

 

[The Cooterpoot]

 

[OG Goat Holder]

I knew you wouldn’t understand. You’re one of them.

 

[ZombieKissinger]

I have no recollection what I said on here at the time Arnett was hired, but I think I was skeptical but trying to be optimistic/hope for the best. The thing that I've realized since then, though, is I was giving too much weight to stability, people not leaving, etc. In the age of the portal and NIL, that's not really a big deal. It feels like a big deal if your star player is talking about going elsewhere, but it's not as much of an issue as it seems in the moment. The other thing is that I don't remember who'd been hired by other schools at that point, which good candidates were out there, etc. Even if our top couple targets were hired at that point, I still think there were a bunch of people out there that could've been good candidates for us. We sacrificed this year's recruiting class to hang on to last year's.

 

[Rupert Jenkins]

It was definitely a mistake and there were other options. Would they have worked out ? Who knows ? Hindsight is 2020 and all that. The only thing obvious now is we need to fix it somehow. Personally I know I suggested Miller had way more experience. I never thought Arnept was that great as a DC but of course nobody wanted Miller. Nobody wanted Spurrier. Both ideas were laughed at. And yes we could probly have found an outside guy. But all that is water under the bridge now

 

[WrapItDog]

.....so I wish everybody would get off that high horse and quit blaming Keenum.

We now simply have to move on, and criticizing Keenum gets us nowhere. Keenum has presided over a very successful time at MSU so we need to put that silly notion of getting rid of him, to bed.

Who knew Mrs Keenum was Goat Holder?

 

[Dawgbite]

I can’t believe I’m saying this but Goat is right! Annette was the only option at the time, especially with no AD. It was basically a one year job interview for Arnett thus his minimum salary compared to the rest of the SEC. It hasn’t worked out but if it had it would have been looked upon as brilliant. I think that the single biggest thing that sunk this experiment was shifting away from the Air Raid. Arnett should have kept as many offensive assistanTs that were willing to stay and if he wanted to go away from the air raid he should have done it this offseason or maybe next.

 

[msstatelp1]

I'll admit to thinking we had made a good hire. Didn't Leach supposedly recommend Arnett in the event something like this happened? Seems I remember reading that but don't know the veracity of it.

Anyway, when it obvious a change has to be made, there's no use in waiting. The situation won't get better with time.

 

[WrapItDog]

I think that the single biggest thing that sunk this experiment was shifting away from the Air Raid. Arnett should have kept as many offensive assistanTs that were willing to stay and if he wanted to go away from the air raid he should have done it this offseason or maybe next.

All we had to do when hiring an unknown like Arnett was specify he had to keep the offensive staff and run a similar Air Raid offense for his first season. We did pretty much that when we hired Cannizaro and had him keep Henderson as the pitching coach.

Different sport but similar approach

 

[Podgy]

Not according to what we've seen this year. I mentioned that we'd miss Leach. It may have been reasonable and understandable but it wasn't a good hire. Leach has a coaching pedigree but I'm not sure if any of his defensive coordinators have become good head coaches. Arnett was a good DC and intense but hasn't shown any of those qualities this year. Recruiting is unimpressive as well. Imaging telling someone 4 years ago that a State QB would be among the SEC leaders in several categories with one year to spare. They would have thought you were nuts. But, we had one and the new HC decided to get rid of the system that put Will there. Seems pretty foolish because we can see what happened to the offense.

 

[Rupert Jenkins]

I would have made Miller interim coach and had he and Spurrier plan our offense and hired a new OL coach. Left Arnept in charge of that killer D. That's sarcasm on the D. But it was much better than this garbage we currently call a D. Imagine if Bookie and Jett had not "ran it back"

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

Hindsight is 2020... But looks like the right decision was a hard one and sometimes that’s the hardest one to make.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

Not according to what we've seen this year.

AT THE TIME

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

A reasonable move, sure. But the right move? I'm not buying that.

 

[ronpolk]

Somebody wanting keenum fired for that hire is wrong… a president shouldn’t be fired for a football coach hire.

But it was absolutely the wrong hire to make. We panicked when we didn’t have to. I’ve said it a thousand times and will say it again, there are zero players on our roster that were worth making the arnett hire. We had time to have a search, we just needed panicked

 

[msudawg1200]

The big issue was not having an AD in place. No way could you conduct an outside coaching search and hire without an AD. No coach is even thinking about taking the job. Because of recruiting, the timing, and no AD I understood the hire. I still thought it should've been interim. If Arnett didn't like that we've should've told him to kick rocks and promoted Spurrier, Jr or another that would've accepted the interim tag. Now, interim could've became permanent with a competent looking season, recruiting, if the new AD saw fit, etc.

 

[The Peeper]

I'm still wondering what really happened with Cohen. That loss, and

Wait, whaaaat? You consider John Cohen, A LOSS?

 

[OG Goat Holder]

SomebodyBut it was absolutely the wrong hire to make. We panicked when we didn’t have to. I’ve said it a thousand times and will say it again, there are zero players on our roster that were worth making the arnett hire. We had time to have a search, we just needed panicked

Disagree. It was pretty unanimous among all around the program that Arnett should be the guy at the time.

Talent is not our problem.

 

[Rupert Jenkins]

Coaching and scheme is our problem.

 

[MSUDC11-2.0]

The emotional fog of Leach passing was stilll very much with us when the decision was made. I get why we did it, it’s just worked out very poorly.

 

[Thebulldogcountry1]

It seemed like a good call at the time.

But when he blew up the staff and then started hiring position coaches before he had coordinators. Big red flags.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

It seemed like a good call at the time.

But when he blew up the staff and then started hiring position coaches before he had coordinators. Big red flags.

Agree. But too late at that point.

 

[BulldogBlitz]

Allowing him to be the interim for the bowl game was the right thing to do. Hiring him without bothering to search while hoping for "continuity" was a flawed move.

 

[patdog]

Coaching and scheme is our problem.

Well, it’s is our problem. But it’s far from the only problem. New coach is going to have to completely rebuild this roster.

 

[Rupert Jenkins]

Well, it’s is our problem. But it’s far from the only problem. New coach is going to have to completely rebuild this roster.

Well yeah he is. Most of this roster is seniors and 6th year guys. I'm really glad we have a lot of freshmen playing this year. That will help next year. We are gonna be young

 

[Dawgg]

 

[KentuckyDawg13]

It's fairly simple; our head coach died, we had no Athletic Director, President of the University had to make a decision, we went with one of the better DC's we've had in recent years to try to keep the recruiting class in tact, hired an OC, new HC now just stands with his arm's crossed and looks hungover at each press conference, other schools hiring before we do again, thank god for basketball.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

Well, it’s is our problem. But it’s far from the only problem. New coach is going to have to completely rebuild this roster.

How is this going to happen? Our fans don't donate or come to games. And if any rebuild takes any time or deviates from RuN dA bAwL, we all jump ship because muh bow season or some shlt.

And I know we got up for Mullen. But that was after 3 years of awful Jackie and 5 years of Croominator. And it didn't take us long to want him fired too. I don't see any coach coming in here and uniting us. Just like Leach, the fans will make the new coach prove it first.....because we are a shltty fanbase.