If nothing else, I think Jeff Lebby has a lot of confidence in himself and his plan.
- Thread starter travis.sixpack
- Start date
yeah the roster rebuild had to happen. Anyone could see our players werent up to SEC standard.
But you were comparing. It’s full circle of my entire point, which is the complete opposite of yours. You say the Leach era showed you that we can’t compete because we had the great Mike Leach (who you compared to Saban) and we’ll never become better than what we had in 2022.
My point, in direct contrast to yours, is the Leach era revealed the segment of our fanbase who bought in hook, line, and sinker to the Leach mantra while he lowered the overall perception, talent and expectations of our program. It left a lasting stench and infighting over a conference-USA level QB that this “is as good as it gets”. Meanwhile Leach put on a facade of his antics with the “candy corn on Halloween” and “fat girlfriends” and all the gullible chucks in our fanbase slurped it up. “Isn’t this great? We have Mike!” And then we’d play a team with a defensive pulse and get absolutely pummeled.
Meanwhile our instate rivals have been accumulating talent and shooting for the stars since 2020. Now where do we find ourselves? OM is preseason top 10 and a playoff contender, excitement is an all time high. And we are posting threads on here “Why aren’t we excited for football season?” Don’t you get what has happened? In 2020 Cohen pivoted from hiring Sarkisian for tired old Leach. It was a safe, weak hire and it has led us to disarray. One of the biggest what-ifs in Mississippi State history. WAKE UP
Wow, you Really need to talk to someone about that emotional scar Leach left you with. you sound really wounded.
I wish he was perceived as Lebby's DC now instead of holding a clipboard up the road.
2020-2022 was 17ing miserable. Outside of the 2022 egg bowl.
To pinpoint one of my biggest issues with the Leach hire: once he was announced as our football coach in January 2020, it became less about elevating Mississippi State’s program and more about the Mike Leach circus. It was Leach over Mississippi State. He was hellbent on running things his way and not adapting. And we are still suffering the consequences of it.
Yea I know you’ve told us for the millionth time how much you hate Leach. You’re one of like 2 or 3 posters who share that view, to that extent. it sounds really personal like you had an interaction with him that left you butt hurt.
You are your boys got what you wanted in December 2022. Ran things your way after that, and well, here we are.
Yet to hear any argument to counter what I’ve said.
If we’re going to praise Leach and make him a staple in our program, then we should do the same for Joe Moorhead. Both accomplished a 8-4 regular season and a trip to the Outback Bowl.
Oh dear God. If you don't possess a level of intelligence that allows you to see context, what are we even doing here?
I didn't love the offense, nor Will Rogers, but this is just ridiculous. We had just won 9 and returned the whole team. We were teed up for a monster season under Leach last season and were getting consistently better and better suited to what he wanted to do(which I reiterate that I didn't love either, but 25 years of success said worked pretty damn well). We caught some incredibly bad luck with Leach's passing, and everything we've done since then has been a shitshow. Hopefully Lebby is the guy.
they are getting what they richly deserve. bashing a deceased Leach for going 9-4 is about all they got, and that will look more and more ludicrous as time goes on. same people who cheered as Leach’s staff was fired and boosters hired their buddies to fill out the coaching staff.
Ironic talking about context, coming from someone who just compared Leach to Saban.
Obviously I don’t believe Moorhead is the same level of coach as Leach. But the only argument I’ve received from the Leach lovers is “he went 8-4!” “And took us to the outback bowl!” Well if numbers are all that matters on paper, we just had a ****** coach in 2018 that accomplished this “pinnacle of Mississippi State football”. Which proves my point that it’s not some incredible, impressive feat for MSU to do this. We can do better. Arkansas, A&M, and Auburn combined had a losing record in 2022. We thankfully took advantage of probably the weakest schedule we had since 2012. All these can be true. We can and will do better. Raise your expectations
Leach didn’t go 9-4, he went 8-4. Not trying to be cold, just pointing out an error in your statement.
List of coaches who have won at least 8 games in a season in the last 30 years
Sherrill
Croom
Mullen
Moorhead
Leach
Not that hard. Stop thinking the only way is the Leach way. Our program is bigger than Mike Leach.
I was extremely sad when Leach passed, we all were.
But it’s time to move on. I can’t sit here and listen to people continue to fantasize about the 2022 Mike Leach season like it was some grand accomplishment that only he could create. We need to pull our head out of our *** and move forward.
It’s 2024, we have a new coach to be excited about. No one, and I mean absolutely no one gives a 17 we played Illinois in the Reliaquest Bowl 2 years ago.
A modified version of the Air Raid is played all throughout college football as well as the NFL. No one but Leach ran the pure air raid
It's not about the hard numbers -- it's about what the next team was teed up to do. In that way, Moorhead and Arnett's failures are similar. In both cases, it boils down to a major failure in leadership within the university that defines why we are what we have always been for the last 80 years. Brian Johnson would have won 10 with Moorhead's first team even if he wasn't the long term solution. Spurrier Jr would have won 9 coaching offense on last year's squad in the same way. Both times we totally bombed a formula that was right on the cusp of really working out for us.
It was obvious to anyone with a pulse that we needed to keep the air raid for at least one more season with the talent we had in place.
And it's also pretty obvious to me that we screwed up on the defensive side of this current coaching staff, but I hope to be proven wrong.
This is a huge misconception of what was happening inside the program post 2022. We know what transpired with Dillon Johnson- he wasn’t returning for ‘23. Woody, Tulu, Zavion were also all gone if Leach hadn’t have passed. I know this is tough to hear but it’s true. Skill players absolutely hated his system. Ironically, the least talented player on offense was the only player that benefited and was returning come hell or high water (Rogers). Not to bash Rogers, he gave everything he had.
It’s a false statement to say we were building towards a bigger and better season in 23. Leach was stubborn, unwilling to adapt to the rapidly changing landscape of NIL and portal. Arnett was also out the door for a bigger DC job in 23. We’ll never know what would’ve happened if Leach was still here, but to believe it was an upward trajectory and all roses - simply isn’t true.
Man I hope Lebby is a good coach so we can officially put the Leach discussion to rest.
But I’m also not going to pretend about Leach’s tenure that we were on a magical Leach carpet ride to the top of the mountain. There were a lot of internal problems with our program in 2022. It was mostly of product of the changing landscape of NIL & portal. We didn’t have a coach who embraced it and we were headed for a bumpy ride.
But I’m also not going to pretend about Leach’s tenure that we were on a magical Leach carpet ride to the top of the mountain. There were a lot of internal problems with our program in 2022. It was mostly of product of the changing landscape of NIL & portal. We didn’t have a coach who embraced it and we were headed for a bumpy ride.
Guess it depends on what you called modified. I guess there are plays ran or variations of plays ran from the air raid system but really there isnt anything even close to the air raid being ran anymore
There are bigger issues than Lebby.
There's a big divide over the branding of the university, as we all know. In addition, the strategy of our entire athletic program going forward in this new era. And all of this starts at the top, and filters down. I don't like the way we're approaching it, but nobody there cares about my opinion - sooo, that's that.
There was one guy who saw this iceberg coming, and tried to steer us in other directions, and tried to get innovative. That was our own alumnus, coach and former AD, John Cohen. And our own people tarred and feathered him for dang near everything, to get him out and get right back to doing what we've always done.....which is constantly change things on whims, spend all our money simply to keep up our bottom of SEC status (or even lose ground in many ways). But our people are unwilling to listen to such talk. Their answer is to keep doing what has sparingly worked.....except somehow this time do it better than we ever have. Insanity.
I didn’t mean he had to heap praise on him, but I’ve been surprised he hasn’t really mentioned Leach at all, given their connections (dad is a TX HS coach /played for Leach’s boss Stoops/father-in-law worked for Leach briefly).
Just playing my advocate. Also, I loved CL as a character. I thought he put eyes on MSU that we would have never gotten in any other context. Think about the candy corn thing. It was instantly a internet hit viewed by 16 million people in a few days meaning that MSU was also viewed by that many people. I think he was a good coach, but not a perfect one. He was a even better man. There is no arguing that point.
I have heard this my entire life that we are going to elevate MSU football, and that we are going to get there with each coach we have hired from some folks. I truly do not believe that we will ever reach a championship in my life time for a myriad of reasons from lack of resources to lack of money based fan support which is even more important in the modern era of college football. Now does this mean that we should stop trying and just embrace being a sister of the poor? No it does not. I also love the argument some offer that says CL radically changed the kind of kids and positional needs that we recruited. I am not saying that is good or bad, but these are the same people that act like what we had done prior to CL was really putting us in a position for success when it was not at all. What we need to do is realize we can be happy about the time that CL spent here while also embracing the current hope of this Lebby era. Personally I do not think Lebby will be the coach here in 4 years. Either because it went so well that he parlayed the success into another job, or because he fell flat on his face.
I have heard this my entire life that we are going to elevate MSU football, and that we are going to get there with each coach we have hired from some folks. I truly do not believe that we will ever reach a championship in my life time for a myriad of reasons from lack of resources to lack of money based fan support which is even more important in the modern era of college football. Now does this mean that we should stop trying and just embrace being a sister of the poor? No it does not. I also love the argument some offer that says CL radically changed the kind of kids and positional needs that we recruited. I am not saying that is good or bad, but these are the same people that act like what we had done prior to CL was really putting us in a position for success when it was not at all. What we need to do is realize we can be happy about the time that CL spent here while also embracing the current hope of this Lebby era. Personally I do not think Lebby will be the coach here in 4 years. Either because it went so well that he parlayed the success into another job, or because he fell flat on his face.
Baloney. We didnt have any money then and we dont have any money now.
Get unlimited access today.