Remember when y’all didn’t want Leach and Rogers?
- Thread starter jethreauxdawg
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The problem is the decision that went into it. In discussions/interviews/etc., you can't tell me that Arnett didn't bring up his frustrations about Leach's offense. But we were scared to lose him, because we are lil ole moo u. Well, turns out, we should have hired Spurrier Jr. and just took a chance on whether Arnett would be back. Appears Arnett was the problem in this whole situation. I mean the guy interviewed at LSU after 2020, when everybody knew Orgeron was dead man walking - that should tell you about his discernment skills right there.
Old friend of mine (now deceased) was an agnostic and big into zen and philosophy.
He used to say all the time: “The grass is greener on the other side because you’re not over there ‘17ing’ it up.”
There is wisdom is your words
Name a time when Leach wasn't very involved and was past his prime. Name a place where he alienated recruits by having some BS CEO of recruiting make his decisions. Mike Leach would be retired here very soon. We would never win big because of the recruiting. Hell, we're still playing with guys that have been here before is recruiting hit. That's part of the problem too.
I don’t know if any of you watched Wisconsin-Ohio State last night, but Locke is really good. he was throwing darts in tight windows against a superior team, Ohio State and looked like a senior. avoided the rush, took Off and ran for 29 yards and is cool as a cucumber. I’m not talking bout stats.
That kid should have been kept at all costs, he’s a casualty of the bone headed decision to fire the whole staff and Replace it with really inferior coaches. it made so much more sense to keep things together, bolster the defense and win 8+ this year. and you probably keep Locke who is going to be a big time player.
Arnett should have been an interim and the next coach should have been a spread passing attack offensive coach, not even necessarily air raid. Receiver room and Locke along with Seth Davis were already in place.
That kid should have been kept at all costs, he’s a casualty of the bone headed decision to fire the whole staff and Replace it with really inferior coaches. it made so much more sense to keep things together, bolster the defense and win 8+ this year. and you probably keep Locke who is going to be a big time player.
Arnett should have been an interim and the next coach should have been a spread passing attack offensive coach, not even necessarily air raid. Receiver room and Locke along with Seth Davis were already in place.
Agree with all except it's obvious to me Arnett shouldn't have been anywhere close to head guy. And if he wasn't happy and left, so be it. Defense can't be any worse. Hindsight is 20/20, but the horrific decisions and execution of the offense continue to be the big issue in my mind. You can compete with a competent offense even if your D is shlt.
This is revisionist history. There was a significant part of this board that was still on the fence about him or even ready to get rid of him going into the 22 Egg Bowl.
Unfortunately, this is true. We had a DAMN good coach with Leach and some of these fools thought we were too good for him.
Leach facts as are follows:
1) He was a great hire, for obvious reasons. 2 decade track record of keeping a winning culture at places that shouldn’t have one. He did it by both having a sound program management philosophy and a high floor offensive system that could be run with players that were readily available, and didn’t have to be elite physical specimens.
2) He didn’t win just because of the Air Raid, and the Air Raid was never going to be some magic bullet to get us to Top 3 territory in scoring or yards against SEC competition. He could have coached here a decade….didn’t matter. We would have still been in the bottom third in the SEC in scoring just about every year. But, that’s still a better result than our talent profile dictates that we should have. And we’d have still been capable of scoring 35-40 points on any given Saturday that we weren’t playing a Bama, UGA, or LSU. As far as MSU goes, that’s as good as its ever been for us on offense. But our idiot fans couldn’t stop watching Lane Kiffin doing what he was doing, with much better offensive talent, and they got their panties in a wad and wanted more.
3) Leach was the only coach that ran that particular extreme version of the Air Raid. So we weren’t ever going to have a plug and play replacement. But even if we did, you aren’t at all guaranteed to keep the same culture. This nonsense of “we should have kept the entire offensive staff” thus needs to stop. It wouldn’t be any better. Locke and Robertson, however good or bad they turn out to be, weren’t going to stick around and ride the bench for 1-2 more years….no matter who the coach was (even if it was still Leach). We’d have all the same offensive limitations of the past 2-3 years, which weren’t great offensively, but without the same program culture and without the playcalling expertise of the guy who had been running things in that system for 20 years.
His replacement was always going to be a dice roll that was not likely to pan out, given the timing of the hire. This situation should shock no one.
1) He was a great hire, for obvious reasons. 2 decade track record of keeping a winning culture at places that shouldn’t have one. He did it by both having a sound program management philosophy and a high floor offensive system that could be run with players that were readily available, and didn’t have to be elite physical specimens.
2) He didn’t win just because of the Air Raid, and the Air Raid was never going to be some magic bullet to get us to Top 3 territory in scoring or yards against SEC competition. He could have coached here a decade….didn’t matter. We would have still been in the bottom third in the SEC in scoring just about every year. But, that’s still a better result than our talent profile dictates that we should have. And we’d have still been capable of scoring 35-40 points on any given Saturday that we weren’t playing a Bama, UGA, or LSU. As far as MSU goes, that’s as good as its ever been for us on offense. But our idiot fans couldn’t stop watching Lane Kiffin doing what he was doing, with much better offensive talent, and they got their panties in a wad and wanted more.
3) Leach was the only coach that ran that particular extreme version of the Air Raid. So we weren’t ever going to have a plug and play replacement. But even if we did, you aren’t at all guaranteed to keep the same culture. This nonsense of “we should have kept the entire offensive staff” thus needs to stop. It wouldn’t be any better. Locke and Robertson, however good or bad they turn out to be, weren’t going to stick around and ride the bench for 1-2 more years….no matter who the coach was (even if it was still Leach). We’d have all the same offensive limitations of the past 2-3 years, which weren’t great offensively, but without the same program culture and without the playcalling expertise of the guy who had been running things in that system for 20 years.
His replacement was always going to be a dice roll that was not likely to pan out, given the timing of the hire. This situation should shock no one.
I think guys are confusing a half dozen posters on a message board with the fan base as a whole.
Attendance started dipping with SloMo, after he turned an 11-win team into an 8-win team, then COVID finished it off. The university handled 2020 as bout as bad as possible. They ran a 5-minute long social justice commercial during halftimes that season, it was crazy. Ticket sales went up coming off a 9-win season. Winning drives ticket sales, this shouldn't be hard to figure out.
This whole “Leach didn’t recruit” **** is the new narrative being spun. We signed classes EXACTLY where we had the previous decade and even moreso…we were signing the guys to fit his system. Some didn’t like the “outsiders” who weren’t part of the good ole boy network and that’s why we are saddled with this BS Peterson/Friend/et al is a have today. But rest assured..we were signing decent players and using the portal. But we are gonna “Dominate” instate recruiting with this new staff. I read it from the know it all’s here all last January and February. And our offense was going to “not going to be one dimensional” with this Barbay move now that we were rid of the air raid. I wish I had all the receipts.
Exactly, our 2023 composite talent ranking is right where it's probably been for the last ten years, in the middle of USCe, UM, UK, Mizzo and Ark.
Our 24 class is at 44. Well below our norm. Then, look at all the misses from the previous classes:
Only 7 of the 2020 class is still here
Only 13 of 2021 (will be less after this season)
Only 18 of 2022 (will be less after this season)
Recruiting has been bad.
Speaking to the last part….I don’t totally disagree. I just think that considering what happened, keeping the staff was best at that time, at that moment. We just hired the wrong guy from the staff to do it.
My response was about recruiting under Leach, not Arnett.
You'd probably find similar losses from many teams since the portal/NIL come into play
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The problem now is nobody wants to sign for a nobody coach. We need a proven winner at head coach
Or at least someone who has been under a winning staff, like Danny in 2008.
So frustrating, there was literally no reason to keep this staff intact except to do the same things we had been doing before. He promptly showed that was never his plan. To me that reflects on the people who hired him, as much as him.
I'm not a huge fan of spurrier junior but I was hoping for a Briles or someone that had a lot of experience on offense. But I wouldn't blame guys like that not wanting to coach for a new coach in sec with no rep. I also think keeping guys on staff without leach running it wouldn't have produced the same results as leach. That would have been unfair to them. Miller and Spurrier Jr aren't leach or spurrier senior. I also think Barbay was a decent up and coming OC at app state and central Michigan with a veteran staff not transitioning offenses. He wouldn't have been my first choice other. I thought it was crazy when we hired arnett in December and made it permanent. I couldn't believe we turned our program over to guy without a championship pedigree building programs for national titles or a proven winner that knows how to build teams. I was told we had to keep the program together and not lose recruits. Now we are 4-4 with a fat chance at a bowl without looking like we have hope for improvement or a good season. I would have like to seen us go to a modified air raid with a better transfer dual threat. But we had Barbay and Arnett and Peterson all leading the charge. Too much inexperience to run an sec program.
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Leach was the staff. No one else on that entire side of the ball was irreplaceable, nor was anyone else on the defensive side besides Arnett (who arguably himself could have been replaced).
It’d be like saying if Dan Mullen died after year 3, saying just hire Les Koenning or Billy Gonzalez and keep rolling. Its nonsense.
Mike Norvell was available when we hired Leach. He's coaching down in Florida somewhere.
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