Upcoming 3-game stretch for Arnett

[OG Goat Holder]

The problem with looking only at final record to judge is that it diminishes how we've actually played. We've stunk in our wins so far too. So yeah, many of us already "know" that the guy isn't ready for prime time. And when you know, you know.

Let us go 6-6 with that ugly path to six wins that you're talking about and watch what this looks like during the off season and lead up to next season. There will be absolutely no enthusiasm or momentum for this program, season ticket sales and BC/NIL donations will plummet, and recruiting will continue to bottom out. But hey, he got to six wins so let's keep him? We've got to be more strategic than that.

I don't think many people will judge just based on that 6-6, outside of the older Genespagers. And I agree when you know, you know....MOST of the time. With Croom, we knew. With Moorhead, we knew. With Arnett....I do know he's a pretty good DC, so I'm willing to give him a slightly longer leash, because I think he's just made some bad decisions in the big categories. Maybe he can get it changed. I know, I know, this often doesn't happen, but still.

 

[Drebin]

An ugly path I’n referring to still would require massive improvement. Any path would. This whole “we stink even in our wins” thing, first of all, not true of all our wins and secondly is not going to hold up on the road in the SEC anyway.

We’re not going to win any out of Auburn, A&M, and Arkansas or the Egg if we just step on our dicks for 2/3 of the game on either side of the ball and somehow still get a billion turnovers or a dog urination penalty or what have you. It ain’t happening. Every team on the schedule left besides maybe UK and USM has more talent than we do. This isn’t like 2019 where Moorhead was able to delay the inevitable because we got to play a Chad Morris Arkansas team and a Matt Luke OM team down the stretch. Zero of those teams / coaches on our slate this season.

Have you watched all our games? We played poorly against SELA. We stunk against Arizona and was just lucky that they turned the ball over four times. We stunk against W. Michigan bigly. We have yet to play well for any sustained period. Every QB we've played against so far has had a career day or damn near it. If we were 3-3 but we gave Bama and LSU all they wanted, our defense had showed up at all against Carolina, and we dominated our OOC opponents, this whole thing would feel better, which goes back to my point of not only looking at wins/losses, but how we're winning/losing.

I also don't agree with the talent comment. We have as much or more talent than UK, Ark, and AU. Those are three bad football teams. Ole Miss has better QB talent but outside of the QB room they aren't head-and-shoulders better than us either. We are not the most talented team in the conference but this team has some talent. We're playing guys out of position and we're playing the wrong guys. It's showing up as inconsistency on the offensive line, and an inability to get off the field on defense.

Your entire post pretty much reinforces my thought that we should move on from Arnett regardless of end of year record. We've seen too much that we can't unsee at this point.

 

[Drebin]

I don't think many people will judge just based on that 6-6, outside of the older Genespagers. And I agree when you know, you know....MOST of the time. With Croom, we knew. With Moorhead, we knew. With Arnett....I do know he's a pretty good DC, so I'm willing to give him a slightly longer leash, because I think he's just made some bad decisions in the big categories. Maybe he can get it changed. I know, I know, this often doesn't happen, but still.

I really agreed with your notion of giving him a longer leash based on the defensive track record - but we haven't fixed anything on that side of the ball six games in. That's a red flag to me, because the one thing he's allegedly an expert in is the one thing that sucks above everything else.

And I understand we've lost players and have had some injuries. But our scheme is bad. We're not the 85 bears but we have some talent on that side of the ball and we should be able to piece together a defense that at least has a pulse.

 

[thekimmer]

We have 5 remaining SEC games.
It can be pretty objectively agreed that the 3 worst teams out of those 5 are the ones we play in the next 3 weeks.

If Arnett has any chance at all of a Year 2, I think he has to, at bare mininum, win 1 of these 3, and be competitive in the other 2. Preferably, he wins 2 of 3, but that might be a tall order.

Win 0 - he gone

Win 1 - can save his job with Egg Bowl win, provided that he beats USM

Win 2 - probably safe for next year

Win 3 - LOL

Anyway, won’t be long before a clear direction is set for the program. These are 3 critical games.

I'm hoping for a clear verdict either way. I would be more than satisfied to win 7, show clear improvement and give Arnett another year but I'd frankly rather go 4-8 with a clear path to pull the trigger than win 5 or 6 and live in no-man's land. With that said, Arnett has more going against him than his team performance. He is also getting his a** handed to him on the recruiting trail and that must factor in too.

 

[Boosh]

I'm at a point that if I hear we won any game from here on out, I'll be pleasantly surprised. I don't necessarily expect to lose them all, but I have no confidence in believing that we can win any of them either. About as down on our program as I've been in quite a while and honestly don't currently even have any "wait 'til next year" hope to hang my hat on. I sure hope that hoops season is fun...

This is where I am also. We are the worst team in the SEC until we prove it otherwise and I haven't witnessed anything to put hope in that this will change.

 

[Perd Hapley]

Have you watched all our games? We played poorly against SELA. We stunk against Arizona and was just lucky that they turned the ball over four times. We stunk against W. Michigan bigly. We have yet to play well for any sustained period. Every QB we've played so far has had a career day or damn near it. If we were 3-3 but we gave Bama and LSU all they wanted, our defense had showed up at all against Carolina, and we dominated our OOC opponents, this whole thing would feel better, which goes back to my point of not only looking at wins/losses, but how we're winning/losing.

Disagree about stinking against Arizona. Our offense stunk for 1/3 of the game after getting the lead and going into a shell (dumb move by Arnett which he admitted). Even with that, we still averaged 5.8 yards per play and scored 31 (24 in regulation) with a goal line fumble and a missed FG taking more points off the board. Our D has stunk against everyone at actually stopping people, and Arizona was no exception, but its hard to say they fully stunk after forcing 5 turnovers.

People also continue to look at that game through the lens of Week 2 when everyone thought AZ wasn’t good. We now know they are pretty good, better than we are, both their players and probably their coaches too.

I also don't agree with the talent comment. We have as much or more talent than UK, Ark, and AU. Those are three bad football teams.

Arkansas has one of the top NFL RB prospects in the country and a top 1/3 of the SEC QB in Jefferson. Landon Jackson is better than anyone we have in our front 7….had 4 sacks against Bama’s OL last weekend. Auburn has their usual allotment of Top 20ish talent….but they need a better QB.

Ole Miss has better QB talent but outside of the QB room they aren't head-and-shoulders better than us either. We are not the most talented team in the conference but this team has some talent. We're playing guys out of position and we're playing the wrong guys. It's showing up as inconsistency on the offensive line, and an inability to get off the field on defense.

People evidently won’t believe we don’t have talent until the NFL draft rolls around. Bottom line is that if you don’t have any NFL draft prospects in your 2-deep in the SEC, or at very minimum a very, very good college QB like a KJ Jefferson or Nick Fitzgerald, then 6-6 is your likely ceiling. You’ve gotta have guys on both sides that coaches have to gameplan around because they are problems. Zero NFL prospects in our current 2-deep, and no talent at QB.

Your entire post pretty much reinforces my thought that we should move on from Arnett regardless of end of year record. We've seen too much that we can't unsee at this point.

If we were talking about a guy that had 4 or 5 years as a HC already under his belt, I’d agree. Still will probably wind up agreeing in the end, maybe 3 weeks from now. But since he’s only got 6 games, I’ll give it a little more time before reaching a verdict. It’s not like there’s any other choice…..he ain’t getting canned mid year.

 

[Drebin]

Disagree about stinking against Arizona. Our offense stunk for 1/3 of the game after getting the lead and going into a shell (dumb move by Arnett which he admitted). Even with that, we still averaged 5.8 yards per play and scored 31 (24 in regulation) with a goal line fumble and a missed FG taking more points off the board. Our D has stunk against everyone at actually stopping people, and Arizona was no exception, but its hard to say they fully stunk after forcing 5 turnovers.

People also continue to look at that game through the lens of Week 2 when everyone thought AZ wasn’t good. We now know they are pretty good, better than we are, both their players and probably their coaches too.

Arkansas has one of the top NFL RB prospects in the country and a top 1/3 of the SEC QB in Jefferson. Landon Jackson is better than anyone we have in our front 7….had 4 sacks against Bama’s OL last weekend. Auburn has their usual allotment of Top 20ish talent….but they need a better QB.

People evidently won’t believe we don’t have talent until the NFL draft rolls around. Bottom line is that if you don’t have any NFL draft prospects in your 2-deep in the SEC, or at very minimum a very, very good college QB like a KJ Jefferson or Nick Fitzgerald, then 6-6 is your likely ceiling. You’ve gotta have guys on both sides that coaches have to gameplan around because they are problems. Zero NFL prospects in our current 2-deep, and no talent at QB.

If we were talking about a guy that had 4 or 5 years as a HC already under his belt, I’d agree. Still will probably wind up agreeing in the end, maybe 3 weeks from now. But since he’s only got 6 games, I’ll give it a little more time before reaching a verdict. It’s not like there’s any other choice…..he ain’t getting canned mid year.

So....you agree that we stunk against Arizona then? Our defense didn't "force" 4 TOs....almost all of those were unforced poor decisions by their QB. Our offense was inconsistent at best.

Arkansas has an NFL RB prospect that isn't playing due to injury, and has been really bad when he has played, again, due to injury. Jefferson has gotten fat and slow. Sure Landon Jackson is great - but what about the rest of their defense? Saying a team is more talented than us and then citing one dude in the front seven is kind of a short sighted argument.

We've got some NFL caliber players. Two on the d-line. Maybe one at LB (maybe). Perhaps a RB. A WR/KR. Maybe an OL. No first rounders in there, but not a bunch of scrubs, either. We've got some really young and talented LBs that don't see the field because the sacred cow Jett Johnson has to keep getting snaps.

Like I said, we're not the 85 bears. But we should not be uncompetitive either. Our problems really boil down to this: On offense, we're playing OL out of position and are lacking playmaking talent at the QB position. On defense, we've had a few injuries but our scheme sucks.

 

[MSUDC11-2.0]

I kinda view the two road games one way (maybe you can lump A&M in there too) and Kentucky at home another way.

With Arkansas/Auburn/A&M, look I don’t think anyone is expecting you to win three road games in a row, but these are not good teams. None of them are likely to finish better than 7-5, and that’s including a win against us, so really they could finish 6-6 or worse. You dang sure better be competitive in every one of those games, and it’s inexcusable to go 0-3 in them. 1-2 needs to be the bare minimum in the three road games, and it’s honestly moving the goalposts from the preseason to not expect at least 2-1.

Kentucky at home needs to be a freaking win. They haven’t won in Starkville since Sly Croom was our coach. And not that it factors in just a ton, but you’re breaking out the interlocking MSU for this game, the one thing your fans are looking forward to the rest of the season. You absolutely cannot lose to Kentucky on your home field in the interlocking MSU.

Egg Bowl, whatever, it’s a big game that I feel like most years you should expect to be able to win, especially at home, but they may just have a better team this year and for sure have a better coach, just gonna be tough.

You’ll be able to write the story of this season a week and a half before the Egg Bowl, IMO. Either a young coach took a while to get going and we figured some things out in the second half of the year, or we just flat out suck and will have a new coach soon. It’s kinda the only two options.

 

[Perd Hapley]

So....you agree that we stunk against Arizona then? Our defense didn't "force" 4 TOs....almost all of those were unforced poor decisions by their QB. Our offense was inconsistent at best.

No, I don’t agree. Offense was good for most of the game, and on the whole was OK / competent…..certainly didn’t stink. They were efficient. If you think 31 points and 5.8 yards per play stinks, then you have quite a lot of MSU football amnesia. Defense had its usual issues but did get the turnovers. Poor decisions or not, they still had to make the plays, and they did. Neither side was just awesome but neither totally sucked.

That’s the damn problem with this whole board….everything has to be great / awesome or awful / terrible / unacceptable. Apparently not allowed to ever say, we played decent / OK, and got a win in a game in which we did.

We've got some NFL caliber players. Two on the d-line. Maybe one at LB (maybe). Perhaps a RB. A WR/KR. Maybe an OL. No first rounders in there, but not a bunch of scrubs, either. We've got some really young and talented LBs that don't see the field because the sacred cow Jett Johnson has to keep getting snaps.

If we do, they aren’t out there due to injury or some other reason. Pickering / Crumedy ain’t getting drafted. Jett / Bookie ain’t either. Tulu is a long shot, a lot depends on the combine for him. There’s no one else. The fact that you’re having to say “maybe this guy”, “maybe that guy” perfectly illustrates the point. Other SEC teams besides Vanderbilt usually don’t have that problem.

 

[Drebin]

No, I don’t agree. Offense was good for most of the game, and on the whole was OK / competent…..certainly didn’t stink. They were efficient. If you think 31 points and 5.8 yards per play stinks, then you have quite a lot of MSU football amnesia. Defense had its usual issues but did get the turnovers. Poor decisions or not, they still had to make the plays, and they did. Neither side was just awesome but neither totally sucked.

That’s the damn problem with this whole board….everything has to be great / awesome or awful / terrible / unacceptable. Apparently not allowed to ever say, we played decent / OK, and got a win in a game in which we did.


If we do, they aren’t out there due to injury or some other reason. Pickering / Crumedy ain’t getting drafted. Jett / Bookie ain’t either. Tulu is a long shot, a lot depends on the combine for him. There’s no one else. The fact that you’re having to say “maybe this guy”, “maybe that guy” perfectly illustrates the point. Other SEC teams besides Vanderbilt usually don’t have that problem.

1. You keep talking about offense in the Arizona game. Our offense was inconsistent. Our defense was putrid. I didn't say our offense stunk. I said we stunk. And we did. The biggest reason for that was we couldn't get off the field. We should have won that game going away, and we didn't, because we stunk.

2. Now you're trying to make distinction between "getting drafted" and "NFL caliber." Pickering and Crumedy will get a shot to play in the NFL. We've had worse d-linemen make it in the league. Maybe they get drafted in late rounds, maybe they're FA signings. They can play at the next level. Tulu is an all american. Someone's going to give him a shot. Marks is going to get a shot somewhere. Jett is not an NFL player, but Bookie could make a squad if it's the right situation. We've got some players. Let's stop pretending that we don't.

 

[The Cooterpoot]

We all know our university leadership doesn't give a **** about football. They'll stick us with misery until we're a G5 school and they can be USM and beat their chest over baseball.

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

Right now, I feel about Mississippi State football just like I did after the Maine game with Croom. I'm glad when we win. I don't care when we lose. From this moment on, I'm only concerned if we can show any sign of improvement between now and the end of the season.

As of this moment, I think we have to do some serious work on this staff or flush it.

 

[Ibdancin]

Staff needs to get on up outta here

 

[Seinfeld]

The college football game couldn't be coming back at a better time. I'll need it to escape the brutal reality that is our actual football team.

We absolutely have to break it in next year with an unofficial SPS tournament

 

[Rupert Jenkins]

We got lucky against AZ and WM. Two lower tier programs. SC is garbage and thier coach is on the hot seat so it's bs to call that a good loss. We are going 4 and 8 maybe 5 and 7 with a little luck. Then over half our starters are leaving the program. Barring some miraculous portal wizardry by a staff that sucks at talent assessment and cant recruit we will be worse next year and some of these teams will improve. This staff is incompetent. Who rotates the OL randomly thru out the game ?? Who pulls a redshirt off a tackle so he can play tightend when you have other tackles available?? Next year we will be lucky to win all of our OOC games.

 

[Rupert Jenkins]

Also in reference to Arkansas being ready to quit mentally I feel sure they look at us as a " get right" game and can't wait to roll our a$$es. I mean honestly, they played very well against people that pummeled us.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

No, I don’t agree. Offense was good for most of the game, and on the whole was OK / competent…..certainly didn’t stink. They were efficient. If you think 31 points and 5.8 yards per play stinks, then you have quite a lot of MSU football amnesia. Defense had its usual issues but did get the turnovers. Poor decisions or not, they still had to make the plays, and they did. Neither side was just awesome but neither totally sucked.

That’s the damn problem with this whole board….everything has to be great / awesome or awful / terrible / unacceptable. Apparently not allowed to ever say, we played decent / OK, and got a win in a game in which we did.


If we do, they aren’t out there due to injury or some other reason. Pickering / Crumedy ain’t getting drafted. Jett / Bookie ain’t either. Tulu is a long shot, a lot depends on the combine for him. There’s no one else. The fact that you’re having to say “maybe this guy”, “maybe that guy” perfectly illustrates the point. Other SEC teams besides Vanderbilt usually don’t have that problem.

Our offense was so frustrating vs. Arizona that I got hammered and went outside and started drunk dialing folks to bltch about it.

We won that game because DeLaura pulled a Mike Henig. Notice how their backup is better than him now, and they are playing better?

 

[Perd Hapley]

2. Now you're trying to make distinction between "getting drafted" and "NFL caliber." Pickering and Crumedy will get a shot to play in the NFL. We've had worse d-linemen make it in the league. Maybe they get drafted in late rounds, maybe they're FA signings. They can play at the next level. Tulu is an all american. Someone's going to give him a shot. Marks is going to get a shot somewhere. Jett is not an NFL player, but Bookie could make a squad if it's the right situation. We've got some players. Let's stop pretending that we don't.

Damn right I’m making a distinction. If Pickering or Crumedy had a shot in the NFL, they would have both gone after the opportunity 2-3 years ago when they were first draft eligible. The league minimum on the 53-man is freaking $750k now. Even practice squad guys get $200k per year if they stay on for the whole season. You think they each passed up a potential $400k - $2.2 million just because they love their situation now?

Can they sign a UDFA deal? Sure. And they might hang on for a few months or so. So will guys from Jackson State and Furman and elsewhere who also have no shot at making it. I brought up “getting drafted” very clearly to make the distinction of guys like Gabe Jackson and Vick Ballard from guys like Lance Long.

And by the way, if you’ve got a link to an All American team with Tulu on it, please share. If you’ve got a link to his projected draft position, please share that, too. He’s by far the best player we have but even he isn’t a draft shoe-in.

 

[Drebin]

Damn right I’m making a distinction. If Pickering or Crumedy had a shot in the NFL, they would have both gone after the opportunity 2-3 years ago when they were first draft eligible. The league minimum on the 53-man is freaking $750k now. Even practice squad guys get $200k per year if they stay on for the whole season. You think they each passed up a potential $400k - $2.2 million just because they love their situation now?

Can they sign a UDFA deal? Sure. And they might hang on for a few months or so. So will guys from Jackson State and Furman and elsewhere who also have no shot at making it. I brought up “getting drafted” very clearly to make the distinction of guys like Gabe Jackson and Vick Ballard from guys like Lance Long.

And by the way, if you’ve got a link to an All American team with Tulu on it, please share. If you’ve got a link to his projected draft position, please share that, too. He’s by far the best player we have but even he isn’t a draft shoe-in.

You realize that we have had many guys play in the NFL who weren't drafted, right? Including one tonight. I said they were NFL caliber. You changed the argument to "drafted." That's pretty disingenuous. The guys I mentioned will get a shot.

As far as Tulu? https://www.si.com/college/mississi...ffin-named-to-espn-preseason-all-america-team

I'll wait for you to crap all over that before commenting on it further.

You seem to be working overtime to make really ****** excuses for a really ****** coaching job done by this ****** coaching staff.

 

[Perd Hapley]

You realize that we have had many guys play in the NFL who weren't drafted, right? Including one tonight. I said they were NFL caliber. You changed the argument to "drafted." That's pretty disingenuous. The guys I mentioned will get a shot.

As far as Tulu? https://www.si.com/college/mississi...ffin-named-to-espn-preseason-all-america-team

I'll wait for you to crap all over that before commenting on it further.

You seem to be working overtime to make really ****** excuses for a really ****** coaching job done by this ****** coaching staff.

Jesus. I never made any excuses for the staff. Didn’t I say things have been pretty shítty and we have miles to go to get to the 6-6 that Arnett needs to feel good about not being fired? The talent is a big part of that, and Arnett no doubt bears some blame for the talent not being there at least on his side of the ball, but its an issue no matter whose fault it is. Then you took it personally that I dared question if we have good players where we need them to win in the SEC.

And I never changed any argument. For every one guy we have that goes undrafted and still makes a 53 man for a year or two, we have 10 that don’t. Draftable talent was implied, because that’s what we go against every week that we aren’t playing Vandy. We play in a league that leads the country, by a wide margin, in NFL draft picks every year. No one in our league is scouring the roster for a handful of 3-4 “maybe NFL practice squad” guys to support the notion that they can compete. We’re bottom 3-4 in the league, at best, in our roster talent. Its an issue. Blame whoever you want for why its an issue.

 

[knock him out john]

Perhaps 3-9 with a horrific Egg Bowl loss.
But no matter how bad it gets, I say he's got at least another year.

We've proven we can get a gimmicky big-name coach to Starkville - Leach
We've proven we can get a past-his-prime winning coach with a sh-tton of baggage - JWS

We will never be able to throw enough money at a new hire. We do not have the resources, particularly in the NIL age.

The next coaching search will make evident we CANNOT get a big-name, big-time winner to Starkville. A new coaching search is going to be painful and depressing.

Our best bet is to hire an up and comer and praying they can get it done in Starkville. But if they do, they'll likely pull a Mullenz, so PREPARE FOR DOOM!

we were told Arnett was the young up and comer.....