So I’ve been late writing this for what feels like good reason. I will speak about it more tomorrow night on the podcast.
I will preface my thoughts by saying, I will always root for Mississippi State football, I love getting nasty fall sunburns and cowbell blisters. I love learning about these players and rooting for their success in college (even if they transfer away) and at the professional level (even if they play for the Eagles). I’ll continue to pull for Mike Leach’s success, and I’ll scream the same on Saturdays that he calls plays as I did for Dan Mullen when he was calling plays.
I’ll now go into my rant.
We looked like shit for 3 quarters. At almost no point did I think we were going to run away with the game. Our defense is the only bright spot but Leach called plays like he was scared, and it put our defense in an unfair position.
Yes I know Malik Heath got mugged on the goal line, and I know “if we make that field goal then we would be tied with momentum.” I know that “we were an onside kick from a comeback.” I saw the same game as all you “yeah but” fans.
I hate watching the air raid look about the same as it did last season. The same penalty issues that cost us games under JoMo that we called an issue, are non-issues because Leach is perceived as a disciplinarian. We have another 2 turnover day which almost cost us the game to LA Tech, cost us the game against Memphis, and again kill us against LSU.
For the 3rd time in 4 weeks we were down at least 2 scores going into the 4th quarter, and we look worse at airing the ball out than a run-centric teams like Arkansas.
Max Johnson had more TDs in the air than Rogers. We had another drive that stalled out inside of the 5-yard line, leading to the halftime score being 7-3 instead of 7-7. We are without a doubt the worst short-yardage team, and it isn’t close.
And for all of you “All Leach Does Is Win” people.
He has been moderately successful in 2 non-defensive leagues. The linebackers of the PAC-12 and Big-12 are far smaller and slower than the monsters of the SEC West. He is 145 -99 (59.4%), with 4 of his years being 7-6 or 6-7. He has had 2 double-digit win seasons.
When inheriting a program that has grown accustomed to winning, your turn around can’t be 4-7 and a 2-2 start. We just fired Joe Moorhead (Now OC of 3 Oregon) for a 8-5 and a 6-7 season.
Yes, I know “Covid messed things up.”
Good coaches stick to their scheme, great coaches adapt. Saban has adapted, Lane Kiffin adapted, even Sam Pittman has turned around the absolute bottom feeder that was Arkansas.
“But he’s the air raid guy”
Yes, and that is why we come into the Covid season and get waxed all season long, then turn around to play after his first normal offseason and almost get waxed by LA Tech. The announcers keep promising that his big come up will come, but let us not forget that at Washington State Leach only beat Washington once and he only beat Texas twice while at TTU.
Leach’s overall strength of schedule average was 3.23 (including his time at MSST which has his highest strength of schedule by far). Meaning, even though his average S.O.S. at TTU was 2.28, he only averaged 8.4 wins, but now with an average S.O.S. of 8.00 we expect him to perform better. When at Washington State his average S.O.S being 3.22, his yearly win average was only 6.88.
I hate hearing this “all he does is win” argument, he doesn’t just win. He has had two big win seasons.
In 2008, he got 11 wins against a strength of schedule of 3.00.
In 2018, he got 11 wins with an strength of schedule of 0.04.
It is clear that as long as the strength of schedule is extremely low, we may be able to hope for an Alamo Bowl win. Problem is that when you play in the SEC, the strength of schedule will likely not be below 6.
He is not a national champion coach, in fact he’s never been in the natty. I think that we need to pump the brakes on the “swing your sword” memorabilia.
We as a school are forced to keep Leach for another 2 years at least, so we have nothing but hope moving forward. And that should frustrate the hell out of the fan base. We will miss the up and comers and we will likely lose Arnett in the next season, and if the current trajectory is indicative of future play, we can expect to lose future recruiting power.
I don’t want to continue to diminish our recruiting ability while the league expands and adds 2 more big money teams. The last thing I want is to be trying to recruit QBs against OU and WRs against Texas. I already dread recruiting LBs against UGA and DBs against Alabama.
Georgia is number 2 right now because they were the number 1 recruiting class 3 years ago. While Mississippi State is has been consistently in the 20-25 range in recruiting class, we see the skill disparity between the top and bottom of the league. If we let the gap continue to widen between Mississippi State and Alabama and Ole Miss we may find ourselves in football bankruptcy for a decade to come.
I said this while sitting in differential equations 2 years ago, I don’t want the air raid, I want a seasoned SEC coordinator who has been successful at Alabama, Georgia, or Florida. We had much success when we hired an OC from Florida a few years back, but funny enough we could have gotten Sark and continued to develop the amazing talent on our team.
The worst part is watching us waste the talent we have. I feel for the guys who are watching their draft stock fall to 6th and 7th round status because the team can’t find victories. Why would you hire a MSST WR if our offense is stagnant until garbage time? I know they are talented, and Malik Heath may be the most lethal WR in Southeast, but the scouts aren’t watching if the QB can’t get the ball to him.
We have a QB who has roughly a 70% completion percentage on throws over 20 yards, yet he won’t throw the deep balls until the game is out of hand. We have a coach that isn’t getting his QB comfortable throwing the deep ball.
We have 2 premier 4-star running backs that are wasting on the shelf. AGAIN, YES I KNOW HES THE AIR RAID GUY. I don’t like watching my RB get slaughtered on 3 yard gains all game long where they have no momentum and no blockers, just so they can break one for 30 yards at the end of the game and some twitter fan can claim “see they average 7 yards per catch.” Sure the stats say Marks avg 7.4 yds per reception, and Johnson averages 6.4, but the eye test will tell you those guys took a beating underneath all game.
When they get 21 carries for 97 yards, you wonder how good they could be if they were getting some momentum behind those big guys.
We have 6 receivers this season that average over 9 yards per reception, and yet we compress the field by pounding the underneath routes the first 45 minutes of the game. We fail to scheme these wide outs open throughout the game. Any offensive guru would try to stretch the defense out early and often to keep the safeties out of the box.
Saturday against LSU was the latest in the long line of disappointing games. It felt like after Heath’s fumble, the team just gave up. I don’t blame Heath for that fumble, fumbles happen, but it is Leach’s job to get his team going.
At the end of the half we get the ball with 45 seconds, and we hand the ball off a few times and throw some underneath crossing routes. We call 0 timeouts and go into the half with 2 in our pocket. We surrendered the lead at the half like chumps instead of attempting to go put up another field goal and try to close the gap to 1 point or even try to take the lead.
At the end of the game, down 2 possessions, we take 3:30 to travel down the field instead of moving with pace to try to keep the clock full. And after last week’s debacle, Leach let the twitter rage that called for him to challenge the punt call poison his brain and he challenged a clearly short onside kick that we touched early.
Our points per game is still below 30 points, despite the promise that Leach would magically get us to 35 in his second year. Our 3rd down efficiency is below 50%, and our 4th % is 33.33%.
The greatest thing to see this season is that our linemen look amazing as always. Any good NFL team needs a Mississippi State lineman on their roster, and they have not allowed as many sacks this season as they did last year.
Long rant summarized: I hate the air raid, I have no faith in its success. Mostly, I’m tired of you ding dongs who claim that he’ll just magically start winning when the stats don’t show that, and you claim Covid messed him up while I watch 2nd year coaches across the NCAA and the SEC take their team to undefeated and more while we circle the drain.
-JW
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