Mississippi State Sports Blog

I love it when people no where near Starkville think they now what will happen there. MSNBC.com has a story about the two remaining black coaches in college football:

In his debut season of 2004, Croom’s Bulldogs finished 3-8 overall, 2-6 in conference. That’s a mulligan for anybody. A first-year coach is busy assembling a staff, implementing his system, familiarizing himself with his environment and his opponents, and trying to build a recruiting base. Besides, Mississippi State’s upset of Florida provided him with some coaching capital.

But what happens next year if he struggles again? The SEC is a strong conference. Florida figures to be better with whichever marquee name replaces Ron Zook. South Carolina might improve under Steve Spurrier. Auburn? LSU? Alabama? Likely they’ll all be as good or better than they were in 2004.

Croom could turn out to be a fantastically successful coach, but the odds are against him in terms of recruiting. In the South, Mississippi State traditionally gets the table scraps left from the other powers. Besides the conference rivals, MSU competes for kids against the Texas and Oklahoma schools as well.

If Croom doesn’t turn around Mississippi State in three years, he might be in trouble, too.

The odds are against Coach Croom in recruiting - recruiting national blue chip recruits - but as we’ve all seen in countless examples, teams don’t have to sign top 25 classes to field top 25 teams. How many Parade All-Americans does Louisville have? Utah? Boise State? Conversely, Parade All-Americans don’t translate into championships if they don’t fit the system or if there isn’t the kind of depth winning teams need.

No one at State demands us to supplant Florida or LSU or Auburn atop the SEC year after year - those guys can’t even stay on top for consectutive years. All State fans are asking for is winning seasons and bowls. That’s it. An occasional trip to Atlanta would be nice. Basically what Ole Miss had in Cutcliffe’s first five years and what Sherrill had from ‘97-’00. We’ve done it before; we can do it again.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 2nd, 2004 at 9:52 am and is filed under Mississippi State. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.