Croom Walking A Pioneer’s Path at Mississippi State by Pat Forde (ESPN.COM)
Filed Under Mississippi State Sports | Posted on October 30, 2006
Croom Walking a Pioneer’s Path at Mississippi State
by Pat FordeWith every loss, the heat is turned up on the first African-American coach in Southeastern Conference history. There have been 23 defeats for Croom at Mississippi State, and just eight victories. There have been a couple of heartening victories — over No. 20 Florida in 2004 and a rout of bitter rival Mississippi in ‘05 — but there also have been losses to Division I-AA Maine in ‘04 and Tulane last month. And now there are consecutive defeats against fellow SEC weak sister Kentucky.
Croom might be the most impressive coach in America off the field — he’s eloquent, witty, self-assured and personable. But in a league where patience is in preciously short supply, an 8-23 record is enough to make any coach uncomfortable and any fan base irritable. READ IT AT ESPN.com
My only comment would be that I hardly see Coach Croom as a pioneer. I don’t question his integrity as a person. He seems to be a super guy, I question his coaching ability. This has nothing to do with race. A man is being paid to do a job, and he isn’t doing a very good job of it.
Against Kentucky, the Bulldogs jumped offside three times in the first quarter alone. In the second quarter, the Bulldogs put 10 men on the field to return a punt. In the third quarter they surrendered consecutive kickoff returns of 47 and 46 yards to facilitate short Kentucky scoring drives. And in the fourth quarter the Bulldogs burned two precious timeouts at odd times: one on a third down with seven minutes to play, down 10, the other on first-and-goal from the 1.
Those timeouts could have allowed Mississippi State a chance to tie or win at the end of the game. Croom defended calling the last one, saying that the Dogs had to replace their three-wideout personnel with the goal-line personnel. Thing is, a well-oiled team can replace multiple players without needing to stop the clock.
A well oiled team? A coach with the years of experience of Sylvester Croom should have had the players he needed for goal line standing by and ready to go.
In a decorated lifetime of football, Croom had never been the boss. He was a college assistant for 11 years and a professional assistant for 17. He could have continued down that path all the way to retirement without feeling he was missing anything.
Exactly.
“The most stinging criticism I’ve had was when I said something honest and was accused of making excuses,” Croom said. “That hurt. The fans have been great, except for some who don’t fully understand where we are and what we need to get to where we want to be.”
I don’t think the majority of our fans are ignorant of our situation. We know where we have been and where we won’t to go. We aren’t as talentless as Rick Cleveland makes us out to be. The question I ask is what are you doing to fill this void in talent? What blue chippers have you signed and got on campus in your tenure.
Makeup of the coaching staff. There has been significant criticism of offensive coordinator Woody McCorvey, especially after the Bulldogs were shut out the first two weeks of the season and then fell behind Tulane 32-7 before rallying in vain. Templeton said last week that he wouldn’t be involved in making staff changes, and that Croom “will do the right thing” in that area. The coach said he has no intention of firing anyone and hopes the entire staff will be back in 2007. In fact, Croom angrily made that point after the Tulane game, then launched a preemptive attack on callers to his weekly radio show who might be agitating for coaching changes. Steeped in postgame frustration, Croom said he didn’t even enjoy doing the radio show and did not want to do the show. He showed up and did the show that week, and apologized for the outburst. “That was the worst mistake I’ve made since I’ve been here,” Croom said. “And I knew it as soon as I opened my mouth. I thought, ‘I am in deep.’ It probably won’t be the last mistake I make, but I won’t make that one again.”
That was the point when he started losing me. He will have to make some serious changes before he starts winning me back. However, I will always back our Dogs. I won’t boycott games, I will continue to go to every home game I can. I will say this in regards to Brian Anderson’s comments. You have to take anything a player says about a current coach with a grain salt. Several players’ parents sit in our vicinity and believe me they are fed up with some of this stuff as well. Their kids may not be able to voice their opinions, but they do.
