re: How the SEC destroyed S.Miss and could Kill football

quote:

---

It can absolutely be done, and Johnson did it. He had no business taking that job, and a lot of USC fans thought the same when he was flirting with it. He was a poor fit for what USM was running at the time, and the horses that they had in the stable.

The writer brings up some very valid points, from a smaller-school perspective. The Power Five will eviscerate the Group of Five or whatever it's called, until you essentially have three divisions of football - BCS-level, 1-A, and 1-AA. I'm not sure that's in the best interest of the game, long-term.

And Saban and Bert were completely wrong to try and change the rules so that they didn't have to adapt. I lost a lot of respect for both of them when they pulled that stunt. The game evolves. Either figure it out, or get run over. And I say that as a fan/alum of a school who got run the frick over last week.

---

Every bit of this.

As a fan of a school that had Curley Hallman as a coach (thanks USM and Brett Favre!!!), I can attest to what one horrible coach can do to a program. Dinardo was actually pretty good, but he could not fully pull LSU out of the dumpster fire that was Hallman.

quote:

---

If your program can be totally destroyed in 11 months, it wasn't much of a program to begin with.

I'm not saying he was a good head coach, but blaming one guy and not any of the other 100 factors is just short-sighted boneheadism.

---

And the few USM fans there are don't realize this. It wasn't all Ellis Johnson. They think they had some great program that was destroyed but fact of the matter is, they were going to be really bad when Fedora left because they weren't getting their recruits to replace the talent leaving. Monken may have only won one or two games the year Johnson took over. That's how bad they are.

Troy hasn't done shite lately. Back in 2006-2010 we were good. Our coordinators get snatched up and we go to shite. There's just not enough money to keep good coaches in Troy. Used to be known for good defense and average offense. Since they went to the spread the D has suffered. The problem now is that they don't seem to want to get rid of Blakeney until he's ready to retire. Probably because he's been there so long and took them up to FBS. But we had to bear Texas a State last year just to get to 6-6. That performance at UAB was abysmal. I hope that Bill Clark works out for them but I have a feeling he'll jump to an SEC positions or coordinator position within 2-3 years if they have some good seasons.

quote:

---

Ellllllllllllos Johnson Pappy Buttermilk completely destroyed the football program at Southern Miss. The bright side of it is that I know people that have made a pile of money betting the other side.

---

Question...why did USM go the Ellis Johnson route? Did he not pretty much have to change systems on both sides of the ball? Or did he? I never understood the hire, although as an Auburn fan, I am glad he is where he is now.

quote:

---

Southern Miss went to 10 straight bowls prior to the Ellis Johnson experiment. They won 11 games in 2011.

Troy and UAB had nothing at all to do with their current situation.

---

Southern Miss use to make a living off players from Alabama that AU and UA didn't sign. Those players have other options within the state now. Miss does not produce enough players for MS and OM plus SEC Teams that raid the state. One coach for one year does not produce the numbers that we are seeing from SM.

quote:

---

Ole Miss and Miss State are both good right now and that cuts into USM's recruiting.

---

USM has never out recruited Ole Miss and State even when they were good and we were bad. It's ULL and South Alabama that's killing their recruiting.

quote:

---

Is it possible they could see the error of their ways and convince Bower to come back kinda like KState did with Snyder?

---

Those situations aren't analogous. Bower was fired, Snyder retired, picked his successor, and came back to salvage the program that he built from the incompetence of Prince.

quote:

---

Question...why did USM go the Ellis Johnson route? Did he not pretty much have to change systems on both sides of the ball? Or did he? I never understood the hire, although as an Auburn fan, I am glad he is where he is now.

---

Johnson wanted to try and be a head coach again, and Southern Miss was interested in what he had done at USC. Johnson's stint at the Citadel was bad, but he had spent a lot of time as an assistant rebuilding his reputation. He wanted to see if he could do it, and Southern Miss called. It was a poor fit, kinda like Spurrier with the Redskins, but it was the only position open.

What was particularly frustrating for USC fans was that we all kinda thought that Johnson was going to fail at USM, in no small part because of the overall fit of what they had done to be successful, and what he was going to bring to the program.

IIRC, Johnson's wife went to school at USC, and had opened a small business catering to the sorority crowd in Columbia (edit: it's still open. Johnson had also spent so much time as an assistant and HC across the schools in South Carolina, that he was only a few years shy of being eligible for the state employee pension plan. I remember he said something about how that was one of the main reasons he had trepidation about leaving.

I liked Johnson, and appreciated what he did at USC. In hindsight, I think he underachieved to an extent with the amount of talent that he had on his defenses, but he definitely helped fix the damage that was done when Nix was in his stead. However, even with what he had, he could never figure out a way to even slow down Petrino at Arkansas.

quote:

---

But, in every other sport, mid-major programs can field competitive teams

---

Quick quiz: Last mid-major to win a national title in basketball, GO