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For the Croom lovers

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C

Crimson-Blitz

All-American
Jul 19, 2001
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Hsv, AL, U.S.A.
First of all I'd like to say that I like Sylvester Croom as well as the next guy. Since he is a Bama guy I hope he does well, but frankly I'm sick of hearing about how Sherrill left a "bare cupboard". That is simply not true. Mississippi State has plenty of good D1 talent. Plus, they returned 7 starters on offense and seven on defense this season. That's a pretty good number for any D1 team.

Croom might evolve into a great coach, but his efforts so far have been mediocre at best.

The bottom line is that Croom has been outcoached badly in a couple of games this year, and in other games chose offensive strategies that were ill-suited for his players. Against both Maine and Vanderbilt Sly posessed better better athletic talent than his opponent. In those circumstances the only way you lose is turnovers, mistakes, or coaching. In both those games Croom tried to stay with a pass-oriented attack that produced more turnovers than anything else. We hear a lot of criticism about Shula not being able to make "adjustments" (an invalid criticism in my book). Well, Croom didn't make any either and he got whacked by two TERRIBLE teams. Against LSU he never gave his team a chance. He ran the ball only 22 times while staying with a passing game that operated at only 30% efficiency and tons of turnovers. Again, no adjustments during the game. Against UAB, another team less talented than MSU, his players got flat-out outplayed. MSU looked like they were going through the motions.

Since he has gone with a run oriented attack he has had more success. The Green Bay offense didn't cut it at MSU and they have had improvement since they abandoned it.

Thus far I'm much more impressed with the job Shula is doing. I'm glad Sly did not get the job this go-round, regardless of how much I respect him individually.
 
Yes!!

I could not agree with you more! Coaching at Alabama for Croom is all but a distant memory, but that won't take away his complete bitterness towards The University, which I still don't understand. We need not to forget that Croom is coaching for the enemy, however that does not make him any lesser that he was when he was interviewed for the job at The University. He is still an honest, hard-working, great guy.

What are MSU's realistic short-term and long-term expectations? Shula is truly resurecting a great progam, I don't know what Croom is doing?
 
Croom may prove to be a great coach over time. I guess what I'm really trying to express is that I am not impressed with his efforts up to the Florida game, and I feel that the media keeps making excuses for poor performance by saying that MSU doesn't have talent. I feel they have much better talent than 3 of the teams they lost to.
 
I agree, MSU was NOT on probation, they have a full alotment of scholly's and up until last year all we heard was how well their recruiting was going. Even the NCAA probation will have no measurable effect since MSU "wisely I might add" used the "we hired a black guy" trump card.

We are horribly short on scholarship players, I'm amazed we are in a position to get to a bowl game.

I'm just ready to get this game on, If MSU thinks they are going to come into Tuscalloosa "more" motivated than any of our other apponents they are dillusional. EVERY team we play conciders Alabama a huge game, Even though we have suffered some bad seasons that has not changed one bit. Most of our apponents circle Alabama as one of the top 3 teams they want to beat on the schedule. Fulmer most likely conciders the Alabama game one of his top two must win games. Auburn still conciders it the number one must win.
 
I Agree

:biga: I agree with both of you. I think that we chose the right coach. Shula has come a long way and still has work ahead of him. He is doing good with what he and team had to deal with. Croom also has challenges that he has to deal with. I hope he does good at MS. He will always have my respect because of his years here at Bama. I can't help but wonder about how much better things would be with out the interference from the media. My biggest problem is with the half-truths, the lies and bias we are subject to on a daily basis. No matter how this season and future seasons are , I'll still scream" ROLL TIDE!" anyway. :BigA:
 
bamaslammer said:
I agree, MSU was NOT on probation, they have a full alotment of scholly's and up until last year all we heard was how well their recruiting was going.
Click to expand...

Agreed. It DID go pretty well, and Croom has some excellent young talent to work with. He doesn't have any excuse for fielding an uncompetitive team.
 
in

but frankly I'm sick of hearing about how Sherrill left a "bare cupboard". That is simply not true. Mississippi State has plenty of good D1 talent

no they dont have D-1 talent. I dont know why you're saying that I guess you wanna have an excuse for if croom beats shula. So You can say it wasnt coaching on croom's part
 
Dude wake up!

crimsonite said:
but frankly I'm sick of hearing about how Sherrill left a "bare cupboard". That is simply not true. Mississippi State has plenty of good D1 talent

no they dont have D-1 talent. I dont know why you're saying that I guess you wanna have an excuse for if croom beats shula. So You can say it wasnt coaching on croom's part
Click to expand...
MSU has got the same amount of D-1 talent players they usally have.
I live 20 miles away and can tell you the players they have look about as good or bad as they do every year.
For you to say they have no D-1 talent makes me wonder if you are mad at Bama for not hiring croom(from your post it looks like you expect Croom to beat shula and want to say it was all coaching and not the players making plays) or just Dont know what D-1 talent is.
what if I name a couple of guys who were recruited by bama but chose to go to state.By chosing state does that make them less than D-1 talent( crazy mabey)?
OH here are the names so you wont think I'm talking crap.
Milions(freddie's brother) and Lowe(ranked second in the sec for punt returns)( his father eddie and his uncle woodrow played for Coach Bryant at bama).
As for their qb omar he was chased by UT,LSU and OLE MISS before going to state(Grades not talent caused most of the other teams to stop recruiting him).
State has D-1 talent but State just sucks.
They Usally do.
SPericani2.gif
 
MSU never has equal talent to BAMA. They will always take a backseat to BAMA because of their location and reputation. Why do y'all suppose they've always had to rely so heavily on JUCO players? CSC has a great rep as a recruiter, but he sure has his work cut out for him in order to match the TIDE.
 
My point is....

....that MSU has plenty of atheletes on their squad who could play at other SEC schools. They didn't beat Florida with a bunch of waterboys.

I agree that they will allways face an uphill battle in recruiting against Bama, but sometimes they win those fights (T. Milons, Lowe, etc.).
 
Frankly, I'm glad we have Shula at Alabama. Despite the 4-9 record last year. We're currently at 5-3 for this season which is already an improvement even if we were to lose the remaining games. I feel that it's an uphill battle, but possible, to win the remaining games on the schedule, and with a bowl victory, could wind up with a 9-3 record. After the dust settled from the Iron Bowl last year, did you really give Bama a chance to be 5-3 and a possibility (small as it it may be) to finish 9-3? Coach Croom is sitting on a 3-5 record with a pretty good shot at finishing 3-8. With a full allotment of scholarship athletes.

But write it down. If Bama loses to either LSU or Auburn, or even worse, to both...there will be numerous "Fire Shula" or "Hire Croom" threads on this board and all other Bama boards.
 
Imo

both schools ended up hiring the the particular coach whose style and demeanor fit their respective programs best. There is no shame in being the head coach at MSU or any other SEC school for that matter. Coaches usually bring the shame on themselves by their actions or abilities as a head coach. Alabama didn't necessarily need a strong player disciplinarian. MSU, based on Coach Croom's decisions to remove some of the players from the team, must have seen a need for a disciplinarian type coach and saw it in Sylvester Croom. It is hard to convince me, and a lot of others, with the exception of those in the media who thrive on tabloid style journalism, that race played a part in his not being hired at Alabama. I think the AD and university president saw a need for a coach that had a style and demeanor that Mike Shula fit. There was nor should there have ever been any controversy in the hiring of Mike Shula at Alabama. The so-called controversy was the brainchild of certain media members. The likes of people who want to intervene when their not needed, ala Jesse Jackson, only tend to create a problem when one did not exist. The game of college football is bigger than any individual no matter their race, religion or creed. Integrity and ability are the two main ingredients that make a good coach. Skin color has nothing to do with it. Both Mike Shula and Sylvester Croom have those ingredients. Time will prove that to those who have yet to be convinced but will approach this with open minds. That being said.......

ROLL TIDE!!! :BigA:
 
Ever since this Shula vs. Croom stuff started, it has always really bothered me that so many articles in national publications talked about how Croom was more qualified. With the game coming up, I decided to do a little research yesterday. Here are the coaching resumes of the three finalists Alabama considered for the job.

Richard Williamson (most of the college coaching information did not specify a position)
1963-1967 Univ. of Alabama
1968-1969 Univ. of Arkansas
1970-1971 Univ. of Alabama
1972-1974 Univ. of Arkansas
1975-1980 Head Coach Memphis State
1983-1986 Kansas City Chiefs WRs?
1987-1991 Tampa Bay Bucs WRs/interim HC 1990 & 1991
1992-1994 Cinncinati Bengals WRs
1995-2004 Carolina Panthers WRs/Offensive Coordinator 2000 & 2001

Sylvester Croom
1977-1986 Linebackers Univ. of Alabama
1987-1990 Runningbacks Detroit Lions
1991 Runningbacks Indianapolis Colts
1992-1996 Runningbacks San Diego Chargers
1997-2000 Offensive Coordinator Detroit Lions
2001-2003? Running Backs Green Bay Packers

Mike Shula
1988-1989 Offensive Assistant Tampa Bay Bucs
1990 Quarterbacks Tampa Bay Bucs
1991-1992 Assistant Coach Miami Dolphins
1993-1995 Tight Ends Chicago Bears
1996-1999 Offensive Coordinator Tampa Bay Bucs
2000-2002 Quarterbacks Miami Dolphins

So I don't see how Croom was obviously such a better choice. He has more experience of course, he's older and been in coaching longer. Both have basically coached since college graduation, both had short stints as professional players. If amount of experience matters so much, why wasn't Williamson the best choice? He has much more experience than either Shula or Croom, plus he has actually been a head coach twice. There was specualtion at the time that Williamson was considered too old and that Alabama wanted a young coach. Where was the AARP? Why weren't they protesting in Tuscaloosa, sounds like a clear case of age discrimination to me. Shula and Croom were both basically career position coaches, with short (4 years for both) stints as Offensive Coordinators. Croom has more total experience, but he is 11 years older. So can anyone tell me why Croom was OBVIOUSLY the better choice? Of course I think I know the answer to that one.

I feel relatively certain that race played no issue in our failure to hire Croom. I think the biggest reason Shula was chosen over Croom was his last name. For recruiting purposes I believe that name means something and brings a certain amount of clout. Most likely having the first black head coach in the SEC would have also helped recruiting. Shula and Croom are both good people and good coaches. Only time will tell which one is a better coach; for all we know now they could both turn out complete disasters.
 
I think that many of you are forgetting that Croom took over a demoralized program and instituted a new system. It would have taken a miracle for him to have this team win right out of the gates. Of course, I have no explanation for the loss to Maine, but this team seems to have its act together now and Bama had better be looking for a tough game or they/we will lose.

I do not think that, with 2 weeks to prepare, Bama will lose this game - but Croom is a very good coach. In a few years, that wil be obvious to everyone in the country.
 
Neither coach has been a head coach long enough to say how good they are or will be. And whoever wins the game on Saturday won't prove who is the best coach.

Mike Dubose was 2-1 vs Spurrier.

Would you say that Dubose is a better coach than Spurrier?

So good luck to Coach Shula, and bad luck to Coach Croom. After all, he is the enemy coming into our stadium on Saturday. Let him get his wins elsewhere.

:eek:
 
Crimson-Blitz said:
First of all I'd like to say that I like Sylvester Croom as well as the next guy. Since he is a Bama guy I hope he does well, but frankly I'm sick of hearing about how Sherrill left a "bare cupboard". That is simply not true. Mississippi State has plenty of good D1 talent. Plus, they returned 7 starters on offense and seven on defense this season. That's a pretty good number for any D1 team.

Croom might evolve into a great coach, but his efforts so far have been mediocre at best.

The bottom line is that Croom has been outcoached badly in a couple of games this year, and in other games chose offensive strategies that were ill-suited for his players. Against both Maine and Vanderbilt Sly posessed better better athletic talent than his opponent. In those circumstances the only way you lose is turnovers, mistakes, or coaching. In both those games Croom tried to stay with a pass-oriented attack that produced more turnovers than anything else. We hear a lot of criticism about Shula not being able to make "adjustments" (an invalid criticism in my book). Well, Croom didn't make any either and he got whacked by two TERRIBLE teams. Against LSU he never gave his team a chance. He ran the ball only 22 times while staying with a passing game that operated at only 30% efficiency and tons of turnovers. Again, no adjustments during the game. Against UAB, another team less talented than MSU, his players got flat-out outplayed. MSU looked like they were going through the motions.

Since he has gone with a run oriented attack he has had more success. The Green Bay offense didn't cut it at MSU and they have had improvement since they abandoned it.

Thus far I'm much more impressed with the job Shula is doing. I'm glad Sly did not get the job this go-round, regardless of how much I respect him individually.
Click to expand...

I am the hater of the year so its time to hate. I love ALABAMA like the next person, but shula has not been that impressive. Alabama has more moral victories that wins in the past 2 years. now i back the hiring of shula and believe that if brodie wasn't injured 9-2 10-1 and 11-0 was realistic, but looking back at so. carolina and arkansas i say he was outcoached. croom beat an overrated but ranked team in Florida as his big win, people are saying southern miss and or mississippi st is shula's key wins. i think that the croom shula comparision is a bit tiresome and needs to be dropped but dont downgrade croom in favor of shula because honestly neither has accomplished anything yet.
 
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crimsonite said:
but frankly I'm sick of hearing about how Sherrill left a "bare cupboard". That is simply not true. Mississippi State has plenty of good D1 talent

no they dont have D-1 talent. I dont know why you're saying that I guess you wanna have an excuse for if croom beats shula. So You can say it wasnt coaching on croom's part
Click to expand...

I got the motives for this post figured out. :eek2:
 
HATERofTHEyear said:
I am the hater of the year so its time to hate. I love ALABAMA like the next person, but shula has not been that impressive. Alabama has more moral victories that wins in the past 2 years. now i back the hiring of shula and believe that if brodie wasn't injured 9-2 10-1 and 11-0 was realistic, but looking back at so. carolina and arkansas i say he was outcoached. croom beat an overrated but ranked team in Florida as his big win, people are saying southern miss and or mississippi st is shula's key wins. i think that the croom shula comparision is a bit tiresome and needs to be dropped but dont downgrade croom in favor of shula because honestly neither has accomplished anything yet.
Click to expand...

Yeah, because Shula has so much talent and depth to work with. Hell, I think he should be 21 - 0 in career here at Alabama. I mean C'mon, he had 115 days (that's more than 3 WHOLE months!)to get them his offense implemented last year. How much time did he need? This is only a Div 1-A Football team playing in the SEC. I mean how hard can it be?? I also agree with about you about being outcoached on the S Car and Ark games. I mean just because he had 2 inexperieced QB's that were throwing INT's on almost other series is no reason to limit the offense to a one dimension running attack. He should have thrown the ball every play during those games..I mean they would started throwing TD's on every down if he would have just stuck to game plan. You know, maybe since you possess this infinite football knowledge, you should change you name to Thinker Of The Year :rolleyes:
 
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