This is one of those “hmmm, don’t know how I missed that” stats.
Still makes Moorhead’s first season at MSU a little hard to explain, unless you really want to chalk it up to having a round peg in a square hole at quarterback. If that’s the case, then his offense has a chance to step up this season behind a transfer from Penn State, I would think.
Get The Picture 
In fairness to Moorhead, they improved on both sides of the ball by S&P+, and that’s with a square peg and all of that on offense. Considering it was his first season, the fact that he essentially had the same record as Mullen’s final year and improved the team’s statistical profile is a positive.
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I posted about that before. MSU’s offensive splits in games they won vs. games they lost is a bit alarming.
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Being one-dimensional will do that. I’m not saying it’s a given that he’s going to be successful. In fact, being as it’s Mississippi State, the deck is stacked against that. I just don’t think his first year with a QB who was an awful passer points to some kind of problem with his offensive coaching.
It’ll be interesting to see if he can improve the offense further to make up for the inevitable regression on defense this year. Otherwise, depending on how teams like Tennessee and Arkansas do with second-year head coaches, bowl eligibility might be their ceiling.
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If an OC makes an instant impact and has a couple good seasons, the tendency in college football is to label him a rising star. In Moorehead’s best two seasons, his offenses averaged less ypp than Chaney’s 2017-8. Is Chaney a rising star? Is he an elite coordinator? I get that there are plenty of below average coordinators (in fact half the coordinators out there are below average), and PSU and Franklin have clearly not done well without him. That said, I don’t really know what to make of Moorehead. He had a singular player in Barkley that was a huge matchup problem for the rest of the Big 10. Does that make him a great coach? I don’t know.
MSU’s defense was by all accounts statistically great last season. The NFL clearly thought highly of three of their players. That said, they didn’t really face a good offense other than Bama, and Tua got hurt and Hurts was unavailable so the Bama game is a bit of a false read. I don’t know the roster well enough to know how much they fall, but my best guess is that MSU won’t have three NFL first round picks on defense over the next 5 years. So they will take a big step back defensively.
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Anything that makes Franklin look bad, I support. The guy is like a less talented Corch.
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This paints a better picture of why college coaches voted anonymously that Franklin was the most overrated coach in college football last year that sent a few SJW-like sports reporters into a tizzy.
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Please give an example of “SJW-like sports reporting,” and then please explain why any “SJW,” sports reporter or otherwise, would embrace James Fucking Franklin.
When you stick to football, you seem to halfway know what you’re talking about.
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Franklin did a great job at Vanderbilt. They beat UGA and Florida in 2013 and despite the problems on both of those teams that is a hell of an accomplishment for Vandy. I don’t think he is the best Coach on the planet but he has the opportunity now in the Corchless Big 10 to really separate from the pack.
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So you think he might be a floating turd rather than a sinking turd. Either way he is a big stinking turd.
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Frankin’s record with Moorhead includes his entire time at Vanderbilt. There is no equivalence for winning at Penn State vs winning at Vandy. If he stays at 7-9 wins a season going forward, then, yeah, it was Moorhead. Of course, then it would be really easy to figure out who would replace Franking at PSU.
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