A Flawed and Incorrect Preview: Special Teams/Coaching

Special Teams Depth Chart
K	P	KR	PR
Adam Carlson RJr.	Blake McAdams Jr.	Derek Pegues Jr.	Derek Pegues Jr.
Brad Moore RFr.	Adam Carlson RJr.	Wade Bonner Fr.	Lance Long Sr.

Well, let me start off by saying that special teams was atrocious last year. Every single facet, save punt return and kick return, was a complete embarrassment. Now with that out of the way, Adam Carlson wasn't any good last year. He doesn't have much power and he isn't accurate either. Carlson connected on only 6 of 12 field goals. Making 50% of your field goals isn't exactly impressive. McAdams was equally putrid, finishing with a 38.2 yards per punt average. Now the good news is the two of them went to a kicking camp over the summer and supposedly they came away much improved. Cross your fingers that that is indeed true. True freshman Eric Richards was the backup kicker and was going to be handling kickoffs. He has a much stronger leg than Carlson and would've been able to get it into the endzone even with kickoffs moved back 5 yards. He got injured in practice though and is probably out for the year. That leaves us with walkon Brad Moore as the backup and I know nothing about him.

I don't have any numbers but you'll just have to trust me that kick coverage and punt coverage was an eyesore. Croom had 3rd stringers and walkons on special teams last year and shockingly they weren't any good. Look I understand the thinking, you don't want your starters getting hurt. I get it, but the problem is more and more, teams are using more starters and 2nd stringers on special teams. When that is the case, you have to follow suit, otherwise you get what we saw last year. Croom has said he has worked on this, but we'll see.

Pegues was, and maybe still is, the lone bright spot on special teams. He averaged 14ypr and had a touchdown on punt returns and a 23.7 ypr on kickoff returns. He isn't the best in the country but he is a legitimate threat.

My Rating: 5/10
Until I see it, I can't assume Carlson or McAdams have gotten better. Maybe they have, I certainly hope so. Kickoffs will probably be a problem as Carlson rarely got them anywhere near the endzone last year and that was kicking from the 35 instead of 30. Pegues is a threat in the return game and salvages things somewhat.



Coaching
My Rating: 2/10
This is looking at just the head coach along with the offensive and defensive coordinators. I'm sorry, I refuse to break down the individual position coaches. The rating would have been a 0/10, but the defensive coordinator has been doing a pretty good job. It has been carrying this team for 3 years now. Why does it have to carry the team? The offense looks like a peewee head coach is running things. They have made their home in the bottom 100 in almost every major statistical category. I don't know what McCorvey and Croom are running, but it is not the West Coast offense.

Now we get to Sylvester "Doing it the Right Way" Croom. What can I say? He has made mistake after mistake after mistake. He lost to Maine. A Div 1-AA team. A mediocre one at that. A bad Tulane team destroyed us for 3 quarters last year. It was only when Croom stopped trying to run his offense that MSU started to make a futile come back. Against Georgia in the fourth quarter, he went for it on 4th and short from Georgia's 40. After getting it, a few plays later he was confronted with another 4th and short from the 30. He punted. Seriously. That has to go down as one of the most baffling decisions in the history of college football, I kid you not. Why are you willing to take that risk at the 40 but not 10 yards closer to the endzone? It makes no sense. When Richt saw us come out in punt formation he called a timeout, presumable because he had to assume it would be a fake. Sure enough Georgia came out looking to defend against a fake and was stunned to see a punt instead. I have to give Croom credit, he outsmarted the entire Georgia sideline with that one. Way to go coach. He lashed out at fans last year when they had the audacity to question his brilliant offense. You know the one that had yet to score a point 8 quarters into the season. How dare we question him, after all we must be blind if we can't see improvement. 3-8, 3-8, 3-9, IMPROVEMENT!!! WHAT ARE YOU BLIND!!?!? LOOK AT ALL THAT IMPROVEMENT!?!?! How dare we question him when we can't even see that a 5-6 Maine team was far superior to our own. We're lucky they didn't run us out of our own stadium, and we expected to win?? What fools we are. Thank goodness we have Croom to show us the error of our ways. You think I'm being to hard on Mr. I Do Things the Right Way?? You want me to give him a break?? Win Croom. That is all it will take. Maybe it will start tomorrow, I would love to be shown how wrong I am. Until he starts getting some wins though, he is a buffoon and all of this talk of his is nothing more than a giant steaming pile of B.S.

Maybe he has learned from his mistakes though. The heat is starting to be turned up. There was a time where Croom was under the impression he had 6 years before the team had to show an ounce of improvement (Thanks Templeton). That isn't exactly the case anymore. Its amazing how much harder a person will work when they find out the status quo isn't going to cut it anymore. So with that there is a small glimmer of hope.