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Defiant Sly fighting a battle he can't win
STARKVILLE — There might be a day when Sylvester Croom lines up against the likes of Auburn and the football game is considered a fair match.
That wasn't the case Saturday, when Croom's woefully over-matched Bulldogs lost 34-0 to the fourth-ranked Tigers, becoming the first Mississippi State team in more than a century to open a season with consecutive shutouts.
But what Croom did after the game wasn't smart and won't make his job any easier. He picked a fight he really can't win - against his own fans.
Two years and two games into the biggest rebuilding project this side of four-laning Highway 25 from Jackson to Starkville, Croom is already showing signs of the pressure that comes with such a massive job.
Croom said he's tired of fans griping. About play-calling. About his West Coast offense. About offensive coordinator Woody McCorvey. About everything.
He said that anyone who plans to call his radio show Monday night and gripe about the offense better save their cell minutes.
"People are going to call in about that, and I'm going to answer their questions, but nothing's going to change," Croom said. "We're going to try and get better at what we're doing.
"I don't want to hear about the play-calling. I don't want to hear about getting rid of my coaches, because I'm never going to fire a football coach. I'm not. If it comes to that, I'm going to fire me.
"I want to get that clear before that call-in show."
Then Croom added the real zinger, the one he's probably wishing he would have left out.
Said Croom: "I don't even want to do that show anyway. I need to be working and trying to get our team better instead of sitting around and listening to those questions."
Ouch.
FREEDOM OF SPEECH
Croom gets paid some $900,000 a year to coach the Bulldogs. About $180,000 of that comes from state funds. The rest comes from a personal services contract that requires him to endorse products, make speaking engagements and do radio and TV shows.
For many of the fans who buy the tickets and make the donations and listen to the commercials that produce the cash that make that $900,000 salary possible, calling Croom's radio show and asking questions is their only way to feel like they're part of the program.
It's a fan's prerogative to gripe - especially when their favorite team's offense matches a 102-year-old record for impotence.
The last thing Croom needs to do is listen to all the complaining. At least not now, just two games into the season.
He says he doesn't care what the fans are saying - and on Internet message boards and radio talk shows many of them are saying a lot - but by acknowledging their complaints he's gone into the fray.
A FEW TDS WOULD HELP
Croom inherited a program in shambles, one facing NCAA sanctions, with a fractured fan base.
Although he got off on the wrong foot with some of the fans by not leaving his old job immediately after being hired - he continued as a Green Bay Packers assistant for about a month after being hired by MSU in December of 2003 - Croom endeared himself to most of the faithful through a series of public appearances throughout the winter, spring and summer of 2004.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a Bulldogs backer who doesn't like Croom the man. But it's increasingly difficult to find one who likes Croom's offense. And that's a problem. For Croom and the fans, because the fans aren't going to quit complaining until they see some progress, and Croom made it clear Saturday he's not going to change, and that progress is being made.
Said Croom: "I'm totally committed to making this football team better and if there's anybody who doesn't believe this program is not better than when I got here, then you're blind."
So the battle lines have been drawn. No one's budging. There's only one thing Croom and Co. can do now and that's score a touchdown or two next Saturday and beat Tulane. If the Bulldogs don't win that one, Croom sure isn't going to like what the fans are saying.
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Contact Sports Editor Rusty Hampton at (601) 961-7293 or
rhampton@clarionledger.com.
