STARKVILLE — At a bar top in the middle of StaggerIn Grill off Maxwell Street, Marilyn Johnson and Brian and Regina Bishop all sat with a few beers in front of them.
As the varying televisions behind them brought official news of Mississippi State football coach Joe Moorhead’s firing Friday following a two-year stint in charge of the Bulldogs, the trio offered their thoughts on the news.
“We heard a bunch last night it was going to happen,” Brian Bishop said.
“I was kind of surprised but everybody wanted him gone so I guess I’m glad it happened,” Johnson chimed in. “Not necessarily that I wanted it to happen, but I think the majority of the fanbase did.”
Over the course of two seasons at MSU, Moorhead guided the Bulldogs to a 14-12 record — including two wins over in-state rival Ole Miss — and earned three-straight top 25 recruiting classes — a feat his predecessor, Dan Mullen, never accomplished.
That said, an underachieving 2018 team that boasted the nation’s No. 1-ranked defense but finished 8-5, a losing record of 6-7 in 2019, an 0-2 mark in bowl games and a flurry of off-the-field incidents combined to frustrate the MSU fanbase and administration to the point of no return.
Speaking with the media Friday right after the firing, MSU Athletic Director John Cohen wouldn’t delve into the exact specifics of the decision to relieve Moorhead of his duties, but he did note a recent fight between junior linebacker and Starkville native Willie Gay Jr. and starting quarterback Garrett Shrader was among the reasons. The skirmish left Shrader injured and unable to play in MSU’s 38-28 Music City Bowl loss to Louisville, while Gay — who was previously suspended for his role in an NCAA investigation into academic misconduct earlier in the year — was not publicly disciplined for the incident and played in Monday’s contest.
“Everything factors in,” Cohen said. “(The fight) is a factor. Is it the factor? No. But it is a factor. It’s one of several factors.
“Certainly, wins and losses matter,” added Cohen, who served as MSU’s head baseball coach before becoming athletic director in 2016. “I coached long enough myself to know wins and losses matter. Joe did win 14 games. In this case, it goes a little bit beyond just wins and losses. … There were some other issues at stake here that we had to consider.”
‘Somewhere there was a disconnect’
Sharon Spikes, a 1981 MSU graduate, sat in the stands at Nissan Stadium as the Bulldogs closed their season with Monday’s Music City Bowl loss. While admittedly “true maroon” to her core, there was a sense in the seats the foundation of the Moorhead era had cracked.
“Just watching the players coming out, running on and off the field, there didn’t seem to be any enthusiasm and that just hurts my heart,” she told The Dispatch. “We’re cheering, we follow them everywhere and I just felt like they were kind of disconnected or not emotionally there. And that made me go back and wonder whether the events of recent days had had more of an impact on the team and their mindset than anything else.”
While Moorhead’s tenure was welcomed with national acclaim and high optimism following his two-year run guiding a prolific Penn State’s offense, scandal marred his final season in Starkville.
The aforementioned NCAA findings that 10 MSU football players and one men’s basketball player had paid a part-time athletic department tutor to complete coursework for them were revealed just a week prior to the Bulldogs’ season opener against Louisiana Aug. 31. As a result, the football players involved were suspended for eight games each while the NCAA also levied further penalties for the program including scholarship losses and official visit reductions.
More recently, the fight between Gay and Shrader during bowl practices drew a vitriolic response among fans.
“At some point things start adding up and you start saying, ‘Well, you know what? You’re paid a lot of money and these things are happening under your watch and they’re unacceptable and we don’t really see it better, (that’s a problem),” Gary Wood, a 63-year old former Jackson resident and father to a 2013 MSU graduate, told The Dispatch.
“It kills me that ‘Tutorgate’ mattered, one of our players knocking out our starting quarterback before the bowl game mattered, and I think the other thing that mattered is that Moorhead was not what I would call an all-in Mississippi State guy,” he added. “And I think at the end of the day, that mattered.”
Sputtering on the field made impressions too. Coming to MSU as a proclaimed offensive guru, the Bulldogs’ units ranked 71st and 70th in 2018 and 2019, respectively. A loss off a bye in Knoxville to a Tennessee team that sat at 1-4 entering the contest further heated Moorhead’s seat. Adding to an already bizarre season, reports connecting Moorhead to a vacated job at Rutgers also led to a contentious interview between Cohen and SEC Network host Paul Finebaum in The Junction ahead of MSU’s Oct. 19 loss to LSU.
Leading up to the Egg Bowl, rumors swirled Moorhead would be fired with a loss. MSU looked to have blown its seven-point lead in the fourth quarter, allowing Ole Miss to score what should have been the game-tying touchdown with four seconds left. But an ill-advised fake-urination celebration from Ole Miss receiver Elijah Moore and a missed Luke Logan extra point with four seconds remaining extended the embattled coach’s reign into bowl season.
“You always want to win the Egg Bowl, you always want to go to a bowl game, you always want your kids on your team succeed,” Spikes said. “(But) somewhere there was a disconnect.”
Reactions from players, former players
Beyond the fanbase’s thoughts on the firing, current and former players sounded off on the decision shortly after the news broke.
Speaking with The Dispatch Friday, former MSU running back Anthony ‘Boobie’ Dixon — the program record-holder for rushing yards in a season — had just returned from Nashville and when he heard the news.
“When I heard this stuff this morning I was like ‘Dang, man.’ It was like a little punch to the gut,” Dixon said.
A bruising tailback during his playing days, he had become close with Moorhead in recent months. Dixon was even on the sidelines during the bowl game Monday.
“It was mixed emotions because I had really started building a friendship with coach Joe,” he said. “I was really rooting for him.”
Former MSU standout defensive lineman Chris Jones, now with the Kansas City Chiefs, also voiced his thoughts on the decision over Twitter Friday.
“Tough move unfortunately, right decision though,” he wrote. “Thank you (Coach Moorhead) for your time (at Mississippi State).”
On campus, the decision stands to impact MSU’s roster.
One mother of a current player told The Dispatch over text message Friday morning her son was “in shock” at the change, and “the reality hadn’t set in.” Given the suddenness of the firing, she was unsure whether her son would seek a transfer from MSU.
A source with immediate knowledge of the situation also told The Dispatch junior linebacker Erroll Thompson is now leaning toward forgoing his final year of eligibility and entering the NFL Draft. Thompson, who served as a team captain this season, recorded 84 tackles as an anchor in the middle of the MSU defense. He is expected to decide his future officially in the next week or so.
‘I will always cherish our time in Starkville’
While Cohen has now embarked on a nationwide coaching search that has no set timetable, the human toll of the decision still looms.
Just 38 days removed from Moorhead’s now-infamous post-Egg Bowl rant demanding his doubters would have to “drag my Yankee ass out of here,” the former Penn State offensive coordinator is now looking for his next stop.
After changing his Twitter headers from Bulldog-themed graphics to photos of his children, Moorhead released a statement Friday night thanking fans for their support during his time at MSU — a period marred by as much optimism and hope as it was discombobulation and a lack of control.
“My family and I will always cherish our time in Starkville,” he wrote. “Part of us will always be Maroon and White. We wish the program nothing but the best moving forward. As my grandma would say, ‘It’s never goodbye, it’s always see you later.'”
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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