Here’s the news from Starkville for today.  We’ll knock out all of the coaching news first, and we’ll include a couple of stories from Sunday, too… which were buried on The Jackson Clarion-Ledger’s site — possibly the most poorly designed website in all of the SEC.  Congrats, Gannett.  No one can find anything.

Grumbling over, here are the links:

Croom met with his former players yesterday for the first time since his resignation.

Many of his players are hurt by the decision, obviously, as this column relates.  Also, it mentions that Boise State’s Chris Peterson says he is NOT interested in the Mississippi State job.

Another name on the MSU watch list is that of Louisiana Tech head coach (and athletic director) Derek Dooley.  Dooley (left) has four things working in his favor: he beat the Bulldogs head-to-head to open the season, he’s already in the Deep South in terms of recruiting, he’s young, and he happens to be the son of former Georgia coach Vince Dooley.

Brian Kelly (Cincinnati) and Tommy Bowden (formerly of Tulane and Clemson) have also been mentioned.  Sorry, Kelly won’t be in Starkville next year.  That’s a long, long shot.  Bowden?  Well, he IS looking for work.

Linebacker Jamar Chaney said that he will return to Starkville for his senior season.

The Croom’s buyout is believed to be around $3 million and State will pay it in full, despite the fact that the coach “resigned.”

The departure of Croom is yet another hit on the number of black head coaches in the FBS.  Randy Shannon is now the only black coach at a BCS school.  That’s absolutely ridiculous.

As for actual football news, wide receiver Brandon McRae remains hospitalized as he recovers from a compound fracture in his right leg, which he suffered during last Friday’s Egg Bowl.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 at 8:35 am and is filed under Homepage, News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.