John Hevesy needs to be fired YESTERDAY
Mississippi State’s offensive line has been a wreck for two years and there’s no reason for it other than the lackluster recruiting of John Hevesy.
This O-line is just terrible. It features three starting seniors and 87 career starts among the group….but they can’t block much of anything.
Watch them here as they can’t handle BYU’s four man pass rush:
For the first three games of the year, Hevesy started Elgton Jenkins, Deion Calhoun, Jamaal Clayborn, Devon Desper and Justin Senior. In the case of each of these players, MSU was their only SEC offer out of high school.
In Week 4, Martinas Rankin started at Left Tackle and has ever since. He is the most highly recruited offensive lineman on the roster as the No. 1 juco tackle in the 2015 class. This has been his highlight:
John Hevesy is no dummy – that’s not what I’m saying. He knows how to coach offensive lineman. But when you don’t have the talent to begin with, and are relying on patchwork and diamonds in the rough it will catch up to you. That’s what has happened in 2015 and 2016. This O-line is not SEC worthy and it comes down to recruiting….which Hevesy has made it known he doesn’t like to do.
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And while, yes, MSU recruits “areas” rather than by position, the position coach plays a key role in recruiting players to their respective groups. Why wouldn’t they? Are offensive lineman going to sign with a school before establishing a rapport with the coach they’ll be spending the majority of their time with?
Every other position group is able to attract high three and four star recruits while the OL is signing guys in the low threes with no other SEC offers. Whenever MSU goes after a highly touted lineman, they choose the other school. What’s more, we only sign two or three per class instead of five or six like we should be doing.
We are doubling down on Hevesy’s ability to develop players by not recruiting SEC talent and only signing the minimum needed at the most unpredictable position group.
Back to the film – what would we do without a mobile quarterback? Watch Justin Senior completely whiff on his block. Fortunately, Fitz was able to avoid the DE and gain positive yards.
A lot of people are complaining about Nick Fitzgerald. Here’s what I say about that:
- Forget Dak Prescott ever played here when evaluating any future MSU quarterbacks
- He’s a project QB, so yes he’s missing reads but he’s a sophomore
- Look at the OL he’s working with
The following play is a sack without a mobile QB like Fitz. Watch the BYU defensive front absolutely maul our unit and push them back five yards in less than two seconds. Fitz is trying to read his wide receivers but he has no time. Then a BYU linebacker gets a clear path to him so he takes off – for a first down! He’s masking a lot of deficiencies with this O-line on these types of plays.
Hevesy is the “running game coordinator”, and for the most part the run blocking is better than the pass blocking….but it’s still not good. We have a whole other set of problems with the running backs, but all too often they are getting hit behind the line of scrimmage.
In this example, the O-line even has help from an H-back but they get killed and Shump has no where to go, ultimately getting tackled for a seven yard loss.
This offensive line rotation needs to be tossed in the scrap heap. If three of these guys are seniors, what can we expect next year?
We’ve discussed how the #CountryClub needs to be blown up, and Hevesy is the biggest cog in that group. This needs to happen yesterday. There’s not much room for things to get worse, and we don’t need Hevesy’s gruff style recruiting anyone new.
Related Story: 5 things Dan Mullen needs to change immediately
I know he’s your boy, Mullen, but your boy is keeping you from running an effective offense. The OL being bad is a domino effect that touches every aspect of the offense.
This unit complemented Dak Prescott in 2014 and you saw the results. They were bad in 2015, but Dak improved his game as a senior which masked their inconsistent play so long as we weren’t playing elite teams. In 2016, their Swiss cheese play is sticking out like a sore thumb with a young QB – but even he is able to make some lemonade about of lemons from time to time. If Tyler Russell were back there we’d be 0-6.
We’ve recruited like a Sun Belt program on the OL for far too long and it’s caught up with us big time. Time to jettison Coach Hevesy and find someone who wants to recruit SEC-level players so we can have a serviceable offensive front without relying on walk-ons to become All-Americans.