Biggest Priority for Mississippi State football is retaining Bob Shoop
There will be numerous things the Mississippi State football team needs to attend to in the offseason but none is more important than retaining Bob Shoop.
In 2016, the Mississippi State football team had arguably the worst defense in the SEC. Then Defensive Coordinator Peter Sirmon put together a mess of a product, and the Bulldogs couldn’t stop most anyone they played.
In 2017, there was a sharp turnaround when Todd Grantham took the reins as Defensive Coordinator. The Bulldogs ranked 10th in the country in total defense, but the over aggressiveness sometimes left the Mississippi State football defense vulnerable to big plays.
When new Mississippi State Football Head Coach Joe Moorhead hired Bob Shoop to replace Todd Grantham who left for Florida with former Head Coach Dan Mullen, many were concerned. Bob Shoop had done an amazing job as the Defensive Coordinator at Vanderbilt and Penn State, but his most recent stint as the DC at Tennessee was a disaster.
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The question Mississippi State fans were wondering was whether or not the problems Shoop had at Tennessee were the result of a decline in Shoop’s ability to coordinate a defense or if they simply reflected the overall program run by Butch Jones.
What we have learned is Bob Shoop can absolutely still coordinate a defense. Shoop inherited a really good defense from Grantham, and he turned them into arguably the best defense in the country.
No team allowed less points than the Mississippi State football team in 2018. The Bulldogs gave up just 12 points a game which was the best in the country. There were only 12 touchdowns scored against the Bulldogs throughout the entire regular season.
The Bulldogs also were third in the country in total defense. Teams only accumulated an average of 268.4 yards per game. Moving the ball on the Mississippi State football defense was as difficult of a task as there was in college football in 2018.
So it goes without saying the biggest priority for the Mississippi State football team is to make sure Bob Shoop stays on as Defensive Coordinator. But it is even more important for the Bulldogs to keep him on staff due to the history of the position.
Bob Shoop is the eighth defensive coordinator the Mississippi State football team has had in 10 years. Dan Mullen had a difficult time finding a DC he could work with, and the result was a revolving door at the position.
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It would be nice for there to finally be some continuity to the position. And there would be no better time for continuity than to keep the guy who just fielded arguably the best defensive team Mississippi State football has ever seen.