As a State fan, I feel really fortunate to 'finally' have a good football coaching staff. Believe me .. we have suffered through our share of bad ones.
I just never have understood 'how' Ellis 'destroyed' your program in one year. I met him a few times when he was the DC at State. To be honest, I thought he did an okay job under Croom considering what he had to work with.
His defenses were good at USCe before he came to USM. He had HC experience .. albeit at the Citadel. But, to go from an outstanding team to inept in 9 months is downright shocking. I haven't read much on the subject but posters continually say he ".. destroyed the program."
What did he do / how did he do that in one year? Why has it taken so long to recover?
I'll just give you a few of things then Ellis Johnson did and I hope it is put to rest.
He stopped recruiting in July and said he would let the SEC get what they wanted and then take what was left. The are high school coaches said they would see every school in the area except USM..
Along that line, college coaches are know to work long hours. He and his staff were gone home at 5:30 every day. Also, he was the most uni -involved coach ever. He would stand by himself during the game and have zero input and no contact with the players at all even to congratulate them on great plays.
He never had a good word to say about the players, only negative. In fact, one of our players, Jamie Collins, who went in the early second round of the draft, he said could not start for South Carolina. The same Collins who in his second year with the Patriots not only started for them but called their defensive signals and had the most tackles in the Super Bowl. They call him a freak of an athlete and say he is a future NFL star.
Only 10 of his 25 signees ever finished his time at USM. He ran off and injured so many players that the next year we played one game with only 54 scholarship players dressed out.
His strength and conditioning program was so bad the players couldn't hardly finish a game and there were so many injuries he should have been sued.
But I don't think he ever intended to stay here. A neighbor said his house looked aboandoned and not lived in the whole time he was here. He worshiped the SEC and when he did interviews to talk about USM he spent 90% of the time talking about the SEC, not USM.
I could go on and on. There is much more. Monken inherited a program that Ellis Johnson had destroyed in both talent and belief the themselves. He has done an amazing job in turning it around.