Random thoughts, encyclopedia edition:

Wanted to enjoy the win before talking bout anything critical or reviewing the year as a whole, but here are my extremely long random thoughts.

1. Good win. Doesn?t erase that it was a shitastic year, but definitely added something sweet to go along with the sour taste that most of the year provided.

2. As far as Mullen?s performance this year, it obviously wasn?t good. That said, you have to keep it in perspective. Everybody not named Saban has bad years, and it?s obvious to the fans what the problems are. Mullen has had some consistent failures with how he approaches things in the last few years that has caused the cluster17 that was this season. But Mullen has still done a lot of things right.

Could we do better than Mullen? Absolutely and odds are that eventually, we will (assuming he doesn?t go on a championship tear in the next few years). But what are the odds we do as good as Mullen with our next coach? Very slim. I am worried that Mullen has been coaching at MSU long enough that he won?t be able to maintain the intensity that is required to be successful (and it doesn?t take much drop off in intensity to create a big difference in record in the SECW), but even if he is past his peak, we still have probably no better than even odds of doing better than the less intense Mullen with our next hire.

Hiring a coach is a crapshoot even when you have your pick. Beliema had an excellent track record of performance at Wisconsin, and there?s nothing to indicate he?s going to be better than Mullen. Charlie Strong had an excellent track record before going to Texas. Mcelwain was a hot coach before moving to Florida, and while it?s too early to really judge him, Florida has been good everywhere but the area that is his expertise. Boomer was a hot Coordinator and sucked at Florida. Sumlin was a hot commodity and has been underwhelming, especially without JFF. If Mullen has lost his fire, then yes, we will be better off if he moves on. But Mullen is a good enough coach that you don?t assume he?s not going to bounce back and regain some of his intensity (or alternatively, figure out how to delegate better and so be better even with slightly less intensity). The odds are bad enough that you give the guy you know can coach a chance to turn it around.

3. As bad as Mullen?s performance was this year, I don?t think this team is that far off from most of the teams with the exception of 2014. This year is just a good example of how razor thin the margin of error is in college football, and especially the SECW. Westin Graves makes a field goal, Ross makes an extra touchdown catch, and the UK kicker doesn?t make a 50+yd to win, and we are at 8-4. I think with most years, you can pick out a few plays like that that could swing a record two or three games and I think with every year but 2014, our teams have been pretty similar in talent. Up until this year, pretty much every year, we had caught more than our fair share of breaks in close games (although we weren?t always so lucky with injuries or catching other teams at the right time). This year was reversion to the mean, where some of those game changing breaks went against us.

4. We wasted a golden opportunity this year. You can?t ask for much better luck in the SECW as far as schedule. We really only played two teams that were good at the time we played them. Alabama and Auburn, and even Auburn had not fully gelled when we played them. We played LSU before they had figured anything out. We played A&M at the start of their slide (although the team deserves some credit for starting A&M?s slide). We got Ole Miss when they were already imploding. UK is probably the only team we caught that was near their peak (other than Bama), and UK still wasn?t anything more than solid. It?s unbelievable that in todays SECW, we had an opportunity to go 10-2 just by being a pretty good team. And we had the talent I think to be a pretty good team or close to it, if we hadn?t been so poorly prepared to start the season. I think if we played to our potential, the only toss-up game would have been Arkansas, so we would have been looking at 9-3 even if we lost the toss-up.

5. As nice as it is to see how Williams and Fitz played at the end of the year, it?s also hard to stomach knowing that we had Williams on the bench last year and a big chunk of this year. Fitz I can understand; you need your QBs held to a differenet standard, and it?s hard to second guess Mullen?s qb development. But how the hell has Williams been on the bench last year or this year? Assuming there werent? some pretty significant disciplinary reasons for him not playing, it?s hard to justify him not playing more last year and this year. Completely changes our offense to have a RB that gets yards after contact and falls forward when he is tackled. He obviously was able to learn enough of the playbook this year to be good, so surely he could have learned a couple of packages of plays last year that he could be used with. Just frustrating as hell.

6. Not sure what should be done with Hevesy now. By the end of the year, he had clearly coached this group up some. That said, they looked awful a lot of last year and this year, not just because of talent but because it looked like they didn?t know what the hell they were doing. And that included players like Senior last year, who had been in the system a while at that point. If he stays, something is going to have to be done about recruiting OL and it can?t take past the beginning of year three in the system for people to start having a clue.

7. Not sure what should be done with Sirmone. Based on performance, he should probably be gone. But we need stability, and it?s going to look bad firing a coach after one year when we are transitioning to a new system, and have a first time coordinator, and talent issues at several positions. But we were so bad at the end of the year, including on things like alignment, that it looks like there are probably bigger problems. This could end up being the mistake that ends Mullen?s tenure. We are set up for a peak for ?17 and ?18. But we need to have any growing pains next year to be ready for a peak in 2018. If we waste 17 with a bad defense and then waste 18 transitioning back to 4-3, not sure Mullen will be able to recover.

8. People should be careful what they asked for. People weren?t happy with the Mullen that won the games he was supposed to and lost the games he was supposed to. Mullen changed it up this year, losing and winning games he wasn?t supposed to. Not sure I liked it better.

9. If you?re unhappy with the way the season went, you can at least take comfort that you are apparently in the same boat as most college football fans. I?m stealing this thought from NAFOOM, but In the SEC, basically Bama, Vandy, UK, and maybe USCe are happy with their season. Probably a lot of fans want Sumlin, Butch, and Bert fired. UM wants probably everybody with the exception of Freeze fired. USCe, UGA, and LSU probably have significant portions of their fanbase pissed off about who was hired as head coach before they even have a chance to be real upset with the record. UF fans will probably be wanting to fire their coach if his side of the ball isn?t good next year. I guess the same passion that makes college football a high dollar business venture now also ensures that most fans spend the majority of their time unhappy or miserable with their teams performance.