I agree with Rick Stansbury on Mullen's job tonight, & in prior Big games...

[CadaverDawg]

In no way, shape, or form should we have beaten Alabama last year or Georgia this year due to talent....but being outscored 82-6 should keep Mullen up at night if he has any pride. You're a damn "offensive mind" for goodness sakes....and you can't even find a way to get a single TD? Hell, Samford scored on em. That's pathetic & Mullen should be embarrassed that he can't do better on offense in big games than that.

He coaches scared in big games, and you can't do that. I knew when I read the article where he told Fitz that "real women dig the checkdown", we were screwed. You ain't going to checkdown your way to victory against that team in their stadium.

Ole Miss (although they had to cheat to do it), gave the blueprint to upsetting teams like that when they beat Bama....you have to have playmakers at WR that can go up and make a play when you need one. Bottom line, if you can slow our run game down, you can stop our O bc we never have playmakers at WR to make you pay for putting 8+ in the box. Hopefully Heath and Guidry can be those guys, bc Kirby Smart probably laughed his ass off as he told his 5 star corners to lock down Reggie Todd & Jesse Jackson in 1 on 1 coverage.

Again, I didn't expect a win, but to see a damn replay of every time Mullen has ever faced Bama or Smart tonight, was disappointing to say the least. He coaches conservative and scared, and he will never win the big ones until he grows some cajones, opens the playbook, and leaves it up to his players to make plays. And Billy G ought to be talking to Guidry, Heath, and Jason more than their family & girlfriends from now until signing day....our WR corp is laughable.

Oh, and Kylin Hill is a stud. Play him.

That is all. We're good enough to win 9, but we're still a paper tiger when it comes to scaring the real contenders in this league. Let's beat Auburn. Hail State. Where's the Tylenol

[BuckyIsAB****]

Need Jordan Thomas to step up and be the guy for us. Also, Fitz still missing reads in the intermediate to deep passing game. He will get better and so will we. We have a shot at auburn, they arent near as good on O as UGA is.

[msstate7]

I thought last week was a big game

[mstatefan91]

They whipped us with a true freshman QB and they honestly could have put a wide receiver at QB and won. It was embarrassing. Our offense shit the bed. Defense actually did ok most of the game and would have played more inspired down the stretch if we had ever scored a damn TD.

Mullen should be displeased.. With himself most of all. He calls the plays. He sets the offensive scheme. Man up. Own up and let's beat Auburn.

[Commercecomet24]

Yeah Fitz still locks onto primary and doesn't go through his progressions sometimes. I know when he threw one of those 3 yard shallow crosses on a third and 7. We had gray wide open on a corner route that would've been 6. Nick checked down to early and missed the read. They jumped the underneath route and gray was wide open.

[CadaverDawg]

I thought last week was a big game

We all did, until we saw LSU tonight, and realized they just suck.

[mstatefan91]

I thought last week was a big game

It was. I won't and most won't deny it.. But we were at home facing a proven failure at head coach. Smart has talent and brains. He will challenge Alabama in the years to come. Just want our program to get there. Tonight showed we aren't.

[bobcat91]

Ole Miss screwed us. They bought every major playmaker at the WR position in the state over the last 5 years. We have no one who can change a game one on one at the WR position and it cost us big time in big games. We are not built to play catch up football when other teams can go man to man and shut our attack down. Having said that, we were beaten soundly on both lines tonight. Nothing else mattered.

[Commercecomet24]

It was. I won't and most won't deny it.. But we were at home facing a proven failure at head coach. Smart has talent and brains. He will challenge Alabama in the years to come. Just want our program to get there. Tonight showed we aren't.

Yep uga is top 10, we are top 25. There's a pretty good gap between top 10 and the rest and there's a reason. Beating lsu is always a big win and always will be. No one should ever disregard an sec win especially against lsu.

[Todd4State]

I think you have to have both WR's and legit RB's to win big in the SEC. Obviously we have the RB's. It's really hard to be one dimensional in the SEC. I think one of the most disappointing things to me was hearing our guys talk about how this week wasn't a good week of practice. That tells me our guys don't know how to win and read their press clippings.

[Todd4State]

Yeah Fitz still locks onto primary and doesn't go through his progressions sometimes. I know when he threw one of those 3 yard shallow crosses on a third and 7. We had gray wide open on a corner route that would've been 6. Nick checked down to early and missed the read. They jumped the underneath route and gray was wide open.

I saw him do the same early at La Tech. Like, no one within 10 yards of the WR. And I think it was something like a curl route- it would have been an EASY first down.

[Commercecomet24]

I think you have to have both WR's and legit RB's to win big in the SEC. Obviously we have the RB's. It's really hard to be one dimensional in the SEC. I think one of the most disappointing things to me was hearing our guys talk about how this week wasn't a good week of practice. That tells me our guys don't know how to win and read their press clippings.

You're right about having to be diverse. I don't know if it was so much reading press clippings or just a let down after a big emotional win last week but that is also part of learning how to win. Imo

[NCDawg]

Yeah, we were beaten soundly tonight in every aspect of the game. It's really disappointing that we were not more competitive.

[MetEdDawg]

I think we are at a point where we have to self reflect on our wins over the past 9 years and realize we haven't beaten a solid team during that time. Beaten some talented teams. Not that we haven't played in big games and won, but we haven't beaten a top tier team under Mullen yet. At the time we played yes. But I don't think we have a win over a team that finished with 10 or more regular season wins under Mullen. Not sure if we've ever beaten a team that ended with 9 regular season wins.

That being said, this is not a blame or bash Mullen thread. This is a we are still far away from being an upper echelon team and it comes down to one thing and one thing only. Talent. I think we are well coached. But we lack top talent across the board and it shows in games against teams that are well coached and have better talent.

I'm convinced now we will never beat Saban. His teams have superior talent and superior coaching. You don't luck up and beat teams like that. Georgia is now at that point.

The question I have now is what the hell do we do about it. According to Mullen, we are young and a developmental program in year 9. At what point will we cease to be that? Again, not bashing Mullen. But at some point there has to be a vision of what we are to become. A growth plan to extend us beyond what we are. Is our goal to be the best at finding overlooked talent and molding it and coaching it up? That can only take us so far. At some point we have to win in recruiting. Not in state, but out of state. At some point, we have to acquire the talent necessary to win big.

Mullen was wrong when he said there was enough talent within a 4 hour radius of us to compete and win at a high level. Within 4 hours of us is OM, Alabama, Auburn, and LSU. There has to be a bigger effort on our part to extend the brand and compete for top talent. Until we can do that, 10-2 is the ceiling. Tonight sucked, not necessarily because we lost, but the way we lost reminded us all that in year 9, we still have a long way to go. We've come far, but this road is a lot longer than we envisioned.

[Todd4State]

I think we are at a point where we have to self reflect on our wins over the past 9 years and realize we haven't beaten a solid team during that time. Beaten some talented teams. Not that we haven't played in big games and won, but we haven't beaten a top tier team under Mullen yet. At the time we played yes. But I don't think we have a win over a team that finished with 10 or more regular season wins under Mullen. Not sure if we've ever beaten a team that ended with 9 regular season wins.

That being said, this is not a blame or bash Mullen thread. This is a we are still far away from being an upper echelon team and it comes down to one thing and one thing only. Talent. I think we are well coached. But we lack top talent across the board and it shows in games against teams that are well coached and have better talent.

I'm convinced now we will never beat Saban. His teams have superior talent and superior coaching. You don't luck up and beat teams like that. Georgia is now at that point.

The question I have now is what the hell do we do about it. According to Mullen, we are young and a developmental program in year 9. At what point will we cease to be that? Again, not bashing Mullen. But at some point there has to be a vision of what we are to become. A growth plan to extend us beyond what we are. Is our goal to be the best at finding overlooked talent and molding it and coaching it up? That can only take us so far. At some point we have to win in recruiting. Not in state, but out of state. At some point, we have to acquire the talent necessary to win big.

Mullen was wrong when he said there was enough talent within a 4 hour radius of us to compete and win at a high level. Within 4 hours of us is OM, Alabama, Auburn, and LSU. There has to be a bigger effort on our part to extend the brand and compete for top talent. Until we can do that, 10-2 is the ceiling. Tonight sucked, not necessarily because we lost, but the way we lost reminded us all that in year 9, we still have a long way to go. We've come far, but this road is a lot longer than we envisioned.

The thing about the four hour radius thing is we can't afford to:

1. Have obvious issues at position groups like OL and WR's in terms of size. Yes, I know we are improving with WR's. That has to be met on the front end.

2. Allow players like Jaylen Smith, Scott Lashley, etc. to either be misidentified or leave the state.

There have been many other issues with Dan and his team- but it seems like we are just now starting to correct those things. Getting a legit DC, improving special teams, starting to play underclassmen more over upperclassmen. It should not have taken until year eight to correct or start to correct those things.

We're kind of like the Oakland A's in Moneyball. We CAN compete and win at a high level- but our margin for error is a lot smaller and we can not afford to have weak links in recruiting or position groups and still reach our full potential. We can't afford to play guys just because they are upperclassmen if there are more talented underclassmen.

I agree we have come a long way- but at the same time I don't think that getting blown out by 28 is acceptable either given where we are right now. I can swallow losing 28-24 or something like that. But tonight was every bit as embarrassing as 1997 when we lost 47-0.

The bottom line is Dan is a good enough coach that he can beat just about any poorly coached team even with "better talent"- like LSU. But he doesn't recruit well enough to beat a team full of elite talent that is well coached.

What makes it even more frustrating is Jackie Sherrill showed us that we COULD occasionally beat elite teams probably on average of at least once every other year or so- but Dan just hasn't been able to do that as much even though he is a better coach IMO and more consistently wins games we should win. So, it's not like it can't be done here. And that makes it more frustrating to me.

[CadaverDawg]

I'm watching SEC Now, and they showed 3 of the exact same pass plays to Donal Gray's back shoulder...all 3 incomplete. That brings up so many questions.....

1) Why are 3 of our 15 pass plays the same exact route?? How hard is that to defend? No creativity whatsoever

2) Why didn't we throw it deep to Gray one of those times instead of the back shoulder? It's even easier to defend when you know we're not going deep

3) What is the reason for the lack of playcalling in big games??
Is our QB incapable of passing downfield?
Have we failed so miserably at WR recruiting that nobody can get open beyond 5 yards?
Do we only prepare 5-6 pass plays per game?
Are our coaches not teaching route running?
Is our HC too focused on QB development & "checkdowns", & forgetting his main goal is to try to win these games?

It's so damn frustrating to see us look like a copy & paste job every time we play a legit good team. We have to be able to throw the football to win big games. And it can't ONLY be capable if we're able to run the ball to create play action wide open opportunities. Good SEC defenses stop the run....so you have to be able to run some pass plays that aren't solely predicated on play action. Bc if they're stopping the run, PA doesn't work. Dan Mullen may be good at coaching QB fundamentals, but he is failing at coaching a passing game of any kind.

Jackie used to run the ball 90% of the time. And the reason it worked was bc every few series he would have Madkin (or whoever) take a deep shot to loosen up the D. It rarely was completed, but that wasn't the point...the point was to force the safeties not to be able to creep up. We are taking zero shots downfield, so it feels like the game is being played in a phone booth when we're on offense. Mullen has got to adjust, bc his offense is complete garbage if you can stop our read option run play. You cannot ever take that next step and knock off a true big boy if stopping one play destroys your entire capability to move the ball. Not only can you not upset a team like that, you clearly can't even be competitive. That was a piss poor offensive game plan, and Kirby proved to be 100X the Defensive mind that Dan is an offensive mind in my opinion. I just expected better. Disappointing.

Auburn's D is good, so I fully expect to lose that game after what I saw last night. We should still win 7-8, but what an eye opener last night was in terms of how far we have to go. That Georgia team is good, but not that good. They won't blow out many SEC teams like they blew us out last night. I won't be surprised if they lose a few games to teams that have more than 5 pass plays in their playbook, and an OC that doesn't pucker up in big moments

[SallyStansbury]

Mstatefan91,

Agree with your comments. How does it make you feel for Coach Mullen to speak of player execution (like he did in his halftime interview and likely will this week) rather than altering scheme or offensive approach. It makes me feel like we will see more of the same....

[ShotgunDawg]

Great posts Cadaver.

Mullen has a real conundrum in his QB development.

- By teaching QBs to check down, he is teaching them the right way to play the position assuming fairly equal talent going against him.

- checking down gives you very little chance to play above yourself and pull upsets. It requires that you have to run too many plays per drive against superior talented players to score. The way to pull upsets is with quick strikes and big plays. Mullen's philosophy removes that chance unless he can impose his will in the running, which just isn't going to happen vs top 5 recruiters.

I feel like we've reached the point of insanity vs these teams. We continue to do the same thing every time, say we didn't execute, etc and continue to see the same result.

Mullen, you've been at MSU for 9 years and you've never beaten Bama and looked like garbage last night. If we haven't "executed" in 9 years against this type of team, why do you think it's going to happen in year 10?

To continue to harp on this insanity.

[CadaverDawg]

Great posts Cadaver.

Mullen has a real conundrum in his QB development.

- By teaching QBs to check down, he is teaching them the right way to play the position assuming fairly equal talent going against him.

- checking down gives you very little chance to play above yourself and pull upsets. It requires that you have to run too many plays per drive against superior talented players to score. The way to pull upsets is with quick strikes and big plays. Mullen's philosophy removes that chance unless he can impose his will in the running, which just isn't going to happen vs top 5 recruiters.

I feel like we've reached the point of insanity vs these teams. We continue to do the same thing every time, say we didn't execute, etc and continue to see the same result.

Mullen, you've been at MSU for 9 years and you've never beaten Bama and looked like garbage last night. If we haven't "executed" in 9 years against this type of team, why do you think it's going to happen in year 10?

To continue to harp on this insanity.

Great post.

Do you realize that Georgia could do no wrong last night, yet they ran a flea flicker, and several different pass plays with a FRESHMAN QB. Meanwhile, we didn't even run a damn counter play, much less a reverse or trick play to try to generate something...anything...a pulse! It's like Dan doesn't even try to create offense....it's like he says, "well we're either going to beat them with our base packages, or we're not". And that's it. No adjustments, no creativity, not even desperation plays after all these beat downs...it's sickening. Hell I'd rather watch a 5 wide, Hail Mary for 4 straight plays down by 30 than to be drinking in my recliner and telling my buddies "here comes a Fitz run up the middle for no gain on 3rd and 2", and guessing right ALL DAMN NIGHT. I seriously predicted 50% of the play calls last night from my recliner with a glass of bourbon in my hand!!!....if people like us can do that, do you think Kirby Smart has an ounce of trouble defending it or guessing it? Just awful

[ShotgunDawg]

Great post.

Do you realize that Georgia could do no wrong last night, yet they ran a flea flicker, and several different pass plays with a FRESHMAN QB. Meanwhile, we didn't even run a damn counter play, much less a reverse or trick play to try to generate something...anything...a pulse! It's like Dan doesn't even try to create offense....it's like he says, "well we're either going to beat them with our base packages, or we're not". And that's it. No adjustments, no creativity, not even desperation plays after all these beat downs...it's sickening. Hell I'd rather watch a 5 wide, Hail Mary for 4 straight plays down by 30 than to be drinking in my recliner and telling my buddies "here comes a Fitz run up the middle for no gain on 3rd and 2", and guessing right ALL DAMN NIGHT. I seriously predicted 50% of the play calls last night from my recliner with a glass of bourbon in my hand!!!....if people like us can do that, do you think Kirby Smart has an ounce of trouble defending it or guessing it? Just awful

Agree. It's absolutely hilarious that the team that was clearly more talented is the one that came out and ran a flea flicker on the first play.

Mullen would never consider such, because flea flickers are outside of our normal offense, and, since our base offense always has someone open, assuming that we check down, assuming we execute, there is no reason to run a flea flicker.

MULLEN, HERE IS A FREE SECRET. TEAMS WANT YOU TO CHECK DOWN AND ARE BAITING YOU TO CHECK DOWN BECAUSE THEY DON'T FEAR YOU QB's ACCURACY OR YOUR RECEIVERS ABILITY TO BREAK TACKLES