Quote Originally Posted by dawgs View Post
No hate, just a realistic look at his limitations. I think since bama 2014, it's been readily apparent that Mullen didn't have the balls to consistently win big games and the lack of a recruiting bump post-dak was indicative of his limitations as a recruiter. Funny thing with the crootin aspect is that Florida fans told us in 2009 how Dan nearly screwed up the Tebow recruiting and Meyer had to make a last minute save to keep him from going to bama. The fact that we didn't capitalize after 2014 is entirely on Dan. Dan can find undervalued talent and develop guys, but to win big, you at least need to have a top 10 class every once in awhile and consistently hang around in the top 15-20 other years.

As an in game coach, Dan is overly conservative and runs one of the most boring spread option systems out there. If it was 3rd and 5 or less, I bet we ran dak or fitz between the tackles 90% of the time since 2013. That works against la tech and vandy, but it doesn't work against bama or consistently against LSU and auburn, which is why we almost always won the games we should and lost the games we should. And how often would we sit on the ball at the end of the half when we were within striking distance of FG range and a couple time outs in our pocket?

And since bama 2014, he has flirted with any and all P5 openings that would listen, even inferior programs like Minnesota and Maryland. Seemed like every good season went out with a whimper because he'd be checked out working the coaching carousel instead of beating the shit out of OM and winning a bowl game.

Clearly his positives outweighed his negatives and he is an overall good coach, and I'm forever thankful for turning us around post-croom, but he had a couple of obvious, yet fixable flaws, but he refused to addressed those flaws, which imo likely meant we were perpetually stuck in a cycle of essentially 7-9 win seasons. There's obviously worse scenarios out there (croom), but when you can see the couple of fixable flaws that could take us from a 7-9 W program to a 8-11 W program and Dan continuously refused to work on those flaws, then it gets frustrating. Throw in the constant flirting with any and every HC opening, and I think most MSU fans are thankful for what Dan did for the program but ok with him moving on.
Nice post, you nailed it. I was playing devil?s advocate mainly to see if our fans really think we can really do better than the Tax Slayer and Music City Bowl or should we think like Dan and accept our limitations and just be happy to be able to go to a bowl.

And I 110% agree that his flirting with other jobs, especially after Dak?s Last season really ****ed our recruiting. Furthermore, his either laziness or sincerely thinking MSU could not recruit on the national level, or both, put us behind the 8 ball in recruiting every damn year by never even trying to go after top out of state talent. Freeze exposed Dan but Joe is downright humiliating him!!!

Finally, his play calling during the final half of the 4th qtr vs Bama was the most conservative and pathetic that these eyes have ever seen!!!! Played to lose and lost. Still makes me sick to think we had Bama?s D on the ropes but instead of going for the jugular, Dan decided to basically to stop ourselves with his obsession of calling the QB dive regardless of down or distance. Ass awful!