I really don't get the attitude of a lot of State fans right now.

[NCDawg]

I completely agree with this; my only thing is that I was pissed about this last year. The ball was dropped essentially following up on 2014 and continuing until we did what we had to do to close on last year's JUCO class. As far as I can tell, Mullen has finally addressed everything that is within his control, with the exception of Hevesy. And I am trying to be patient on Hevesy because I do think he can coach and we have started to get some better talent, even if we are still not signing enough bodies period. If Looney can help him recruit, that may be a good situation.



I completely agree, I just think we are doing things to get better. As I said, the cake was baked for this year well before this year started. But it looks like we finally have addressed our WR recruiting deficiencies. It looks like we are going to actually take advantage of Ole Miss being down when we actually have a lot of in state talent to recruit. The only remaining issue is what we are going to do with OL which looks concerning based on our current list of prospects, but not sure what to do about that but wait and see.

And all of the alleged coaching deficiencies mainly look like talent deficiencies to me. I'm not saying Mullen is perfect, but I think people underestimate some of the talent deficiencies because Mullen does such a good job overall. WRs are a perfect example. Nobody moves the ball on elite defenses with a glaring deficiency like that. Not saying Mullen's play calling was perfect, but what do you want him to do when our WRs can't get separation consistently and even when they do and the QB throws a very good pass, they have drops. The only reason anybody could fool themselves into thinking otherwise that Mullen has the offense good enough that we move the ball on average Defenses even with subpar WRs.

You say you are trying to be patient with Hevesy. How long do you propose to be patient? I don't see our OL being any better than it was 9 years ago, in fact it could be worse.. As far as bodies, we've signed enough OL if you look at our roster-just not good enough to play in the SEC. Pretty bad when the announcers at the Auburn game pointed out that we were weak on the OL, and that if Fitz played behind the Auburn OL, he would be really good.

[Johnson85]

You say you are trying to be patient with Hevesy. How long do you propose to be patient? I don't see our OL being any better than it was 9 years ago, in fact it could be worse.. As far as bodies, we've signed enough OL if you look at our roster-just not good enough to play in the SEC. Pretty bad when the announcers at the Auburn game pointed out that we were weak on the OL, and that if Fitz played behind the Auburn OL, he would be really good.

When I say I am trying to be patient with Hevesy, I don't mean with Hevesy himself. He is what he is. I mean with Mullen's approach to Hevesy, including how he handles Hevesy's glaring weakness in recruiting. Mullen's not an idiot, so I believe Hevesy brings a lot of value to him, and I assume/hope that adding Looney is Mullen's attempt to off set Hevesy's weakness at recruiting without giving up everything else he brings to the table. And honestly, I think Hevesy is good at coaching. The first half of last year was the first time I thought our OL looked worse than its talent level, and that didn't last through the year. Most of the time, we are better than what our talent would suggest we should be; the problem is we often only have 4 legitimate SEC OL.

But to answer your question, I think the current approach gets through the 2019 signing class. It sucks, because if the current approach doesn't work, we've essentially hamstrung our program through the 2020 season. As long as we don't completely crash and burn though, we should at least be good enough that getting bailed out by a JUCO transfer would be a possibility.