Is Mullen/MSU football taking another step?

[Ifyouonlyknew]

If we start pulling some legit 3 star OL, then I think we can entertain the question of whether or not we're taking another step.

I totally agree but Hev has started doing that more in the last few classes but he has to continue to improve & do it with a whole class.

2015 - M. Rankin 5 SEC Offers 10 Power 5 Offers
D. Williams 3 SEC Offers 5 Power 5 Offers
H. Moon 1 SEC Offer 2 Power 5 Offers
M. Story 1 SEC Offer 1 Power 5 Offer

2016 - S. Reese 9 SEC Offers 25 Power 5 Offers
G. Eiland 4 SEC Offers 4 Power 5 Offers
D. Parker 1 SEC Offer 1 Power 5 Offer

2017 - T. Champion 3 SEC Offers 5 Power 5 Offers
T. Phillips 1 SEC Offer 1 Power 5 Offer
C. Suggs 3 SEC Offers 16 Power 5 Offers
J. Cooper 1 SEC Offer 2 Power 5 Offers
M. Richardson 1 SEC Offer 1 Power 5 Offer

2018 - K. Johnson 2 SEC Offers 2 Power 5 Offers

So we've slowly improved but we need a class of Reese, Suggs, Johnson, & Williams all together & people would start to not hate Hev as much.

[War Machine Dawg]

You say this despite literally every single offensive category disagreeing with your assessment. Y'all that want us to recruit better at OL just keep brushing off the fact that there is no difference between 3* and 4* offensive lineman in terms of becoming NFL talents. You have to sign elite 5* top ten in the country OL types if you want the closest thing to a guaranteed NFL OL and we are never ever ever going to sign those players. Some of y'all keep chasing stars for OL and it's pointless. You are attracted to recruiting stars period. It gives us no more advantage to sign a 4* OL with offers from Auburn, Florida and Georgia than it does signing a 3* OL with offers from TCU, NCState and Colorado. Yet after reading this you will once again completely ignore it and call for Hevesy to be fired another 2,000 times.

And you're totally ignoring the fact we've been signing a bunch of 1 and 2 star OL. I don't give a damn if Paul is getting their ratings bumped at 247 because he's got one of the biggest sites. It doesn't change that we've been recruiting OL who are not SEC caliber. There's a reason we aren't even competitive against the top 2-3 teams in the SEC and it's always the OL. As for our offensive categories, get back to me when we get into the Top 25 nationally. We've been a very average offense in the age of offensive explosion. Good enough to win 8 or so games but not good enough to make any real noise or win a championship. We only average about 24.5 PPG in SEC play in the Mullen era. That's decent but nothing special.

I totally agree but Hev has started doing that more in the last few classes but he has to continue to improve & do it with a whole class.

2015 - M. Rankin 5 SEC Offers 10 Power 5 Offers
D. Williams 3 SEC Offers 5 Power 5 Offers
H. Moon 1 SEC Offer 2 Power 5 Offers
M. Story 1 SEC Offer 1 Power 5 Offer

2016 - S. Reese 9 SEC Offers 25 Power 5 Offers
G. Eiland 4 SEC Offers 4 Power 5 Offers
D. Parker 1 SEC Offer 1 Power 5 Offer

2017 - T. Champion 3 SEC Offers 5 Power 5 Offers
T. Phillips 1 SEC Offer 1 Power 5 Offer
C. Suggs 3 SEC Offers 16 Power 5 Offers
J. Cooper 1 SEC Offer 2 Power 5 Offers
M. Richardson 1 SEC Offer 1 Power 5 Offer

2018 - K. Johnson 2 SEC Offers 2 Power 5 Offers

So we've slowly improved but we need a class of Reese, Suggs, Johnson, & Williams all together & people would start to not hate Hev as much.

And this is an example of a useful and encouraging post. Hopefully we'll see the trend continue. But it's also a major concern we only sign 2-3 OL in a class. We should be signing a minimum of 5 every single year. If you only sign 2-3 every one of them have to pan out. If they don't, you wind up with serious depth issues. That's where we are now. But this thread has gotten way off track. My point was simple: We aren't taking a step forward as a program until we start getting better OL players. That isn't just on Hev, it's on the whole staff.

[Dawg61]

Good enough to win 8 or so games but not good enough to make any real noise or win a championship.

We didn't suddenly become Alabama or Ohio State because we were ranked #1 for 6 weeks. We are still Mississippi State University but your expectations changed and got way out if front of the steady progress that Dan has been making. It's like you went on a date with Kate Upton and now you expect her to be married to you and have 4 of your kids already.

Btw "good enough to win 8 or so games" on average is something C34 said was IMPOSSIBLE for any coach to ever accomplish at MSU yet the one literally doing the impossible is the one you're bitching about non-stop.

[BrunswickDawg]

It's like you went on a date with Kate Upton and now you expect her to be married to you and have 4 of your kids already.

The last thing I would be thinking of after a date with Kate Upton would be kids and marriage -

[War Machine Dawg]

The last thing I would be thinking of after a date with Kate Upton would be kids and marriage -

+1

[1bigdawg]

The last thing I would be thinking of after a date with Kate Upton would be kids and marriage -

++++++++++++++++++++++

[War Machine Dawg]

We didn't suddenly become Alabama or Ohio State because we were ranked #1 for 6 weeks. We are still Mississippi State University but your expectations changed and got way out if front of the steady progress that Dan has been making. It's like you went on a date with Kate Upton and now you expect her to be married to you and have 4 of your kids already.

Btw "good enough to win 8 or so games" on average is something C34 said was IMPOSSIBLE for any coach to ever accomplish at MSU yet the one literally doing the impossible is the one you're bitching about non-stop.

Don't put words in my mouth. Winning 8 games a year is a huge improvement. No one is talking about consistently competing for a national championship at State in football. But I don't think it's wrong to want to at least have a legitimate shot of making it to Atlanta once every 5-8 years, either. I'm not bitching about Mullen, I'm bitching about the lazy recruiting practices across the entire staff. Mullen seems to be taking a few steps to rectify that, but the biggest culprits are on his side of the football and we haven't seen any serious staff changes over there. We're still bringing a popgun to a full on firefight.

[Dawg61]

Don't put words in my mouth. Winning 8 games a year is a huge improvement. No one is talking about consistently competing for a national championship at State in football. But I don't think it's wrong to want to at least have a legitimate shot of making it to Atlanta once every 5-8 years, either

I am not putting words in your mouth but you didn't say the bolded part the last time I quoted you. You made it sound like winning 8 or so games a year was settling when unfortunately for our university it's actually doing the impossible. I want to win championships too brother. We are headed in the right direction and have been for almost a decade now. The progression is slow as molasses but keep in mind that it took Clemson basically thirty years of this steady slow molasses progression before they got their ring. If it makes you feel better our QB situation is better than almost every team in the country right now. We are getting there. Beating Alabama is the next big hurdle imo.

[War Machine Dawg]

I am not putting words in your mouth but you didn't say the bolded part the last time I quoted you. You made it sound like winning 8 or so games a year was settling when unfortunately for our university it's actually doing the impossible. I want to win championships too brother. We are headed in the right direction and have been for almost a decade now. The progression is slow as molasses but keep in mind that it took Clemson basically thirty years of this steady slow molasses progression before they got their ring. If it makes you feel better our QB situation is better than almost every team in the country right now. We are getting there. Beating Alabama is the next big hurdle imo.

Agree with this completely. And with the game becoming more and more QB driven, that's an extremely positive thing. I just want to make sure we can protect these stud QBs we have. We've seen way too many good QBs over the years wasted at State because of horrendous OL play.

[BB30]

Don't put words in my mouth. Winning 8 games a year is a huge improvement. No one is talking about consistently competing for a national championship at State in football. But I don't think it's wrong to want to at least have a legitimate shot of making it to Atlanta once every 5-8 years, either. I'm not bitching about Mullen, I'm bitching about the lazy recruiting practices across the entire staff. Mullen seems to be taking a few steps to rectify that, but the biggest culprits are on his side of the football and we haven't seen any serious staff changes over there. We're still bringing a popgun to a full on firefight.

And I think we will be competing for a trip to Atlanta every 5-8 years for sure as long as Mullen is here. I think we will be competing for the west every 4-5 years and that would be more than enough to keep me happy for a long time. I don't know if y'all remember just how awful the end of the kang and sly era was but it was absolutely excruciating.

[msbulldog]

And I think we will be competing for a trip to Atlanta every 5-8 years for sure as long as Mullen is here. I think we will be competing for the west every 4-5 years and that would be more than enough to keep me happy for a long time. I don't know if y'all remember just how awful the end of the kang and sly era was but it was absolutely excruciating.

Dammit I was trying to forget those times and you reminded me.

[dawgday166]

And I think we will be competing for a trip to Atlanta every 5-8 years for sure as long as Mullen is here. I think we will be competing for the west every 4-5 years and that would be more than enough to keep me happy for a long time. I don't know if y'all remember just how awful the end of the kang and sly era was but it was absolutely excruciating.

Aren't these the same thing?

[BB30]

Aren't these the same thing?

ha ha pretty close... I basically am saying that I feel we will compete for the west closer to every 4 years than every 8 years.

[QuadrupleOption]

Don't put words in my mouth. Winning 8 games a year is a huge improvement. No one is talking about consistently competing for a national championship at State in football. But I don't think it's wrong to want to at least have a legitimate shot of making it to Atlanta once every 5-8 years, either. I'm not bitching about Mullen, I'm bitching about the lazy recruiting practices across the entire staff. Mullen seems to be taking a few steps to rectify that, but the biggest culprits are on his side of the football and we haven't seen any serious staff changes over there. We're still bringing a popgun to a full on firefight.

We had a legitimate chance at Atlanta in 2014. Dak's two interceptions in Bama territory and JRob's ill-advised dance in the end zone for a safety squashed it, but we were very very close. Dan's going into Year 9 so you should be happy.

Recruiting could always be better but unless you're landing the #1 class in the country every year that will always be true. Building a program takes time. We are building a program here.