Interesting Take on Our Schedule

[Hotdawg66]

http://espn.go.com/blog/sec/post/_/id/83443/schedule-analysis-mississippi-state-4

[tcdog70]

our only time to win the WEST-We played Ky and Vandy and no other tough EAST team. We caught the West teams in transition and Won . Sorta like this year is shaping up. Bama, LSU and A&M have new QBs. Arkansas-sucks. That leaves OM and the Barners with their QBs back. So why not??

[drunkernhelldawg]

Excellent analysis and the reason I say that anything less than ten regular season wins is just ho-hum. If you want to call this a good season, we need to still be contending for the SEC West in mid November. That's just the way the schedule is; it's up to us to win the games. If not now, when?

[DawgSaint]

I can tell you this much....if I ever find an Over/Under at 7.5 wins I'll be all over the OVER

[missouridawg]

I can tell you this much....if I ever find an Over/Under at 7.5 wins I'll be all over the OVER

5 dimes has Over 7.5 at -140 right now.

[ScoobaDawg]

5 dimes has Over 7.5 at -140 right now.

Hey go crazy
MSU +10000 to win the NC
Dak +3500 to win Heisman

[drunkernhelldawg]

Hey go crazy
MSU +10000 to win the NC
Dak +3500 to win Heisman

Both are long shots but possibilities.

[CadaverDawg]

Hey go crazy
MSU +10000 to win the NC
Dak +3500 to win Heisman

If you bet on one of these, you might as well bet on both....because one will not happen without the other

[smootness]

Excellent analysis and the reason I say that anything less than ten regular season wins is just ho-hum. If you want to call this a good season, we need to still be contending for the SEC West in mid November. That's just the way the schedule is; it's up to us to win the games. If not now, when?

I just can't accept that 9-3 would be anything less than great. I just don't think it's realistic. Keep in mind that if we win 9 games, we're either losing to Bama, LSU, and Auburn but beating everybody else on our schedule, including A&M and Ole Miss...or we're beating one of those 3, who will likely all be preseason top 10 this year.

Our schedule is 'easy' compared to what it has been and compared to some other SEC teams; it isn't actually easy in any way, shape, or form, though. Just about every team in the Big 10 or Big 12 or ACC would throw up looking at the same schedule in front of them. You're talking about 5 top 20 teams by most publications preseason. I want more than 9 wins, but I would gladly take it and be pumped.

[Political Hack]

butter.

[State82]

He is nuts if he thinks we will have a tough time filling all the seats against USM. That's crazy talk.

[mic]

I just can't accept that 9-3 would be anything less than great. I just don't think it's realistic. Keep in mind that if we win 9 games, we're either losing to Bama, LSU, and Auburn but beating everybody else on our schedule, including A&M and Ole Miss...or we're beating one of those 3, who will likely all be preseason top 10 this year.

Our schedule is 'easy' compared to what it has been and compared to some other SEC teams; it isn't actually easy in any way, shape, or form, though. Just about every team in the Big 10 or Big 12 or ACC would throw up looking at the same schedule in front of them. You're talking about 5 top 20 teams by most publications preseason. I want more than 9 wins, but I would gladly take it and be pumped.

exactly.. Guy makes it sound like we are the ONLY SEC team that plays a soft non conference schedule. Guy is a Aub grad.. Guess he forgot that Aub plays FCS powerhouse Samford..
Yeah give me 9 with a W over the Bears and this year will be a success..

[DawgSaint]

If you bet on one of these, you might as well bet on both....because one will not happen without the other

Good point! On the over 7.5 at 5 Dimes I don't have an account there, but will look into it. Any of you guys have an account there?

[drunkernhelldawg]

I just can't accept that 9-3 would be anything less than great. I just don't think it's realistic. Keep in mind that if we win 9 games, we're either losing to Bama, LSU, and Auburn but beating everybody else on our schedule, including A&M and Ole Miss...or we're beating one of those 3, who will likely all be preseason top 10 this year.

Our schedule is 'easy' compared to what it has been and compared to some other SEC teams; it isn't actually easy in any way, shape, or form, though. Just about every team in the Big 10 or Big 12 or ACC would throw up looking at the same schedule in front of them. You're talking about 5 top 20 teams by most publications preseason. I want more than 9 wins, but I would gladly take it and be pumped.

I agree with you except that it's not acceptable to just routinely lose to LSU and Bama. We have the team to compete this season, and we also have a schedule that is ideal for our purposes. With Dak leading our team, we have a true shot this season. I'll be happy to an extent with 9-3, but I wonder how long it will be before we have another opportunity like this. I'm afraid it could be a while.

[Johnson85]

I just can't accept that 9-3 would be anything less than great. I just don't think it's realistic. Keep in mind that if we win 9 games, we're either losing to Bama, LSU, and Auburn but beating everybody else on our schedule, including A&M and Ole Miss...or we're beating one of those 3, who will likely all be preseason top 10 this year.

Our schedule is 'easy' compared to what it has been and compared to some other SEC teams; it isn't actually easy in any way, shape, or form, though. Just about every team in the Big 10 or Big 12 or ACC would throw up looking at the same schedule in front of them. You're talking about 5 top 20 teams by most publications preseason. I want more than 9 wins, but I would gladly take it and be pumped.

Assuming there are no major surprises in how good teams are (which of course there usually is at least one), 9-3 would be very good but not great. It will likely mean we won every game on our schedule that we should win, won what is essentially a toss-up because it's a rivalry game on the road, and failed to get it done against LSU, Bama, and Auburn, despite the fact that LSU and Bama are replacing quarterbacks and LSU is replacing a ton after a couple of years of losing players early to the draft. Very good season but it would likely mean we took one of our best opportunities and schedules in close to 15 years and turned it into a 4th place finish in the West. I just can't call that great no matter how good the competition is.

[smootness]

I agree with you except that it's not acceptable to just routinely lose to LSU and Bama. We have the team to compete this season, and we also have a schedule that is ideal for our purposes. With Dak leading our team, we have a true shot this season. I'll be happy to an extent with 9-3, but I wonder how long it will be before we have another opportunity like this. I'm afraid it could be a while.

I'm not saying we should accept losing to them every year, but we haven't hit 9 regular-season wins in over a decade and just about never before then; I can't say doing that again would be anything other than great.

And if you don't think we'll have another opportunity to do this well in a long time, I'm not sure why you would put the standard for this year so high. It seems like if you think winning 10 games should be what we expect, then I would think you believe we'll be able to consistently win a lot of games year in and year out.

Think of it as an outsider. If an Ole Miss fan said winning 9 regular-season games would be ho-hum for them this year, we'd say they're insane. Why? Because they haven't won that many games since 2003 and it had been decades before that. We would especially consider that insane if they also said they didn't expect to have the opportunity to win 9-10 games for a while after that...because if you have enough faith in your team that you think they should suddenly win a bunch more games than usual, it seems like you would also have faith they could sustain it to some degree.

I don't think a fanbase can ever be 'ho-hum' about something they essentially never do just because they decide that one year the stars are aligning. To use another comparison, it would be like a Jets fan saying that they like Michael Vick and their schedule sets up well, so they better win 12 games or it won't be exciting...as though 10 or 11 to them is suddenly disappointing for some reason.

Just going to a bowl for us is now 'ho-hum' because we've been to 4 straight and now expect to raise the bar. Winning 9 regular-season games? If that is ho-hum, then our perspective is probably out of whack.

[smootness]

Assuming there are no major surprises in how good teams are (which of course there usually is at least one), 9-3 would be very good but not great. It will likely mean we won every game on our schedule that we should win, won what is essentially a toss-up because it's a rivalry game on the road, and failed to get it done against LSU, Bama, and Auburn, despite the fact that LSU and Bama are replacing quarterbacks and LSU is replacing a ton after a couple of years of losing players early to the draft. Very good season but it would likely mean we took one of our best opportunities and schedules in close to 15 years and turned it into a 4th place finish in the West. I just can't call that great no matter how good the competition is.

Then you probably couldn't pay me enough to be a D1 football coach. I can see beating Ole Miss as somewhat ho-hum because we've won 4 of 5 even though that's going to be a very tough game. A&M? We think they're going to take a step back, but we don't know, and we haven't beaten them the last two years. We would have to win both of those and sweep everything else (not an incredibly difficult task but shouldn't be seen as a complete given, either) to get to 9. I just don't know how doing something you've done once in the last 50 or so years could be seen as anything other than great, regardless of what we think we have.

If we think certain parts of our team weren't as good as they should have been and we win 9 regular-season games, then we still put a team together capable of winning 9 regular-season games in the SEC. That will be great for our program.

[ShotgunDawg]

I think 9 wins would be awesome. Sure, we are all hoping for 10 wins and competing for the SEC West, but I have no issue taking it one step at a time.

I know there is the fear that things may not set up like this ever again, but let me offer some hope.

1. Bama ain't getting any better. How can Bama get any better? They currently land every top recruit in the country and Saban is getting older. Every year he coaches is one year closer he is to retirement. The Bama you see now is the best their program can ever be. Sure, they may have team here and there that plays better, but the program as a whole has reached its' ceiling and I mean that with as much respect as possible.

2. LSU - Same as Bama. Not sure how they would get much better than they are now. They put more players in the NFL than any other school in the country, so I'm not sure how they could acquire anymore talent. Sure they could hire a little better game day coach, but would that come at the expense of talent evaluation and recruiting?

3. Auburn - I believe Auburn could get better, but probably at the expense of Bama and LSU. If Auburn gets better, then it's likely that either the Bama or LSU game gets easier. Cancels out.

4. Texas A&M - Wild card, not sure. If they get better, it will likely also be at the expense of Bama and LSU. Plus, I think one of the things that makes Bama and LSU so good is the pressure they are under to win due to their tradition and fanbases. A&M doesn't have that same pressure, which could lead to some plateauing.

5. Ole Miss and MSU are on parallel highways. Whatever benefits us also benefits them. Neither of us can really ever separate from the other because that would involve needing to jump Bama, Auburn, and LSU which ain't happening. Therefore, all Egg Bowls will come down to 2 teams that have least 3 division loses.

6. Arkansas - Due to A&M and Missouri being in the SEC now, I see their recruiting area shrinking. I don't see them as having any better of a future than Ole Miss or MSU.

Plainly, we have some of the best facilities in the country, and are slightly closing the talent gap between us and our competition, when our competition really has no way of acquiring better talent.

For these reasons, I just see MSU have a chance at good season more often for the next 20 years than we have had in the last 20.

[drunkernhelldawg]

I'm not saying we should accept losing to them every year, but we haven't hit 9 regular-season wins in over a decade and just about never before then; I can't say doing that again would be anything other than great.

And if you don't think we'll have another opportunity to do this well in a long time, I'm not sure why you would put the standard for this year so high. It seems like if you think winning 10 games should be what we expect, then I would think you believe we'll be able to consistently win a lot of games year in and year out.

Think of it as an outsider. If an Ole Miss fan said winning 9 regular-season games would be ho-hum for them this year, we'd say they're insane. Why? Because they haven't won that many games since 2003 and it had been decades before that. We would especially consider that insane if they also said they didn't expect to have the opportunity to win 9-10 games for a while after that...because if you have enough faith in your team that you think they should suddenly win a bunch more games than usual, it seems like you would also have faith they could sustain it to some degree.

I don't think a fanbase can ever be 'ho-hum' about something they essentially never do just because they decide that one year the stars are aligning. To use another comparison, it would be like a Jets fan saying that they like Michael Vick and their schedule sets up well, so they better win 12 games or it won't be exciting...as though 10 or 11 to them is suddenly disappointing for some reason.

Just going to a bowl for us is now 'ho-hum' because we've been to 4 straight and now expect to raise the bar. Winning 9 regular-season games? If that is ho-hum, then our perspective is probably out of whack.

I'm actually talking about this particular season and the opportunity it gives us. I will never sneer at averaging 9 or even 8 games a season. But this season is a rare combination of elements in our favor. If we don't take advantage, it'll be "o well" for me. With this schedule, 9 wins is not great. Sure, it'll be great to get to 10 for only the second time ever by winning the bowl game.

I don't have an "expectation" of any number of wins every season. I never will think that way, and I never have. It's the 2014 season that concerns me. Winning is extremely tough; when you have the opportunity, it's imperative to take advantage. Period.

[Dawgcentral]

I see the big obstacle as taking 2 of 3 from Bama, Auburn, and LSU. When it comes to the rest of the schedule, I see it in terms of who's coming back for each team, besides TSUN, because that game is so unpredictable, meaning we've lost to them in years where I certainly never expected it.

We can get over that hump into advancing into the upper echelon of the SEC West by taking LSU on the road. Don't care if it's because they are in a down year,..our players need that confidence if they are going to make this a special year.

[drunkernhelldawg]

I see the big obstacle as taking 2 of 3 from Bama, Auburn, and LSU. When it comes to the rest of the schedule, I see it in terms of who's coming back for each team, besides TSUN, because that game is so unpredictable, meaning we've lost to them in years where I certainly never expected it.

We can get over that hump into advancing into the upper echelon of the SEC West by taking LSU on the road. Don't care if it's because they are in a down year,..our players need that confidence if they are going to make this a special year.

That's what I'm talking about.

[Coach34]

8-4 would be a solid season
9-3 would be a very good season for us
10 wins or better- as good as we can hope at Miss State

[drunkernhelldawg]

8-4 would be a solid season
9-3 would be a very good season for us
10 wins or better- as good as we can hope at Miss State

Taking the night off? After your strong advocacy for Dak's greatness and potential, it seems like you could wager an opinion as to whether this season will be special or not. We won't have him forever.

[BulldogBear]

Mulling this over today with some co-workers we came up with this. Rather than putting a W/L factor on it, I said that if we went bowling, 4-0 OOC (no bad OOC losses) AND accomplished 2 or more of the following 6 "doggie treats," then I'd be satisfied. If we do we will probably do much better than the 6-6 minimum to go bowling, probably 8-4 or 9-3, maybe 10-2. If we can't do 2 of these this year, then when will we???? Mullen and company need to eat 2 or more of these 6 dog biscuits:

A) Finish ranked #15 or higher in FINAL poll
B) Beat somebody ranked #15 or higher in FINAL poll or if not in final poll let it be somebody #10 or higher when we played and won.
C) Beat LSU in Baton Rouge
D) Spank Auburn and leave no doubt. Embarass them. Win by 20+ pts
E) Feed Reveille a dog doo snow cone. Beat brakes off Texas A&M. Win by 30+ pts
F) Keep Egg. Crush Bears and win by 17+ pts in Buckyville. Then watch the circus.

Notice I don't say beat Bama but that's because I am confident that would mean accomplishing B above.

Are these too lofty? By the way I am predicting D

[gravedigger]

It's a good article and rightfully points out the snoozers we have on it. Of course LSU looms very large. But I contend to you all that we can win the first three, lose to LSU and be right back in the hunt if we can pull off the aggie and rented mules. Suddenly we would be 5-1 and back in the hunt with only the hope that LSU fall to two teams (Florida, Bama, Auburn, OM) to keep us in the hunt for the West. Yea, it's pie in the sky, but to me it makes the aggie and auburn games SO much more important than the LSU game by itself.

I don't think we need to be thinking about final records or any of the normal shit. Just like we shouldn't have in 1998. We should be looking at holding serve at home and then be healthy going into the Bama game.

This is the first year of the 'tournament'. Winning the west and getting to Atlanta with the only loss coming at LSU would still put us in the top 4 if of course we could pull off that.

I've always looked at our schedule for what we 'could' accomplish rather than what was most probable. I don't give a shit right now about anything other than taking the conference by storm and catching lightning in a bottle. If we fall short of that, I'll deal with that in the Aggie or dead tree society games.

Till then, we are going to win the whole mthafking thing.

[Barking 13]

All I want to see is a quality product on the field that can contend with pretty much anybody in the country... forget the schedule. I'm tired of the past 40 years when we looked like shit against practically everybody. I think we have the tools, personnel, facilities, recruits, etc. now to be competitive, no matter who we play.. a lot of you guys weren't around when we were getting blown out 30+ in the first quarter.

[Statefan]

Mulling this over today with some co-workers we came up with this. Rather than putting a W/L factor on it, I said that if we went bowling, 4-0 OOC (no bad OOC losses) AND accomplished 2 or more of the following 6 "doggie treats," then I'd be satisfied. If we do we will probably do much better than the 6-6 minimum to go bowling, probably 8-4 or 9-3, maybe 10-2. If we can't do 2 of these this year, then when will we???? Mullen and company need to eat 2 or more of these 6 dog biscuits:

A) Finish ranked #15 or higher in FINAL poll
B) Beat somebody ranked #15 or higher in FINAL poll or if not in final poll let it be somebody #10 or higher when we played and won.
C) Beat LSU in Baton Rouge
D) Spank Auburn and leave no doubt. Embarass them. Win by 20+ pts
E) Feed Reveille a dog doo snow cone. Beat brakes off Texas A&M. Win by 30+ pts
F) Keep Egg. Crush Bears and win by 17+ pts in Buckyville. Then watch the circus.

Notice I don't say beat Bama but that's because I am confident that would mean accomplishing B above.

Are these too lofty? By the way I am predicting D


To be fair Mullen already did two of these in 2010 (we finished #15 and beat Mississippi in Oxford)

I would love for him to do both of those and beat a traditional power this year though

[Natedogg33]

If I'm not mistaken, this is the first spring Dak has been able to completely go through. He threw off a bucket in the spring going into last year, and I believe he was dinged up the year before. We haven't seen all that he has in my opinion. We have the backs and skill guys. Our front seven on defense will be good, and is basically two deep. Our defensive backfield is talented and intact minus Nickoe. If Cox can fill those shoes, and I see no reason he can't be at least equall, and Hughes is ready, our defense is squared away.
Our season rests on the Oline.
As for the 8 wins is good and 9 would be great crowd, if not now, when. When are we gonna "break through"? LSU is not unbeatable nor is Bama. As has been said, the schedule lays out about as well as humanly possible. I think this is the year Dan has been looking for. I just hope it doesn't crash and burn if and when we get beat. I can see a 2 loss team winning the west.

[FISHDAWG]

He is nuts if he thinks we will have a tough time filling all the seats against USM. That's crazy talk.

^^^ this is true ... we just might see that 11th fan if we are lucky .... I think we sell it out

[FISHDAWG]

Taking the night off? After your strong advocacy for Dak's greatness and potential, it seems like you could wager an opinion as to whether this season will be special or not. We won't have him forever.

I think what he is saying is that we finally have most of the pieces in place ... however, it's hard to anticipate games where turnovers, bad bounces, bad penalties, injuries, missed field goals / extra point, blocked punts, fumbled punt snaps, and other factors such as going for a 2 point conversion, fake punt, or other brain farts that effect the game will over-rule talent

[BulldogBear]

To be fair Mullen already did two of these in 2010 (we finished #15 and beat Mississippi in Oxford)

I would love for him to do both of those and beat a traditional power this year though

You're right but I said beat Ole Miss in Oxford by 17 points or more. I also believe, frankly, that if we end up 15th or better we will eat more than just 2 of the 6 doggie treats I mentioned.

[smootness]

As for the 8 wins is good and 9 would be great crowd, if not now, when. When are we gonna "break through"? LSU is not unbeatable nor is Bama. As has been said, the schedule lays out about as well as humanly possible. I think this is the year Dan has been looking for. I just hope it doesn't crash and burn if and when we get beat. I can see a 2 loss team winning the west.

When you say, 'if not now, when?', what do you mean? Because 9 regular season wins is something we've done, what, once in our history? That, to me, is the 'what' that 'if not now, when' describes.

We're still building the program up. It's not as though this is as good a team as we'll ever be able to put on the field. I don't believe that. I believe our recruiting continues to improve and we will have better teams down the road than this one is. It does set up well in terms of experience, schedule, etc., but this year is not the end-all, be-all. I feel like some are approaching the year as though we have to win the West to truly have a great year because we'll never have another opportunity this good. Well, first, I don't believe this will be the only opportunity; but we also can't base expectations off of whether or not this is our last chance for something. We have to base them off of where we are as a program, and right now we're a program that has never won 10 regular-season games that just came off a year in which we barely squeezed into a lower-tier bowl. Acting as though 9-3 in the regular season would be anything less than great for us is insane to me.

It would be like the Cubs suddenly saying, 'Our schedule sets up as well for us this year as it ever will; if we don't win 95 games, this year is just average'.

The Tigers may be able to say that, the Cubs shouldn't.

[drunkernhelldawg]

I think what he is saying is that we finally have most of the pieces in place ... however, it's hard to anticipate games where turnovers, bad bounces, bad penalties, injuries, missed field goals / extra point, blocked punts, fumbled punt snaps, and other factors such as going for a 2 point conversion, fake punt, or other brain farts that effect the game will over-rule talent

Yeah. The pointy-ended ball with the funny bounces. Eleven guys having to keep turned the right way. That's football, and that's its greatness. I'm just saying that this season is a rare opportunity. We can win this thing. Not "predicting" we will; I don't make predictions bases on other peoples' future actions. But we could and we should.

See what happens . . .

[FISHDAWG]

you ever tried to recover an onside kick ? ... or watched a punt recvr let the ball bounce and cost us another 20 yards or better ... how about the interception at USC when the ball bounced off our recvr into the other players hands .... if it's a ball it will take bad bounces sometimes

[Johnson85]

Then you probably couldn't pay me enough to be a D1 football coach. I can see beating Ole Miss as somewhat ho-hum because we've won 4 of 5 even though that's going to be a very tough game. A&M? We think they're going to take a step back, but we don't know, and we haven't beaten them the last two years. We would have to win both of those and sweep everything else (not an incredibly difficult task but shouldn't be seen as a complete given, either) to get to 9. I just don't know how doing something you've done once in the last 50 or so years could be seen as anything other than great, regardless of what we think we have.

If we think certain parts of our team weren't as good as they should have been and we win 9 regular-season games, then we still put a team together capable of winning 9 regular-season games in the SEC. That will be great for our program.

There's a lot of room between ho-hum and great. It's very hard to win all the games you're supposed to, and if we do that, it will be a very good season. But I have trouble calling a season great when we performed to expectations and finished 4th or maybe tied for 3rd in the West. I know we don't have a storied history, but I don't think finishing in the middle of the pack in what should be a peak year for us qualifies as a great season.

As far as your comments about A&M, A&M was a very mediocre team last year without Manziel. They have recruited well enough to be good without him, but they weren't. As I said, there is usually a team that steps up and surprises people, but if A&M isn't that team, that's a game we should be favored to win.

[dawg27]

I do agree,but if we want to even talk about winning the west well we have to beat lus bama. I do agree it would be a great season to win 9,i think we are headed in the right direction.