The "Mullen has reached his ceiling" propaganda

[Coach34]

It's funny to hear people get on State and Mullen for winning 8 games. Poor ol Dan Mullen has hit his ceiling by becoming State's winningest coach over his first 4 seasons since the 1940's. Let's take a real look at team's "ceilings" since 1970 (modern SEC football):

State- won 10 games in 1999, 9 games in 1974 and 2010..looks like 9 is our actual ceiling

Ole Miss- won 10 in 1971 and 2003, 9 games in 1990, 1992 (followed by probation and Brewer being fired), 2008 and 2009- looks like 9 games is the Ole Miss ceiling also

Kentucky- won 10 in 1977 and 9 in 1984...ceiling looks to be 7-8 wins

Vandy- won 9 for the first time in 2012. Program has had a ceiling of 5-6 wins, but they are working on changing that

Missouri- was a 6-7 win program until Pinkel arrived. He put up some big seasons in the Big 12, winning 12 once and 10 twice- but now they are in the SEC- hard to see this program win more than 8-9 games once in a blue moon.

South Carolina- won 10 games in 1983 and 9 in 2010 under Spurrier. It took Spurrier, one of the best coaches in SEC history, 7 seasons to get to double-digit wins there.


As we can see, There are alot of SEC programs that have the same ceiling as State and Dan Mullen. It takes years to raise a ceiling by being a consistent winner to put a program in double digit territory. State fans need to stop being so shortsighted and letting other fanbases think for them

[TexasDawg]

Great post coach, as fans we need to realize that to build a solid stable program here it takes time. While we may have wanted to see Mullen bring immediate results when we hired him, we had to let him build the program from the bottom up. He is on a great track as far as I am concerned. 3 Bowl Games, probably should've been 4. And now we are starting to see the recruiting really pick up, as we are now becoming able to go out of state and get some solid talent outside of Mississippi. Very difficult to reel in double digit win seasons at MSU when you have to compete with the toughest division in college football. Let Mullen keep doing what he is doing and all will be good.

[ShotgunDawg]

Very true Coach. The thing that always makes me laugh, are fans that don't understand how sports work. Their biggest fallacy is the assumption that building a winning program is a linear regression that starts from where the program is at the time the new coach takes over and ends in as a National Championship contender.

The fans that believe this ridiculousness are easy to spot. They are the one that always throw out "Mullen's 5th year" or "Cohen's X year" and I'm sure they'll throw it out about Ray this year or next.

It is such a short sited and uninformed mindset. People who understand this stuff, also understand that us winning 6-8 games a year for 7-10 years is moving in the right direction when compared to our history. A foundation of success must be built solidly enough in order to build something bigger upon it. I could care less how many years a coach has been at a school. What I do care about is whether or not the program is improving, not from a win-loss perspective, because that is so dependent on the schedule and the ability to win a close game that could go either way. I view a program that is going in the right direction by the product on the field (the eye test, are we any good?), fan support, facility upgrades, and depth and talent improvement.

If we are moving in the right direction in these criteria, which we are, then wins will come. It is a process. There is no magic formula without cheating. This isn't the NFL. In college football, the worst team doesn't get the first pick in the draft. The simple factor that, in college football, the best team gets the first pick of players, makes gaining ground on the best teams very very difficult without cheating. Its a process

[BogeyGolfer]

as a State fan you should be happy with 6-8 wins a year and a bowl game...It would be great to win 9-10 games a year but that's not going to happen. We don't have the fan-base or resources to compete with Bama, LSU and Florida among others. This is why I scratch my head at Tenn lack of success the last few years, they should mop up in recruiting and compete for the National Championship on a regular basis.

[Coach34]

My point is that unless you have that "game-changer" coach like Spurrier who had a bigtime rep before he stepped on their campus- all of those programs "ceiling" is 8-9 wins. You have to hope a special group is put together to have a couple of special ever so often.

[Political Hack]

UT is having money problems. They don't understand time valuation of $.

Also, Illinois is not a basketball powerhouse and Shaka Smart will not be taking the job there.

[ShotgunDawg]

as a State fan you should be happy with 6-8 wins a year and a bowl game...It would be great to win 9-10 games a year but that's not going to happen. We don't have the fan-base or resources to compete with Bama, LSU and Florida among others. This is why I scratch my head at Tenn lack of success the last few years, they should mop up in recruiting and compete for the National Championship on a regular basis.

Tennessee lacks the local talent pipelines that UGA, Bama, FL, aTm, and LSU have. Although they do have a big stadium, in terms of total natural resources, they are nowhere close to the upper level SEC teams. That doesn't mean they can't be better than what they are now, but, at best, they are in 6th place of resources in the SEC.

Big stadiums don't win games; big stadiums combined with local talent wins games. Oregon is the only national power that this doesn't apply to, and I believe if they were in the SEC, they would be no better than TN.

[Coach34]

I think Tenn's best days are behind them now that SC, Vandy, State, and others are elevating their programs. They are having a much harder time stealing too recruits from other states because Tennessee as a whole doesn't produce many.

[BeastMan]

I've actually heard OM fans say when they win, they win bigger. It's unbelievable the nonsense they can buy in to

[Todd4State]

As far as our football program and its ceiling, I think there are still some very simple things to raise it.

1. Enclose the stadium. This is in progress and should be done within the next five years or so if I had to guess. We have greatly improved our facilities under Dan.

2. Outsource our compliance for men's sports. I like Coach and engie's idea of moving Bracky to women's sports. Until we do this, we are cutting corners in recruiting that we shouldn't have to cut.

3. Raise the salaries of our assistants. This to me, is the real reason why we have had four DC's under Dan and why we have a stale old OC like Les. Either we end up with retreads like Torbush and Koenning, guys that are up and comers like Manny Diaz that get lured away by someone like Texas, or we have to gamble on someone like Chris Wilson and hope it works out.

I do agree with Coach that we could raise our ceiling by hiring someone like one of the Harbaugh brothers, Chip Kelly, or a Pete Carroll from the NFL or maybe an Urban Meyer. I'm not going to go all Ole Miss here and say that we could definitely land one of those guys though. And even if we did, I still think we would need to do the three things that I mentioned above.

I will say this though- I think we have a much better chance of hiring a big name coach like a Chip Kelly than Ole Miss does. Just because we have newer facilities and we have been more consistent as far as winning over the last five years.

[Todd4State]

I've actually heard OM fans say when they win, they win bigger. It's unbelievable the nonsense they can buy in to

What the hell does that even mean? They have had like maybe two major college football victories in my lifetime- beating Tebow a few years ago and Notre Dame in 1977- actually I wasn't quite born yet at that time of that game. We beat Alabama in 1980 which was bigger in my opinion than either of those and then Florida in 2000 when they were 2 or 3.

[Coach34]

I've actually heard OM fans say when they win, they win bigger. It's unbelievable the nonsense they can buy in to

One of their Cotton Bowls was in a down SEC West where they went 8-4 (4-4). We've done that twice under Mullen but because of the SEC being so loaded now- that only gets you a Gator Bowl. They have the same ceiling we do- but still think it's 1962.

[BogeyGolfer]

spent over $580,000,000 on athletics and this was 2nd only to Florida and in 2011 had an athletic budget of over $97,000,000. I agree with coach concerning local talent but Memphis is eat up with talent and they should be able to draw from Atlanta, Kentucky, NC, hell even Ohio. I know they have great facilities so I'm not sure what's missing. To keep this related to the original topic, I think Mullen would win 8 plus games a year there if he hired a top notch recruiter like Brewster and would be able pay him enough to stay.

[Coach34]

Hack was referring to Tennessee having to borrow from their endowment to pay off coaches that they fired. They are spending more than they are bringing in these days

[Political Hack]

http://m.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2013/01/28/Colleges/Tennessee.aspx

UT's in a tough spot financially. They could dig out of it if they'd quit paying coaches who don't coach there.

[Ghost of Hank Flick]

There is a lot of rational thought in this thread. I like Shotgun Dawg's explanation as to why people think we've hit our ceiling. The media and fans alike have a hard time differentiating between NFL and college. If you go 2-14 in NFL and hire a new coach he should progressively get better until you reach the playoffs or you don't have the right guy. The playing field is even with the salary cap plus draft picks and free agents. You can cut a player and pick up an NFL talent to replace him. College is totally different. The number one goal this year is to go to another bowl game. Number two would be win a big game. As long as we keep having winning seasons we will keep having top 25 type recruiting classes and we will get closer and closer. If we can be a 8-9 win team consistently then we put ourselves in a position to have a special team that goes 11-1, goes to ATL and....

[Political Hack]

the only problem is that the stars have to align for us to have a 10 or 11 win season. Last year was one of those years. All time leading passer, 1,000 yd rusher, veteran WR corps, two very talented TEs, and a solid OL with decent experience. Offense was primed to have a big year and considering we play in the SEC they did pretty well minus a few games.

Defensively we had two NFL CBs, an NFL DT, we're loaded with talent across the board at LB, but we had some problems that we couldn't overcome. 1) Cox bolted early for the NFL, 2) Nickoe lost a step, 3) Denico didn't realize his potential until the 2nd half of the season, 4) turmoil on the team over the scheme, 5) attitude issues with some of the young talent, and 6) Wilson. We were stacked and loaded for a huge year defensively but royally screwed it up somehow on multiple levels. This year we have more talent, but less experience. If Collins can get the pups to play we could be very, very good. We have 4 or more NFL DL on this team and should be disruptive up front. If they reach their potential on the DL everything else will fall into place. To me, that's the entire key for this season.

[Ghost of Hank Flick]

Well stars aligning would include team chemistry and all that. I think that can take you further than pure talent - just look at our baseball team.

I disagree to an extent on experience on the defense outside of the secondary. Boyd was good but he wasn't head and shoulders above where our DTs will be this year. James, Smith, Autry, Evans etc all are a year older. Our LBs only lost Lawrence, they are more experienced and more talented. We lost NFL talent and seniors at CB but they werent utilized correctly and I don't think they were good leaders. I've always thought 13 would be a better team than 12, the schedule just didn't work out. We need a year where we have good leadership, chemistry, talent and some help to make it to Atlanta. I really think our first legit shot at one of those years is probably 2015.

[Political Hack]

Agree on the need for chemistry, but my larger point with Boyd was that had he and Cox played together they would've been dominant. We should be better this year for sure, but we should've been a lot better last year defensively.

[War Machine Dawg]

As far as our football program and its ceiling, I think there are still some very simple things to raise it.

1. Enclose the stadium. This is in progress and should be done within the next five years or so if I had to guess. We have greatly improved our facilities under Dan.

2. Outsource our compliance for men's sports. I like Coach and engie's idea of moving Bracky to women's sports. Until we do this, we are cutting corners in recruiting that we shouldn't have to cut.

3. Raise the salaries of our assistants. This to me, is the real reason why we have had four DC's under Dan and why we have a stale old OC like Les. Either we end up with retreads like Torbush and Koenning, guys that are up and comers like Manny Diaz that get lured away by someone like Texas, or we have to gamble on someone like Chris Wilson and hope it works out.

I do agree with Coach that we could raise our ceiling by hiring someone like one of the Harbaugh brothers, Chip Kelly, or a Pete Carroll from the NFL or maybe an Urban Meyer. I'm not going to go all Ole Miss here and say that we could definitely land one of those guys though. And even if we did, I still think we would need to do the three things that I mentioned above.

I will say this though- I think we have a much better chance of hiring a big name coach like a Chip Kelly than Ole Miss does. Just because we have newer facilities and we have been more consistent as far as winning over the last five years.

Those are the 2 biggest, Todd. Until we can rid ourselves of Bracky, we can't recruit on a level playing field with the rest of the SEC. We'll be stuck getting the same caliber of player, meaning we'll stagnate. Sure, our depth will be better, but our overall ceiling will be limited by a lack of top-end talent, particularly at the skill positions.

And we've GOT to get more money to our assistants. Until we're willing to pay them competitively with the rest of the SEC, we can't expect much better results. I'll say it now: Collins will be gone in 2-3 seasons. A program will come along and hire him away, just like Manny. You can't have a great program without a great staff. Saban is a great coach, but he also has a crazy staff around him.

It'll take time to get this stuff done, but it can, and should be done. The university is growing, our endowment is growing, and revenues have never been hire. It's time to stop skimping and join the big boys in the way we run our football program. No more Bracky. Pay the assistants competitively. Period.