Stubborn Mullen

[Prentis]

I have a question for everyone, Why is Mullen so stuck on playing Brandon Holloway, and Ashton Shumpert at the running back position? He said that they deserve the reps. WHY DO THEY DESERVE REPS? Shumpert is the worst back on the team and Holloway is not a sec running back.

[msstate7]

Sec coaches disagree about Holloway. He was named 3rd team all sec preseason by coaches.

http://www.secsports.com/article/17384983/preseason-coaches-all-sec-teams-announced

[Todd4State]

Holloway and Shumpert are effective IF used properly. If we use Holloway on outside runs and in the passing game he is quite effective. I loved how we used him against Arkansas. Shumpert is good when used as a FB and he has good hands. Neither are effective if used like Vick Ballard.

Dan needs to use at the very least Williams, Shumpert, and Holloway. We'll see how it goes Saturday but I think Aeris NEEDS to be a big part of our offense for us to have a high level of success.

[Dawg-gone-dawgs]

I have a question for everyone, Why is Mullen so stuck on playing Brandon Holloway, and Ashton Shumpert at the running back position? He said that they deserve the reps. WHY DO THEY DESERVE REPS? Shumpert is the worst back on the team and Holloway is not a sec running back.

2 words..South Alabama

[Gutter Cobreh]

Why are we second guessing before even seeing the first snap this year?

We act like players don't progress from year over year, and instead are stuck in last year's form.

Let's let it play out at least for the first game or two.

It's game week damnit! Enjoy the moment!

[ckDOG]

Why are we second guessing before even seeing the first snap this year?

We act like players don't progress from year over year, and instead are stuck in last year's form.

Let's let it play out at least for the first game or two.

It's game week damnit! Enjoy the moment!

+1

[Todd4State]

Why are we second guessing before even seeing the first snap this year?

We act like players don't progress from year over year, and instead are stuck in last year's form.

Let's let it play out at least for the first game or two.

It's game week damnit! Enjoy the moment!

This is true about MSU fans assuming players don't progress- in all sports.

[anubus]

Why are we second guessing before even seeing the first snap this year?

We act like players don't progress from year over year, and instead are stuck in last year's form.

Let's let it play out at least for the first game or two.

It's game week damnit! Enjoy the moment!

exactly here's hoping Williams plays lights out Sat.

[RocketDawg]

I'd say that Dan is much more qualified to make such decisions than any of us posters.

[Liverpooldawg]

Holloway and Shumpert are effective IF used properly. If we use Holloway on outside runs and in the passing game he is quite effective. I loved how we used him against Arkansas. Shumpert is good when used as a FB and he has good hands. Neither are effective if used like Vick Ballard.

Dan needs to use at the very least Williams, Shumpert, and Holloway. We'll see how it goes Saturday but I think Aeris NEEDS to be a big part of our offense for us to have a high level of success.

Yep lets only use Holloway as an outside runner or receiver when he is in. That ought to fool most defenses. Holloway is a pretty good player.

[SPMT]

This has been a frustration with Mullen since his second or third year, especially at running back. It is the same thing repeatedly. He will run Holloway between the tackles like he did Perkins. If he plays Shumpert at anything other than fullback, he's seriously senior biased, unlike his peers. Shumpert just isn't feature back material and he won't make some freakish leap this year. He's just not a good enough running back athlete to effectively run the ball. That is not going to change, especially under the same staff.

[Todd4State]

Yep lets only use Holloway as an outside runner or receiver when he is in. That ought to fool most defenses. Holloway is a pretty good player.

We have to run him between the tackles every once in awhile to keep the defense at bay. I do think Holloway is a good player. But like every other player he has a certain skill set and running him like Vick Ballard isn’t going to work. See LaDarius Perkins.

Dan’s offense HAS TO HAVE a between the tackles running threat to go along with the dual threat quarterback to make it the most effective. That's just not Holloway's skill set.

[gravedigger]

Because he:

Determines how they are evaluated

Gets fired if its wrong

[BHildreth3]

I think what people are missing here is this: If they had a good fall camp, then they deserve a chance to start the season. It's a brand new season...

I don't care who starts! Now, if they suck in this game and keep playing, that's a totally different problem

[War Machine Dawg]

Why are we second guessing before even seeing the first snap this year?

We act like players don't progress from year over year, and instead are stuck in last year's form.

Let's let it play out at least for the first game or two.

It's game week damnit! Enjoy the moment!

We've had 3 years of evidence that Shump isn't an SEC running back. It has very little to do with one year with him. It's about the totality of his career. He's a bust, period. Stop wasting practice reps and games that other backs with actual talent need. Shump is a FB and special teams players. That's not gonna magically change. The better question is why let it play out with a guy who's proven beyond all doubt he can't hack it at this level?

[Todd4State]

We've had 3 years of evidence that Shump isn't an SEC running back. It has very little to do with one year with him. It's about the totality of his career. He's a bust, period. Stop wasting practice reps and games that other backs with actual talent need. Shump is a FB and special teams players. That's not gonna magically change. The better question is why let it play out with a guy who's proven beyond all doubt he can't hack it at this level?

Especially when Aeris has shown that he can be competent. If there really was no one else I could understand. That said, I think it will be like last year with Holloway getting most of the playing time and Shumpert coming in some.

[War Machine Dawg]

Especially when Aeris has shown that he can be competent. If there really was no one else I could understand. That said, I think it will be like last year with Holloway getting most of the playing time and Shumpert coming in some.

I still think D-Lee is the best back we have (who will realistically have a shot at getting carries) if he can do what it takes off the field to earn his way onto the field. Aeris isn't that much better than Shump, honestly.

But frankly, Gibson & Murphy both look like beasts that are ready to tote the mail at this level. Unfortunately, we all know Dan isn't going to give them much of a chance with 4 guys who are older, 3 of whom do the "little things," ahead of them in the pecking order. We'll get the standard coach-speak excuse of "they don't pass block" or whatever other bull they give to justify questionable personnel decisions.

[Apoplectic]

Mullen is going to reward the senior and/or best practice player with PT. He's a team first coach. This is why Perkins played over jrob, zach Jackson played period, and Coman has a jersey. This is why jrob hates him to this day - it was against mullen's nature to reward a me first player in Jrob.

IMO this is why he has hit his ceiling.

[Todd4State]

I still think D-Lee is the best back we have (who will realistically have a shot at getting carries) if he can do what it takes off the field to earn his way onto the field. Aeris isn't that much better than Shump, honestly.

But frankly, Gibson & Murphy both look like beasts that are ready to tote the mail at this level. Unfortunately, we all know Dan isn't going to give them much of a chance with 4 guys who are older, 3 of whom do the "little things," ahead of them in the pecking order. We'll get the standard coach-speak excuse of "they don't pass block" or whatever other bull they give to justify questionable personnel decisions.

The stats say that Lee is better. I agree with you there. I guess I’m trying to be somewhat realistic about who is going to play.

[thf24]

Questionable personnel decisions aside, I think I saw someone report at some point during the offseason that we were going to do less zone blocking and more traditional downhill scheme, and if that's true (may have totally imagined it, not sure) and our OL can pull it off, then Shump could be pretty decent. I think a lot of his struggle comes from having to wait for the lane to open and then finding it in the zone blocking scheme (and the fact that it never did open a lot of the time last year). If he gets put in situations where he can take the ball and immediately get north and south, he'll be fine.

[Duckdog]

I'd say that Dan is much more qualified to make such decisions than any of us posters.

No he's not, we are ELITEDAWGS*****

[Liverpooldawg]

Questionable personnel decisions aside, I think I saw someone report at some point during the offseason that we were going to do less zone blocking and more traditional downhill scheme, and if that's true (may have totally imagined it, not sure) and our OL can pull it off, then Shump could be pretty decent. I think a lot of his struggle comes from having to wait for the lane to open and then finding it in the zone blocking scheme (and the fact that it never did open a lot of the time last year). If he gets put in situations where he can take the ball and immediately get north and south, he'll be fine.

THIS. If you watched him in high school that is what he did. He is a decent downhill runner. His problems start and end when he has to run east west before he goes north south.

[Really Clark?]

Mullen is going to reward the senior and/or best practice player with PT. He's a team first coach. This is why Perkins played over jrob, zach Jackson played period, and Coman has a jersey. This is why jrob hates him to this day - it was against mullen's nature to reward a me first player in Jrob.

IMO this is why he has hit his ceiling.

Seeing how it's all played out, especially recently, using JRob as an example proves Dan was correct in that instance. The last time the "he has hit his ceiling" phrase was brought up a lot, we went 10 wins and 9 wins the following two years. You will have peaks and valleys (no coach wins in a straight upward trajectory) in a roof line. What you want to make sure with a program is the floor is raising so your foundation is strong. He continues to do that.

[Johnson85]

What you want to make sure with a program is the floor is raising so your foundation is strong. He continues to do that.

I think he continues to do that. We'll find out this year. If he wins just six games, he hasn't raised the floor of the program any higher than he did when he got here (although it's still impressive to go seven years without on year of imploding). If he gets to 8 wins in a rebuilding year, even against a favorable schedule, that will be huge.

[Pipedream]

I have no clue bc I don't get to watch practice every day, but Shump has a better career yards per carry than Bobbie Dixon and is roughly the same as Ladarius Perkins. He's not lived up to the hype, but in his senior year, the switch could have flipped. I think Mullen will give him his chances early to be productive, but he'll have a quick hook in favor of Aeris-the most talented of the bunch IMO.

[dawgs]

Seeing how it's all played out, especially recently, using JRob as an example proves Dan was correct in that instance. The last time the "he has hit his ceiling" phrase was brought up a lot, we went 10 wins and 9 wins the following two years. You will have peaks and valleys (no coach wins in a straight upward trajectory) in a roof line. What you want to make sure with a program is the floor is raising so your foundation is strong. He continues to do that.

You raise the floor by giving your best talent more touches. Sure there might be some growing pains, but in year 3 in the system for Williams and Lee, there shouldn't be that many growing pains though except for the kind that can only be remedied by in game snaps. You could see it in games last season, shump would run for no gain, go down on the first touch, then Williams or Lee would get a couple carries and immediately turn those same looks into 5 yards carries, running through the arm tackles at the line. It was night and day and it pisses me the **** off that we threw away Dak's senior season because we were hell bent on giving shump carries.

[Really Clark?]

You raise the floor by giving your best talent more touches. Sure there might be some growing pains, but in year 3 in the system for Williams and Lee, there shouldn't be that many growing pains though except for the kind that can only be remedied by in game snaps. You could see it in games last season, shump would run for no gain, go down on the first touch, then Williams or Lee would get a couple carries and immediately turn those same looks into 5 yards carries, running through the arm tackles at the line. It was night and day and it pisses me the **** off that we threw away Dak's senior season because we were hell bent on giving shump carries.

Disagree strongly. You raise the floor by developing and increasing the PROGRAM as a whole. It is not just the short term wins and losses. The floor is not looked at game by game or even one season. You have to do what you think is best to raise the floor of the program with the a wide view of every part. We get so caught up with micro analysising one aspect and trying to use it to condemn the whole. Not you necessarily, but the idea that talent ALWAYS should play even if it hinders the program is the wrong narrative with respect to raising the floor of the program. Including if you want to look at just the floor of wins and losses in a cycle of the coach's tenure at a school against its historic norm.

ETA. In reference to Williams vs Shump carries. Shump avg 1.9 carries per game more than Williams and carried the ball less than 5 times a game. It's not like he was getting 10 carries more per game than Williams. It was less than 2 carries a game. In our last 5 conference games Shump had 12 carries, and 8 of those were in the MO game storm. So that was understandable. Williams had 16 before not having any for Arkansas and Egg Bowl

[Bothrops]

Is DLee still on the team? Haven't heard a thing on him since 2015. Did he ever learn how to pass block last year. They gave up?

[BB30]

Disagree strongly. You raise the floor by developing and increasing the PROGRAM as a whole. It is not just the short term wins and losses. The floor is not looked at game by game or even one season. You have to do what you think is best to raise the floor of the program with the a wide view of every part. We get so caught up with micro analysising one aspect and trying to use it to condemn the whole. Not you necessarily, but the idea that talent ALWAYS should play even if it hinders the program is the wrong narrative with respect to raising the floor of the program. Including if you want to look at just the floor of wins and losses in a cycle of the coach's tenure at a school against its historic norm.

ETA. In reference to Williams vs Shump carries. Shump avg 1.9 carries per game more than Williams and carried the ball less than 5 times a game. It's not like he was getting 10 carries more per game than Williams. It was less than 2 carries a game. In our last 5 conference games Shump had 12 carries, and 8 of those were in the MO game storm. So that was understandable. Williams had 16 before not having any for Arkansas and Egg Bowl

Facts don't go over very well here sometimes. Great post.