Why Mullen Won't Get to the Upper Tier

[dawgday166]

saw this on another board. It's a quote from one of the other SEC coaches. Sorta sums it up to me real well.

[I]"They're kind of boring schematically when you really watch them and break them down. They don't do a whole lot that concerns you. Mullen does a good job -- it's just not particularly creative. You'd play (Steve) Spurrier back in the day and he'd see something he'd like in the NFL on Sunday and you'd see it with him the following weekend. With Mullen, he kind of has his things he likes and that's what he does. There's no newness there."

That's why you hear the same thing from Dan every week. "We didn't execute well". And for the last 3 years "We're young" (even tho in 2015 we weren't young).

Not gonna out execute the upper tier defenses Dan. Especially recruiting OLs & WRs like we recruit them. When we had someone else calling plays in 2009 and 2010, I thought they did well with the much lesser offensive talent than we have now.

There's only so many ways to run bubble screens, hooks, curls, spots, trap plays, and QB draws (boy does he love the QB draw ... especially inside the 10 yd line). That's why 4 times a year our offenses show up and score 20 or less points (10 or less against Bama).

Now in Dan's defense some, our Defense didn't show up to play last 2 games at all either. There's no excuse for our safeties getting burned on so many trickery plays like we have in last 2 games.

[DownwardDawg]

Because of the population of Mississippi.

There, I fixed it for you and simplified it.

[RocketDawg]

No, no ... he's creative. We tried a fake punt Saturday night. That's creative. ;)

We've done that before and I don't ever remember it working.

[SailingDawg]

Athletic Budget
Mississippi Population
History

[Esac44]

HISTORY and creativity has a TON to do with it. Dan is not a creative person. It makes me think he has a very the playbook and expects it to work like novicane. In this league it doesn't, it only gets you STUFFED! In the history dept I have my own opinion and you can for yours.

[DownwardDawg]

Athletic Budget
Mississippi Population
History

Our budget is just fine these days. There's only so much you can spend on football.

[JoseBrown]

No, no ... he's creative. We tried a fake punt Saturday night. That's creative. ;)

We've done that before and I don't ever remember it working.

When we pulled out that fake punt I immediately thought about Croom. His name just popped into my head, I guess it was a timing thing. Although it cud have worked had we gotten proper execution by one more it appeared.

[InTheIttaBenaHotSun]

No, no ... he's creative. We tried a fake punt Saturday night. That's creative. ;)

We've done that before and I don't ever remember it working.

We ran one at home against Auburn or ATM last year. Can't recall if it worked.

[Todd4State]

Mullen won't get to the upper tier until our fans and administration as a whole expect to do more than win the Egg Bowl and win the Liberty Bowl. If you tell a coach that's all he has to do to be here for life, that's likely all they are going to do. If we tell Dan that 2-16 (assuming loss to Alabama here) against ranked teams with a losing margin of 28-45 is unacceptable and he needs to up his percentage to something like .333 in those games and we expect to be competitive in them he might raise the bar.

We have too many fans that are truly happy with being average because of something irrelevant that happened in the 1960's or 1988. Or that Dan might get mad and leave and we'll never be able to hire a good coach again because once upon a time that happened at another school.

People tend to accomplish things in the range of what you expect out of them- whether that's just below expectation, meeting expectation, or going above expectation if they are a truly intrinsically motivated person.

Our goals should be:

1. Win the Egg Bowl
2. Win the Sugar Bowl
3. Beat Alabama
4. Beat LSU
5. Beat Auburn
6. Beat USM if they are on the schedule
7. Beat at least one team that finishes the season ranked
8. Win the games we are supposed to

[dawgday166]

Mullen won't get to the upper tier until our fans and administration as a whole expect to do more than win the Egg Bowl and win the Liberty Bowl. If you tell a coach that's all he has to do to be here for life, that's likely all they are going to do. If we tell Dan that 2-16 (assuming loss to Alabama here) against ranked teams with a losing margin of 28-45 is unacceptable and he needs to up his percentage to something like .333 in those games and we expect to be competitive in them he might raise the bar.

We have too many fans that are truly happy with being average because of something irrelevant that happened in the 1960's or 1988. Or that Dan might get mad and leave and we'll never be able to hire a good coach again because once upon a time that happened at another school.

People tend to accomplish things in the range of what you expect out of them- whether that's just below expectation, meeting expectation, or going above expectation if they are a truly intrinsically motivated person.

Our goals should be:

1. Win the Egg Bowl
2. Win the Sugar Bowl
3. Beat Alabama
4. Beat LSU
5. Beat Auburn
6. Beat USM if they are on the schedule
7. Beat at least one team that finishes the season ranked
8. Win the games we are supposed to

I'm happy (resigned) to very seldom getting beat by teams we should beat, beating KY every year, and getting the hell beat out of us by any pretty darn good (not necessarily great) football team, while throwing in a loss or two to SEC W teams we should beat in a given year (we always lose a couple of reasonably close ones to 2 teams in W we should beat when they are having a down year). So at best we finish 4th, most often 5th or 6th in the West and I'm good.

And I'm gonna get pissed as hell every time the media doesn't "give us any respect". *****

BTW ... I'd move Bama down to last in your list. Let's shoot for the low-hanging fruit first. Although if we could beat Bama then we should be able to accomplish all of the rest of those ... although we wouldn't.

[Bully13]

Lloyds thread will save you all lots of time
Time for a verbal zanax for many of you children

[Todd4State]

I'm happy (resigned) to very seldom getting beat by teams we should beat, beating KY every year, and getting the hell beat out of us by any pretty darn good (not necessarily great) football team, while throwing in a loss or two to SEC W teams we should beat in a given year (we always lose a couple of reasonably close ones to 2 teams in W we should beat when they are having a down year). So at best we finish 4th, most often 5th or 6th in the West and I'm good.

And I'm gonna get pissed as hell every time the media doesn't "give us any respect". *****

BTW ... I'd move Bama down to last in your list. Let's shoot for the low-hanging fruit first. Although if we could beat Bama then we should be able to accomplish all of the rest of those ... although we wouldn't.

My thing is if we get beat by any of the bluebloods- Alabama, LSU, Auburn, Tennessee, Florida, and Georgia...I can stand it. I won't like it but I can stand it. The ONLY thing I ask is that we at the very least don't embarrass ourselves by getting blown out and we give them a hell of a game. For example- when we lost to Alabama like 28-24 or whatever it was in 1994 or when we lost to Tennessee 24-14 in the SEC Championship Game but we had a lead and they had to make a perfect pass to beat us without JJ Johnson. Or the Florida game where Johnthan Banks picked off the two Tebow passes for TD's. That's what I expect us to have happen when we play a blueblood. 31-3 and 49-10 isn't acceptable to me.

The thing is if we keep the games close with the bluebloods every once in awhile we'll pick them off and beat them. It will also give us more media respect and raise our profile. Also, odds are at least one of the bluebloods are going to be down and we can beat them- like LSU this year or Auburn in years past and that can give us unexpected win every once in awhile. Throw in an upset over a blueblood and we're looking at 10-2 potentially.

I put Alabama that high mainly because of proximity as much as anything. The goals don't have to be accomplished in order or anything like that- it's more of a checklist.

Even worse for Dan- Jackie showed that we could pick off a good Florida, Alabama, and Auburn team every once in awhile and I think Dan is a better coach than Jackie.

[dawgday166]

My thing is if we get beat by any of the bluebloods- Alabama, LSU, Auburn, Tennessee, Florida, and Georgia...I can stand it. I won't like it but I can stand it. The ONLY thing I ask is that we at the very least don't embarrass ourselves by getting blown out and we give them a hell of a game. For example- when we lost to Alabama like 28-24 or whatever it was in 1994 or when we lost to Tennessee 24-14 in the SEC Championship Game but we had a lead and they had to make a perfect pass to beat us without JJ Johnson. Or the Florida game where Johnthan Banks picked off the two Tebow passes for TD's. That's what I expect us to have happen when we play a blueblood. 31-3 and 49-10 isn't acceptable to me.

The thing is if we keep the games close with the bluebloods every once in awhile we'll pick them off and beat them. It will also give us more media respect and raise our profile. Also, odds are at least one of the bluebloods are going to be down and we can beat them- like LSU this year or Auburn in years past and that can give us unexpected win every once in awhile. Throw in an upset over a blueblood and we're looking at 10-2 potentially.

I put Alabama that high mainly because of proximity as much as anything. The goals don't have to be accomplished in order or anything like that- it's more of a checklist.

Even worse for Dan- Jackie showed that we could pick off a good Florida, Alabama, and Auburn team every once in awhile and I think Dan is a better coach than Jackie.

I agree. In 2009, even tho we lost 7 times, we competed. In 2010, lost 4 times but competed. Played our asses off. Teams knew they had been in a hard fought ball game.

Last 2 years, that hasn't been the case.

[Dawgfan77]

I agree. In 2009, even tho we lost 7 times, we competed. In 2010, lost 4 times but competed. Played our asses off. Teams knew they had been in a hard fought ball game.

Last 2 years, that hasn't been the case.

You bring up some good points and frankly I think Dan has improved our recruiting profile but regressed as a HC. We used to have more imagination of offense with lesser talent. I think have posted this before but we need the Dan of 09-11 calling playes

[Prediction? Pain.]

saw this on another board. It's a quote from one of the other SEC coaches. Sorta sums it up to me real well.

[I]"They're kind of boring schematically when you really watch them and break them down. They don't do a whole lot that concerns you. Mullen does a good job -- it's just not particularly creative. You'd play (Steve) Spurrier back in the day and he'd see something he'd like in the NFL on Sunday and you'd see it with him the following weekend. With Mullen, he kind of has his things he likes and that's what he does. There's no newness there."

That's why you hear the same thing from Dan every week. "We didn't execute well". And for the last 3 years "We're young" (even tho in 2015 we weren't young).

Not gonna out execute the upper tier defenses Dan. Especially recruiting OLs & WRs like we recruit them. When we had someone else calling plays in 2009 and 2010, I thought they did well with the much lesser offensive talent than we have now.

There's only so many ways to run bubble screens, hooks, curls, spots, trap plays, and QB draws (boy does he love the QB draw ... especially inside the 10 yd line). That's why 4 times a year our offenses show up and score 20 or less points (10 or less against Bama).

Now in Dan's defense some, our Defense didn't show up to play last 2 games at all either. There's no excuse for our safeties getting burned on so many trickery plays like we have in last 2 games.

The quote you posted is from an Athlon article over the summer that contains multiple quotes about each SEC team that were supposedly made by other SEC coaches. (The quotes are posted anonymously.) Shotgun posted that same anonymous coach's quote a couple of months back to jump off a similar discussion. In response, I noted that I could see how a coach could say that Mullen's first few years' worth of offenses weren't "schematically creative" enough to cause much "concern" among opponents. From '09 to '13, our scoring offense in SEC games was ranked in the bottom half of the conference every year (7th, 11th, 9th, 8th, 10th), and we ranked in the top half of the league in yards per play in the same span only once (5th in 2012, 8th or lower in every other year). And it was no better according to advanced stats -- from '09 to '13, the offense's national FEI and S&P+ rankings were between 50th and 73rd every year but one.

But then in '14, '15, and '16, the offense, "boring" or not, had to "concern" at least most of our opponents. We were in the top 6 of SEC scoring offenses in SEC play all three years (4th, 6th, and 5th), and were in the top 4 in the SEC in yards-per-play in two of those three years, too. Further, the FEI and S&P+ advanced-stats systems never had our offense ranked below 37th nationally in each of the past three years (and the S&P+ rankings had us in the top 16 two of the three years).

More to the point, though, there's this:


"Schematically, though, they're one of the teams that you really admire. They have some good stuff in the playbook. Dan Mullen, some of the stuff he does on offense is just really well-respected from the standpoint of figuring out what defense you're going to be in and figuring out how they can beat you. They do some stuff to attack you and put your weak link in conflict on the edge."

That's an anonymous coach's quote from the 2016 version of this exact same Athlon series (https://athlonsports.com/college-football/sec-coaches-talk-anonymously-about-conference-foes-2016).

[Coach007]

Our budget is just fine these days. There's only so much you can spend on football.

No it's not. Look at what Bama is paying their OLB coach.. 1 Million per year. There are 2 reasons why bama has great OLB pay.

1- recruits great LBs at a high level
2- Pays for a great LB coach.

Those 2 things are circular. You have a great OLB coach and great OLBers want to play and learn from him.


Bama spends more on assistant coaches than we do our whole program.

[msstate7]

The quote you posted is from an Athlon article over the summer that contains multiple quotes about each SEC team that were supposedly made by other SEC coaches. (The quotes are posted anonymously.) Shotgun posted that same anonymous coach's quote a couple of months back to jump off a similar discussion. In response, I noted that I could see how a coach could say that Mullen's first few years' worth of offenses weren't "schematically creative" enough to cause much "concern" among opponents. From '09 to '13, our scoring offense in SEC games was ranked in the bottom half of the conference every year (7th, 11th, 9th, 8th, 10th), and we ranked in the top half of the league in yards per play in the same span only once (5th in 2012, 8th or lower in every other year). And it was no better according to advanced stats -- from '09 to '13, the offense's national FEI and S&P+ rankings were between 50th and 73rd every year but one.

But then in '14, '15, and '16, the offense, "boring" or not, had to "concern" at least most of our opponents. We were in the top 6 of SEC scoring offenses in SEC play all three years (4th, 6th, and 5th), and were in the top 4 in the SEC in yards-per-play in two of those three years, too. Further, the FEI and S&P+ advanced-stats systems never had our offense ranked below 37th nationally in each of the past three years (and the S&P+ rankings had us in the top 16 two of the three years).

More to the point, though, there's this:



That's an anonymous coach's quote from the 2016 version of this exact same Athlon series (https://athlonsports.com/college-football/sec-coaches-talk-anonymously-about-conference-foes-2016).

Theres a reason I nominated you for best stats guy or whatever the category was. I love your advanced stats for football... post more

[MarketingBully]

Meyer has won three nattys with this exact same offense. Seems plenty creative to me.

[munk_munk92]

here's a play that made me laugh. we were at the goal line, I'm screaming put ditz under center and qb sneak. easy. what does he do, put ditz in shotgun so we they can get a tackle for loss. then on the very next play he puts ditz under center and runs up the middle from the 6. I just couldn't believe it. I shook my head in disbelief that a so called offensive genius getting paid 5 million would do the exact opposite.

[Coach007]

I agree. In 2009, even tho we lost 7 times, we competed. In 2010, lost 4 times but competed. Played our asses off. Teams knew they had been in a hard fought ball game.

Last 2 years, that hasn't been the case.

1- Yes, we competed in a very down time in the SEC. Saban took the job in 2007 (for a contract of 32 MILLON btw)

2- the last 2 year were into a down cycle for MSU.

2009:

lost by 25 to Auburn
Lost by 20 to UF
lost by 28 to Fl
Lost to Ark by 21


Not seeing the competed part there.


2010:

Lost to LSU by 22
Lost to Bama by 20
Lost to Ark in OT
Lost to Auburn by 3

So I see improvement from 2009 to 2010.


But it keeps being the same issue. At our best, we are behind the nations elite... there is a reason for that.

[bluelightstar]

1- Yes, we competed in a very down time in the SEC. Saban took the job in 2007 (for a contract of 32 MILLON btw)

2- the last 2 year were into a down cycle for MSU.

2009:

lost by 25 to Auburn
Lost by 20 to UF
lost by 28 to Fl
Lost to Ark by 21


Not seeing the competed part there.

.

Hang on, Auburn was a bad loss in Dan Mullen's very first SEC game. But we lost by 10 to #1 UF, by 4 to No.7 LSU, 11 to #25 Georgia Tech, and by 7 to a 10-win Houston team. That Arkansas game was a one-score game in the 4th, and Arkansas' last TD came with 2 minutes left in the game. There were very few times when the game was basically over before it started that year. IMO a big part of the excitement from 2009 to 2010 was not just because of the Egg Bowl win but because our team was playing hard every week. That's not a comment on what we have or haven't seen this year, but that 2009 team was pretty competitive with a talent deficit.

[Coach007]

Hang on, Auburn was a bad loss in Dan Mullen's very first SEC game. But we lost by 10 to #1 UF, by 4 to No.7 LSU, 11 to #25 Georgia Tech, and by 7 to a 10-win Houston team. That Arkansas game was a one-score game in the 4th, and Arkansas' last TD came with 2 minutes left in the game. There were very few times when the game was basically over before it started that year. IMO a big part of the excitement from 2009 to 2010 was not just because of the Egg Bowl win but because our team was playing hard every week. That's not a comment on what we have or haven't seen this year, but that 2009 team was pretty competitive with a talent deficit.

On UF... I'm not counting the pick six in the last 3 minutes of the game. In fact, our offense didn't score that game at all. Banks had 2 pick 6s.

But again... That was Sabans low years.


I 100% believe we are going to win more under Mullen, and feel we are on the cusp of something special. The recruiting is picking up. We are now ponying up the money for DCs..

But we are way off on the pay for position coaches