One Thing That Always Confused Me About Dan Mullen...

[ShotgunDawg]

Dan is an amazing football coach, but apparently he wouldn't know what a WR looked like if he came up & slapped him in the face.

I don't get it.

Did Mullen's staff prioritize blocking at the WR position more than running, catching, & route running? That's the only thing that makes sense to me as we recruited so many WRs with heavy feet.

It's the one thing about his tenure that has baffled me.

For such a great talent evaluator at every other position, how was his WR evals such garbage?

I get that he didn't want to fight in the streets for WR recruits, but he couldn't even evaluate the under the radar ones that turned out good at other schools & we could've easily had.

Makes no sense.

Any explantion to this? And blaming Billy G isn't an explantion. He was just a contributor to the overall incompetency

[bluelightstar]

Dan is an amazing football coach, but apparently he wouldn't know what a WR looked like if he came up & slapped him in the face.

I don't get it.

Did Mullen's staff prioritize blocking at the WR position more than running, catching, & route running? That's the only thing that makes sense to me as we recruited so many WRs with heavy feet.

It's the one thing about his tenure that has baffled me.

For such a great talent evaluator at every other position, how was his WR evals such garbage?

I get that he didn't want to fight in the streets for WR recruits, but he couldn't even evaluate the under the radar ones that turned out good at other schools & we could've easily had.

Makes no sense.

Any explantion to this? And blaming Billy G isn't an explantion. He was just a contributor to the overall incompetency

Actually Dan Mullen did demand that wide receivers put full effort into blocking in the run game. As I recall, his rule is "don't block, don't play." Not going to get many prima donnas who want to do nothing but make highlight catches with that attitude.

[ShotgunDawg]

Actually Dan Mullen did demand that wide receivers put full effort into blocking in the run game. As I recall, his rule is "don't block, don't play." Not going to get many prima donnas who want to do nothing but make highlight catches with that attitude.

So all WRs that run good routes, have speed, & can catch are prima donnas who want to do nothing but make highlight catches with that attitude?

[smootness]

So all WRs that run good routes, have speed, & can catch are prima donnas who want to do nothing but make highlight catches with that attitude?

No, but advertising that your WRs are going to block a lot and have to focus on it isn't a sales pitch that's going to woo a ton of WRs.

We also didn't have a great passing game most of the time under Mullen. We weren't throwing the ball around a lot. They can see that, too. If your options are a place like OM where they're launching it all over the place or MSU where they run the read option with a bowling ball at QB, it's not hard to see why we weren't pulling a lot of WRs.

[ShotgunDawg]

No, but advertising that your WRs are going to block a lot and have to focus on it isn't a sales pitch that's going to woo a ton of WRs.
.

I get this. I'm not debating on why we didn't get AJ Brown, Treadwell or guys like that.

I'm debating on how missed on talented guys that we could've easily had but misevaluated

[Jack Lambert]

What kind of WR is he recruiting at Florida?

[Irondawg]

I don’t know if there is a good answer. Bumphis was good for us, Ross and Bear were awesome but we just couldn’t find any consistency finding guys like that and we had a ton of misses for whatever reason. Probably didn’t help that it wasn’t like the state was producing a ton of quality guys either.

[StarkVegasSteve]

I get this. I'm debating on why we didn't get AJ Brown, Treadwell or guys like that.

I'm debating on how missed on talented guys that we could've easily had but misevaluated


We missed on those two because Treadwell was never interested in us, not shocking being that he was from inner city Chicago, and AJ didn't want to stay at home to play college football.

But for others, I think the simple reality is that we missed on kids because of a combo of things such as lazy recruiting, a bad scheme for WRs, no history of putting WRs in the league, and not much high level in state talent at the position.

[R2Dawg]

So all WRs that run good routes, have speed, & can catch are prima donnas who want to do nothing but make highlight catches with that attitude?

Well the majority yes. Case and point see Oxford - NWO. Also look at all the drama in NFL with good WR. Not all but most. We need a few of those prima donnas but not a roster full of them.

[Todd4State]

The answer probably is Billy Gonzalez wasn't good at evaluating them. I don't think edge recruited Bear, Ross, Jameon or Fred Brown. The drop off started when he was hired and there was a difference between him and our previous WR coaches.

[msbulldog]

I don’t know if there is a good answer. Bumphis was good for us, Ross and Bear were awesome but we just couldn’t find any consistency finding guys like that and we had a ton of misses for whatever reason. Probably didn’t help that it wasn’t like the state was producing a ton of quality guys either.

If I remember right Mullen was recruiting Bumphis when he was still at Florida and got him when he came to State. Tim Brewster got Fred Ross and there is no telling what went on there. Bear was more of a basketball player and wasn't recruited highly for football.

[AROB44]

Actually Dan Mullen did demand that wide receivers put full effort into blocking in the run game. As I recall, his rule is "don't block, don't play.

I believe this is Leach's rule also.

[Coach34]

It's pretty simple:

1. The Blue-collar program pitch doesnt go well with WR's
2. WR's as much as any recruits are attention-whores. Mullen, Hev, and Gonzo arent good pitching to those types.
3. WR's always have handlers and handlers are expensive
4. Mullen always expects someone else to "handle" things. Well, sometime you have to interject yourself into the background to make sure things get handled.
5. Mullen doesnt recruit as hard as others.

[Todd4State]

It's pretty simple:

1. The Blue-collar program pitch doesnt go well with WR's
2. WR's as much as any recruits are attention-whores. Mullen, Hev, and Gonzo arent good pitching to those types.
3. WR's always have handlers and handlers are expensive
4. Mullen always expects someone else to "handle" things. Well, sometime you have to interject yourself into the background to make sure things get handled.
5. Mullen doesnt recruit as hard as others.

I believe he has had to rely heavily on the grad transfer market at Florida for WR's too.

[smootness]

I get this. I'm debating on why we didn't get AJ Brown, Treadwell or guys like that.

I'm debating on how missed on talented guys that we could've easily had but misevaluated

Who are some of those guys?

I'm genuinely asking, it's hard to have this conversation without knowing which guys you're talking about.

[ShotgunDawg]

We missed on those two because Treadwell was never interested in us, not shocking being that he was from inner city Chicago, and AJ didn't want to stay at home to play college football.

But for others, I think the simple reality is that we missed on kids because of a combo of things such as lazy recruiting, a bad scheme for WRs, no history of putting WRs in the league, and not much high level in state talent at the position.

Sorry, I mean "I'm NOT debating why we didn't AJ...."

[ShotgunDawg]

Who are some of those guys?

I'm genuinely asking, it's hard to have this conversation without knowing which guys you're talking about.

Bolar, Jaylen Smith, Jordan Duncan, numerous Memphis WRs, etc...

[Commercecomet24]

It's pretty simple:

1. The Blue-collar program pitch doesnt go well with WR's
2. WR's as much as any recruits are attention-whores. Mullen, Hev, and Gonzo arent good pitching to those types.
3. WR's always have handlers and handlers are expensive
4. Mullen always expects someone else to "handle" things. Well, sometime you have to interject yourself into the background to make sure things get handled.
5. Mullen doesnt recruit as hard as others.

Thats about as accurate a summation as you can get.

[basedog]

It's pretty simple:

1. The Blue-collar program pitch doesnt go well with WR's
2. WR's as much as any recruits are attention-whores. Mullen, Hev, and Gonzo arent good pitching to those types.
3. WR's always have handlers and handlers are expensive
4. Mullen always expects someone else to "handle" things. Well, sometime you have to interject yourself into the background to make sure things get handled.
5. Mullen doesnt recruit as hard as others.

+1

[maroonmania]

We missed on those two because Treadwell was never interested in us, not shocking being that he was from inner city Chicago, and AJ didn't want to stay at home to play college football.



Wish people would stop perpetuating this myth. He didn't want to stay home to play football so he went to ..... Oxford, MS. I can assure you that if AJ Brown and his Father had thought the situation (an offense featuring WRs) and the money were right, he would have played in Starkville without any reservations.

[StarkVegasSteve]

Wish people would stop perpetuating this myth. He didn't want to stay home to play football so he went to ..... Oxford, MS. I can assure you that if AJ Brown and his Father had thought the situation (an offense featuring WRs) and the money were right, he would have played in Starkville without any reservations.

My bad, I should've expounded on that situation, him not wanting to stay in his hometown for college was ONE OF THE MANY REASONS AJ went to Oxford.

[PGHBulldogBG]

I wouldn?t want to stay in my hometown either for college. I traveled 850 miles to go to Miss State. Wanted a change of scenery for 4 years

[dawgday166]

I get this. I'm not debating on why we didn't get AJ Brown, Treadwell or guys like that.

I'm debating on how missed on talented guys that we could've easily had but misevaluated

Treadwell is an easy answer .. he's from Illinois. AJ ... lots of rumors and probably some truth around that one.

[Tbonewannabe]

We missed on those two because Treadwell was never interested in us, not shocking being that he was from inner city Chicago, and AJ didn't want to stay at home to play college football.

But for others, I think the simple reality is that we missed on kids because of a combo of things such as lazy recruiting, a bad scheme for WRs, no history of putting WRs in the league, and not much high level in state talent at the position.

As far as putting guys in the NFL, UM wasn't any better than us before Hugh started recruiting with red backpacks. Eric Moulds is a top 3 receiver in Bills history and Justin Jenkins played for a few years.

UM pretty much had Mike Wallace before Moncreif.

I will say that we have typically concentrated on a run game and good defense to win games for the majority of MSU history. We have never truly had an offensive philosophy like Leach brings. We might have had one or two years of throwing the ball but typically that is not the norm.

UM has leaned more towards that style offense historically.

[smootness]

Bolar, Jaylen Smith, Jordan Duncan, numerous Memphis WRs, etc...

I'll comment on these.

CJ Bolar - I would definitely call this a miss. Good already as a freshman, though he took a big step back last year.

Jaylen Smith - good WR who was never really great, struggled a lot once Lamar Jackson left, wasn't drafted. Could have helped us for sure, you can call it a miss, but I don't see it as a huge deal.

Jordan Duncan - Never did much for a mediocre Cal team, wasn't drafted. I don't see how he would have helped us much.

Memphis WRs - I honestly don't much much about their WRs, but they've had one drafted since 2003. That was Anthony Miller, and he was a 2nd round pick just 2 years ago, so that could be a miss. But he's from Memphis and was hardly recruited...by anybody. Not sure you can fault Mullen for that.

If this is the kind of group you're talking about, I'm not sure it's something worthy of taking Mullen to task over. There will always be misses and guys who aren't rated as high who end up having some success, and you won't get all of them. And our WRs haven't been great consistently, that's definitely true. I think you can get onto him overall for the WRs under State.

But this group? Are these guys better than Bumphis, Bear, Ross, even Jameon Lewis? No. They would have given us depth, and we'll see if Bolar becomes something. But overall, it's not a very impactful group.