Going Into 2020, Where Would MSU Football Be If Mullen Was Still Coach?

[ShotgunDawg]

Was kind of thinking about this today...

No Freeze
No Luke
and Ole Miss on it's 3rd coach.

If Mullen had stayed at MSU, where would we be as a program?

Still an 7-8 win program or do you think we would've made a leap up yet?

[fader2103]

Right about where we are now. Still making Gator Bowls, and Music City Bowls.

[ShotgunDawg]

Right about where we are now. Still making Gator Bowls, and Music City Bowls.

Certainly a real possibility.

I think the wild card is that Dan has been significantly more involved in the transfer market since getting to Florida & I wonder if he would've done the same at MSU?

[Quaoarsking]

10-2 or 11-1 in 2018
8-4 in 2019

Another 8-9 win season on the horizon.

[FISHDAWG]

We wouldn't have Costello coming in and I think our WR recruiting would remain as it previously was .... I think the most we would have gotten out of Mullen would have been a 10 win season once in a while and while that's not bad I think ML could probably win some of the games Mullen couldn't ....My desire is consistency and I think that comes with ML more so that DM .... while both are good coaches I'm glad ML is here but I don't think the difference is earth shaking - just the little extra sauce we get with ML gives me more hope in big games than what I had with DM ..... but I know construction - not how to motivate college kids

[Captain Falcon]

10-2 or 11-1 in 2018
8-4 in 2019

Another 8-9 win season on the horizon.

I think this is correct. We probably beat Kentucky and Florida in 2018, perhaps the bowl game too though there's no telling who we would've played. I think last year he beats Kansas State and has a much better chance of beating Tennessee, and probably wins a bowl game against a mid-tier ACC team.

Keytaon would be going into his second year as the starter and we'd probably be projected to win 7 or 8 games, which is not terribly different from what we expect this year in reality. But the last two years definitely would've gone better.

[ShotgunDawg]

We wouldn't have Costello coming in and I think our WR recruiting would remain as it previously was .... I think the most we would have gotten out of Mullen would have been a 10 win season once in a while and while that's not bad I think ML could probably win some of the games Mullen couldn't ....My desire is consistency and I think that comes with ML more so that DM .... while both are good coaches I'm glad ML is here but I don't think the difference is earth shaking - just the little extra sauce we get with ML gives me more hope in big games than what I had with DM ..... but I know construction - not how to motivate college kids

The air raid doesn't force you have equal or better players at most positions on the field like Mullen's offense does.

[Bothrops]

We would have had a good year in 2018, and recruiting would have remained more defense strong and less offense strong, which was the norm.

[bulldawg28]

A top 12 football team.

[Coach34]

Pretty exciting after making the CFB playoff in 2018 and then following it up with 9-4 in 2019.

[bostondawg]

As others have said. 10 wins in 2018 and then an immediate return to a 8 win football team on average as if 2018 didn't happen, excited to go 4-4 in . Still praying for top 30 recruiting classes.

Source: winning an average of 8 games in the three years after the 2014 season (averaging 3 2/3 SEC wins a year).

[BrunswickDawg]

If I recall correctly, there are a couple of posters on here who melted down in early 2018 about how Mullen had left us with no offensive line for 2020 and there was no way we could fill spots with quality guys and we were screwed. So based on those astute predictions, I'm going to say we'd be coming off an 8 win season staring at a tough 6 regular season wins in '20 a since we'd have no OL.

[msu15]

Right where we are now. Charles Cross isn't here with Mullen around, combine that with their poor recruiting to that unit, and we'd have big concerns with our OL. You could also probably drop a couple of receivers from the unit as well for the same reasons.

[msbulldog]

We wouldn't have Costello coming in and I think our WR recruiting would remain as it previously was .... I think the most we would have gotten out of Mullen would have been a 10 win season once in a while and while that's not bad I think ML could probably win some of the games Mullen couldn't ....My desire is consistency and I think that comes with ML more so that DM .... while both are good coaches I'm glad ML is here but I don't think the difference is earth shaking - just the little extra sauce we get with ML gives me more hope in big games than what I had with DM ..... but I know construction - not how to motivate college kids

Our OL recruiting would still suck too.

[Bdawg]

Depends if you get job shopping Mullen or "only one school in this state is on the rise" Mullen. If you get the latter I think the floor would be 7 wins, average 8.5, and every fourth year or so hit a 10 or possibly 11 win regular season. But he would have to have his heart in it to stay long term.

[MedDawg]

Pretty exciting after making the CFB playoff in 2018 and then following it up with 9-4 in 2019.

Maybe in 2018 but there would have been a much bigger dropoff in 2019. In 2017 before Mullen left fans were projecting 6-6 or 7-5 for 2019. We would have still had a thin defensive line in 2019 and 2020 because Mullen didn't sign enough DL his last couple years. He signed a couple great ones, but not enough bodies.

Still, it would have been nice to see what we could have done in 2018 under Mullen. My only question is would Fitz have been able to run as fast and as much in 2018 to take us to the playoff? He seemed slowed down some after his injury in the Egg Bowl. We still had Kylin and Aeris Williams, so if Mullen (and Fitz) were able to see that the RBs could take a bigger load then we would have been fine.

[BrunswickDawg]

Maybe in 2018 but there would have been a much bigger dropoff in 2019. In 2017 before Mullen left fans were projecting 6-6 or 7-5 for 2019. We would have still had a thin defensive line in 2019 and 2020 because Mullen didn't sign enough DL his last couple years. He signed a couple great ones, but not enough bodies.

Still, it would have been nice to see what we could have done in 2018 under Mullen. My only question is would Fitz have been able to run as fast and as much in 2018 to take us to the playoff? He seemed slowed down some after his injury in the Egg Bowl. We still had Kylin and Aeris Williams, so if Mullen (and Fitz) were able to see that the RBs could take a bigger load then we would have been fine.

I'm not sure that Fitz was slower in 2028. I think he was tentative, partly because of the injury, but mainly because he was running an entirely new offense that no one was 100% comfortable with.

[BB30]

Pretty exciting after making the CFB playoff in 2018 and then following it up with 9-4 in 2019.

Ha ha weren't you one of the first on the fire Dan train like 6 years into his tenure and wanted him gone after the 5-7 season in what 2016? Drastic change in opinion if you're thinking he would have had us in a CFB playoff in 18.

I agree with you. We'd be rolling, just surprised to see you that optimistic about a Dan Mullen coached program.

[Liverpooldawg]

10-2 or 11-1 in 2018
8-4 in 2019

Another 8-9 win season on the horizon.

This.

[Johnson85]

If I recall correctly, there are a couple of posters on here who melted down in early 2018 about how Mullen had left us with no offensive line for 2020 and there was no way we could fill spots with quality guys and we were screwed. So based on those astute predictions, I'm going to say we'd be coming off an 8 win season staring at a tough 6 regular season wins in '20 a since we'd have no OL.

We had some significant holes coming up. We don't have Cross if Mullen is here. Not sure if we'd have Reese. We also might be completely screwed on the DL. The reason our DL was thin last year wasn't b/c of Moorhead.

We would have had a great 2018. Ten win season and competitive in every game probably. We would have had a better 2019 than we had, but still would have had problems on defense. Who knows what we'd look like this year. Probably less talented on paper but have a much better attitude and toughness.

[StarkVegasSteve]

If Mullen was still the coach we'd be coming off another 8 win season and have some question marks on the O Line and probably very little receiver help. However, by game 3-4 Hevesy would've found a rotation that worked and we'd be fine. For all the crap Hev got about his personality and attitude, most of it deserved btw, he could piece together a very good line year in and year out that fit what we were trying to do on offense. Now our WR's probably wouldn't be much better and we'd be looking bleak on the recruiting front for that as well. However, Mullen would have us to 7-8 wins this year with a head scratching loss thrown in there somewhere

[Coach34]

Ha ha weren't you one of the first on the fire Dan train like 6 years into his tenure and wanted him gone after the 5-7 season in what 2016? Drastic change in opinion if you're thinking he would have had us in a CFB playoff in 18.

I agree with you. We'd be rolling, just surprised to see you that optimistic about a Dan Mullen coached program.

I never one time said to fire Mullen. I did say I would be ok if he left. My problem was rarely with his coaching- it was his constant shopping in November and his laziness in recruiting.

[mparkerfd20]

Pretty exciting after making the CFB playoff in 2018 and then following it up with 9-4 in 2019.

This is the right answer. If Mullen was invested (he wasn't for the last 3 yeara of his tenure anyway) we would have absolutely contended for the CFB Playoffs in 2018. I don't doubt that at all. We would have been 9-4 or 10-3 last year. And expecting to win 9-10 this year.