2014 Season ... been re-watching games and a few things I had forgotten

[FISHDAWG]

As of the start Arkansas game we had a 11 game win streak that was only bested by Florida State who had a 12 game streak going ....
As of the start of the 1st quarter of the Arky game we had a lead in every quarter of the season so far
B-Mack was my hero and Will Redmond was an incredible talent ... the defensive stats were kinda head scratching - we gave up an incredible amount of yardage through the air but refused touch downs in the red-zone
Loved Dillon Days attitude .... any other player for MSU ever been suspended for stomping on Tigers ?
Dak led all QB's in 1st down conversions whether it was passing or running
Dan Mullen loved fake punts that seldom worked and never seemed to ever learn that lesson
MSU was the #1 team in the land when the College Football Committee made their inaugural top-25 list

Oh yeah - Will Redmond was my kind of corner ..... I had forgotten some of those memories and just how incredible that team truly was ...pretty cool to go back and watch that season unfold

[VandelayIndustries]

Was so happy my uncle was able to see MSU #1 before he passed. Ending wasn’t great but was a great year

[Todd4State]

Our defensive stats were wonky because of 1A/1B and Collins crappy bend and break scheme. If we had Grantham we would have been much better.

[FISHDAWG]

Our defensive stats were wonky because of 1A/1B and Collins crappy bend and break scheme. If we had Grantham we would have been much better.

Agreed but Collins had us as #1 Red-Zone defense

[Prediction? Pain.]

the defensive stats were kinda head scratching - we gave up an incredible amount of yardage through the air but refused touch downs in the red-zone


Our defensive stats were wonky because of 1A/1B and Collins crappy bend and break scheme. If we had Grantham we would have been much better.

When you look back at the passing-defense stats that year, keep context in mind. Our offense was so ridiculously good and quick out of the gate that season that most of our opponents had to play catch-up for big chunks of the game. Because of that, teams were forced to pass early and often. We faced more passing attempts (506) than any other SEC team in 2014. And that's not just a lot of passes for that year. Since 2009, only five SEC teams have faced more passing attempts than we did in 2014. So out of the 148 teams that played in the SEC over the past 11 years, our 2014 defense faced more passing attempts than 142 of them. That's nuts.

Another telling stat: In 2014, our defense faced 211 passing attempts while we were up by 15+ points. That means that nearly half of the our opponents' passing attempts occurred while we were up by more than two touchdowns. Our other "high" years for that were 2018 and 2010, and in those years we only faced 128 and 127 passes in those situations. Compared to most years since '09, the 2014 number was more than twice as high as usual.

If you look behind the raw total-passing-yards allowed, the passing defense doesn't look nearly as bad. In SEC games in 2014, we were 7th in opponents' yards per attempt and 6th in opponent's QB Rating. And our ranks for passing-efficiency defense and passing-down defense per the S&P+ in 2014 were 44th and 55th nationally, which is far from terrible.

As for the 1a/1b stuff, yeah, that was annoying and I'm sure affected some of this, too. But bringing up Grantham is an interesting angle. If you compare the '14 and '17 defenses, they were actually very, very similar. The raw passing stats are skewed because, unlike in 2014, the 2017 faced very, very few passing attempts. (147 passes in SEC games in 2017 vs. 320 passes in 2014's SEC games.) But the pro rata and advanced stats are similar. SEC rank for opponents' yards per attempt - 2014: 7th / 2017: 11th. SEC rank for opponents' QB Rating - 2014: 6th / 2017: 6th. National S&P+ ranks for passing-efficiency D and passing-down D - 2014: 44th and 55th / 2017: 47th and 53rd.

The 2014 and 2017 defenses also shared the same Achilles heel -- both units gave up way too many explosive plays. The S&P+ category for that ("Iso PPP+") uses a metric involving point value of yards given up on each of an opponent's successful plays. And the FEI category for that ("DED" or "Explosive Drive rate") measures "the percentage of opponent offensive drives that average at least ten yards per play." In 2014 our defense was 112th nationally in Iso PPP+ and 63rd in DED. In 2017, we were 110th in Iso PPP+ and 93rd in DED.

All that to say that I think Collins gets a little bit of a bad rap. Now, bolting on us like he did was lame and he absolutely deserves blame for the Egg Bowl and Orange Bowl debacles. But outside the Egg Bowl, when I think he already had one foot out the door, and maybe the Kentucky and UAB games (which we won regardless), I'm not sure I can fault him for the games that he actually coached any more than I would any other DC, 1a/1b notwithstanding. The D wasn't elite like in 2018 or maybe quite as good overall as 2017 or 2010, but it was still a really good unit.

ETA: Just to see the big picture, I glanced back through the FEI and S&P+ rankings for out defenses under Mullen. Per the FEI, 2014's was tied with 2010 (both at 16th) for the the second best defense behind 2017 (10th). Per the S&P+, 2014 was third best (26th) behind 2011 and 2017 (both 18th). In other groundbreaking news, Peter Sirmon's 2016 defense still sucked.

[FISHDAWG]

UAB threw for a mile on us and that kinda set the tone for future teams game planning us .... Eggbowl was on Collins - Orange Bowl was not as he wasn't there. Grantham was good but I don't think Collins was very far behind him.

[Todd4State]

When you look back at the passing-defense stats that year, keep context in mind. Our offense was so ridiculously good and quick out of the gate that season that most of our opponents had to play catch-up for big chunks of the game. Because of that, teams were forced to pass early and often. We faced more passing attempts (506) than any other SEC team in 2014. And that's not just a lot of passes for that year. Since 2009, only five SEC teams have faced more passing attempts than we did in 2014. So out of the 148 teams that played in the SEC over the past 11 years, our 2014 defense faced more passing attempts than 142 of them. That's nuts.

Another telling stat: In 2014, our defense faced 211 passing attempts while we were up by 15+ points. That means that nearly half of the our opponents' passing attempts occurred while we were up by more than two touchdowns. Our other "high" years for that were 2018 and 2010, and in those years we only faced 128 and 127 passes in those situations. Compared to most years since '09, the 2014 number was more than twice as high as usual.

If you look behind the raw total-passing-yards allowed, the passing defense doesn't look nearly as bad. In SEC games in 2014, we were 7th in opponents' yards per attempt and 6th in opponent's QB Rating. And our ranks for passing-efficiency defense and passing-down defense per the S&P+ in 2014 were 44th and 55th nationally, which is far from terrible.

As for the 1a/1b stuff, yeah, that was annoying and I'm sure affected some of this, too. But bringing up Grantham is an interesting angle. If you compare the '14 and '17 defenses, they were actually very, very similar. The raw passing stats are skewed because, unlike in 2014, the 2017 faced very, very few passing attempts. (147 passes in SEC games in 2017 vs. 320 passes in 2014's SEC games.) But the pro rata and advanced stats are similar. SEC rank for opponents' yards per attempt - 2014: 7th / 2017: 11th. SEC rank for opponents' QB Rating - 2014: 6th / 2017: 6th. National S&P+ ranks for passing-efficiency D and passing-down D - 2014: 44th and 55th / 2017: 47th and 53rd.

The 2014 and 2017 defenses also shared the same Achilles heel -- both units gave up way too many explosive plays. The S&P+ category for that ("Iso PPP+") uses a metric involving point value of yards given up on each of an opponent's successful plays. And the FEI category for that ("DED" or "Explosive Drive rate") measures "the percentage of opponent offensive drives that average at least ten yards per play." In 2014 our defense was 112th nationally in Iso PPP+ and 63rd in DED. In 2017, we were 110th in Iso PPP+ and 93rd in DED.

All that to say that I think Collins gets a little bit of a bad rap. Now, bolting on us like he did was lame and he absolutely deserves blame for the Egg Bowl and Orange Bowl debacles. But outside the Egg Bowl, when I think he already had one foot out the door, and maybe the Kentucky and UAB games (which we won regardless), I'm not sure I can fault him for the games that he actually coached any more than I would any other DC, 1a/1b notwithstanding. The D wasn't elite like in 2018 or maybe quite as good overall as 2017 or 2010, but it was still a really good unit.

ETA: Just to see the big picture, I glanced back through the FEI and S&P+ rankings for out defenses under Mullen. Per the FEI, 2014's was tied with 2010 (both at 16th) for the the second best defense behind 2017 (10th). Per the S&P+, 2014 was third best (26th) behind 2011 and 2017 (both 18th). In other groundbreaking news, Peter Sirmon's 2016 defense still sucked.

The bad thing about stats is we only get the side that actually occurred and we don't get to see what would have happened had we done it another way. Which sucks because we would have more definitive data. Anyway- my belief is that the 2014 defense would have been even better had Collins been more aggressive and if we didn't do the ridiculous 1A/1B thing. We also had LSU where Dan pulled the starters about 5-10 minutes of game time too soon and that allowed LSU to pile some stats in garbage time which made a good defensive effort look average.

That doesn't mean that the 2014 defense was 2016 or 2003 bad by any stretch of the imagination. It wasn't as you pointed out with your great data. I do think it performed below it's ceiling.

I think what probably happened with the large amount of pass attempts as well as being behind is that I think teams saw the UAB film and decided that would be a good way to attack our defense. The reality was that was probably just a bad day early in the season where our focus was off by our team- Dak was under 50% passing that game I believe as well and it was pretty sloppy even though we won and put up some stats- and some teams didn't have the QB to truly exploit our secondary which oddly enough may have played into helping us because it probably forced some teams to go away from their strength.

Also- losing Justin Cox killed us in the Egg Bowl. He was a huge loss.

[Avelso]

Lost Market in the Egg Bowl also mid game.

[Captain Falcon]

With that 2014 team I've come to the conclusion that we had a 3 game stretch where we were absolutely a legit contender and could've beaten anybody in the country. And then the rest of the season we were merely a good team. It's a little weird to think back on now that we've got some distance from it, because those three games were so freaking awesome and memorable, but then the other 10 games were pretty on par with most everything else in the Mullen era.

[R2Dawg]

With that 2014 team I've come to the conclusion that we had a 3 game stretch where we were absolutely a legit contender and could've beaten anybody in the country. And then the rest of the season we were merely a good team. It's a little weird to think back on now that we've got some distance from it, because those three games were so freaking awesome and memorable, but then the other 10 games were pretty on par with most everything else in the Mullen era.

We peaked too soon. No team can play at peak level all year, no one. We were as dominant as any team has been for the first half of the season.

[ZedFedder]

1A/1B was a perfect example of a coach outsmarting themselves. Just dumb.

[Todd4State]

With that 2014 team I've come to the conclusion that we had a 3 game stretch where we were absolutely a legit contender and could've beaten anybody in the country. And then the rest of the season we were merely a good team. It's a little weird to think back on now that we've got some distance from it, because those three games were so freaking awesome and memorable, but then the other 10 games were pretty on par with most everything else in the Mullen era.


We peaked too soon. No team can play at peak level all year, no one. We were as dominant as any team has been for the first half of the season.

I think the moment just got too big for our team. Probably too big for MSU as an athletic program. Could you imagine what would happen if the football team achieved the same type of run as the women's basketball team? It would be like when we beat UConn x10. I've heard stories about how Dak would sometimes literally get cornered by fans and things like that. Josh Robinson started to kind of go off the rails after the Kentucky game. Dan was an ass to not let him get 200 yards- he also fell three yards short of 200 against LSU as well as the well known being short against Kentucky by a yard or two. I'm sure Dan started to look around as well as Collins around at other jobs around the time we played Vanderbilt if not sooner.

That is me being very critical- but the thing about it is for our program to move forward we needed 2014 to happen. We need to experience that so that our program can be better and ready the next time it happens.


1A/1B was a perfect example of a coach outsmarting themselves. Just dumb.

I remember Dan Mullen talking about 1A/1B before the season at a meeting with alumni. I was pretty skeptical at that time. What was dumb was it was just like 1A played one series and 1B played the next without regard to the game situation. 1A should have had Chris Jones on it and they should have played 2/3 of the snaps.