When did you start to hate Mullen?

[starkvegasdawg]

For those of you that want him on the first thing smoking out of town, when did this start? Was it after the team melted down last year after the 7-0 start? Was it after the OSU loss? Auburn? Is it something not quite as tangible as a specific game? I ask because before this season started most were predicting between 4 and 6 wins. We are going into this last game with a chance to finish at the high end of 90% of everyone's expectations. Is it the fact that even though we are where everyone thought we would be, it looks like we had the talent on the roster to be a couple games better? I'm not writing this in an effort to defend Mullen. I just got to wondering because a lot of people are pissed because we are right where we thought we would be back in August. And be honest, does any of the anger stem from tsun having a better season (if only slightly to this point) and beating LSU?

[Will James]

I don't hate Dan. I hate not maximizing our potential as a team.

[HoopsDawg]

Cliff notes version on the evolution of my opinion:

2009: Hell of turnaround taking over after Croom. Great job with the offense considering our QB's. The Torbush hire probably cost us a bowl. Made some 1st year HC mistakes, but that was to be expected.

2010: What a season! One of the best in school history capped off with a dominating bowl performance. I'm worried he may leave us for a better job.

-Only red flags up to this point are back to back poor recruiting classes. Ole Miss was way down and we should have been dominating. Also, rumblings about the way he manages his coaching staff. I ignore this b/c I expect the HC to be demanding and assume some of it is sour grapes.

2011: Pretty mediocre season. The 2:30 CBS Arkansas blowout was embarrassing. Started doing some crazy things like rotating 3 QB's in the same drive with Tyler, Relf, and Dylan Favre.

2012: Got embarrassed by every opponent with a pulse. Awful, emotionless performance in the bowl game. More staff turmoil. Questionable decision to have your D-coordinator also be your D-line coach

2013: It's been 3 years since we have had a quality win. Special Teams continue to be horrid. Continue to misuse personnel. Possibly missing our 2nd bowl in his 5 years. The SEC losses are starting to pile up. But he continues to win the games he supposed to win. Feel like he has earned one more year.

[angusyoung]

Cliff notes version on the evolution of my opinion:

2009: Hell of turnaround taking over after Croom. Great job with the offense considering our QB's. The Torbush hire probably cost us a bowl. Made some 1st year HC mistakes, but that was to be expected.

2010: What a season! One of the best in school history capped off with a dominating bowl performance. I'm worried he may leave us for a better job.

-Only red flags up to this point are back to back poor recruiting classes. Ole Miss was way down and we should have been dominating. Also, rumblings about the way he manages his coaching staff. I ignore this b/c I expect the HC to be demanding and assume some of it is sour grapes.

2011: Pretty mediocre season. The 2:30 CBS Arkansas blowout was embarrassing. Started doing some crazy things like rotating 3 QB's in the same drive with Tyler, Relf, and Dylan Favre.

2012: Got embarrassed by every opponent with a pulse. Awful, emotionless performance in the bowl game. More staff turmoil. Questionable decision to have your D-coordinator also be your D-line coach

2013: It's been 3 years since we have had a quality win. Special Teams continue to be horrid. Continue to misuse personnel. Possibly missing our 2nd bowl in his 5 years. The SEC losses are starting to pile up. But he continues to win the games he supposed to win. Feel like he has earned one more year.


That's great news. Mullen will surely be so happy to hear that you think he has earned one more year. I'll make sure he hears about this pronto.

[HoopsDawg]

That's great news. Mullen will surely be so happy to hear that you think he has earned one more year. I'll make sure he hears about this pronto.

The poster asked, I answered. We haven't had a good win in 3 years.

[Ronny]

..when he would constantly throw lateral passes to Chad Bumphis. The most ignorant play in all of football is the lateral pass, & such ignorance being wasted on a true talent like Bumphis.

That means my hatred for Mullen is not newly minted.

This year, I've hated him for these reasons (a partial list);

His soft, clueless defense that cost us the Auburn game at least; for not having a kicker; for abandoning the pass for the run when the pass is gaining yardage; for abandoning the run for the pass when the run is gaining yardage.

Mullen has gone for it on 4th & 25 at least 3 times this year. That nonsense has done nothing to endear me to Dan.

Playing Russell at inopportune times has also summoned my ire.

But if he wins the Egg Bowl I'll fall back in love with him.

[HoopsDawg]

..when he would constantly throw lateral passes to Chad Bumphis. The most ignorant play in all of football is the lateral pass, & such ignorance being wasted on a true talent like Bumphis.

.

That's a staple in the Ole miss offense and it has worked pretty well.

[State82]

I don't hate Dan. I hate not maximizing our potential as a team.

This pretty much describes it for me. Verbatim. I definitely do not hate Dan Mullen. I actually kind of like him. As for me liking him to be our head coach for the next few years, I am going to withhold judgement on that for another week.

[Quaoarsking]

And be honest, does any of the anger stem from tsun having a better season (if only slightly to this point) and beating LSU?

Half this board predicted a 4 or 5 win season for Ole Miss, with several prominent posters predicting even less. Backlash from being so wrong has got to play into it for those people.

[bully99]

When did you start hating ron polk and emory Ballard and jackie and croom and stansbury. Maybe when they started losing.

Oh, and when did you start loving said individuals. When they started winning, maybe.

[SignalToNoise]

I don't hate him but I started to gripe midway through 2011. Said we had regressed and got a stern lashing for saying that.

[Ronny]

That's a staple in the Ole miss offense and it has worked pretty well.

..is the staple of nobody.

With college DB's now having 4.3 speed, the lateral pass has about a 1% chance of being successful.

[HoopsDawg]

..is the staple of nobody.

With college DB's now having 4.3 speed, the lateral pass has about a 1% chance of being successful.

I hate it, but watch how many times Ole Miss runs it.

[TheDogFather]

Dear lord. You've made this judgement based on watching a couple names on Saturday and the 12:30 edition of SporaCenter, right?

Some people will say anything to defend their ill-prepared philosophies.

[TheDogFather]

Wow. A bit of sane logic. You deserve an applause and this is not sarcasm.

[FlabLoser]

Ole Miss's lateral passes are about making the D run back and forth across the field in a hurry-up offense. Making the D run is part of the scheme.

[ShotgunDawg]

I actually think this is a very good and productive thread that is touching on some things I will address after our final game.

Obviously I am a Mullen supporter, but I certainly have many questions and some doubt in my mind as to whether or not he is a good manager and capable of taking us to the next level.

Most of these questions and doubts center, not around his coaching ability, but on his feel for the flow of the game and common sense. In many ways I think Mullen is an Idiot Savant, in that he does somethings extremely well, but often times fails to perform simplest of tasks and decisions.

Due to this, and I'll have a manifesto on this next week, Mullen's tenure will either succeed or fail based on his ability be humbled, understand his limitations, and let people who are better at certain things that he is weak at, do their jobs. Mullen must learn to delegate, so that he can spend time on the things that he is good at, and less time on things that demand more attention and are things he is dreadful at.

As a new coach when he hired Mullen, he had no feel for how much he could handle or what his weaknesses were. After 5 years, it has become very apparent that, like every coach, he has some glaring weaknesses.

Therefore, the key to Mullen's tenure will be his ability to admit mistakes, understand his limitations, and take action to fix them. In other words, less Mullen = more wins. He needs to admit he isn't the god of football and hire others to help him.

[BoomBoom]

I actually think this is a very good and productive thread that is touching on some things I will address after our final game.

Obviously I am a Mullen supporter, but I certainly have many questions and some doubt in my mind as to whether or not he is a good manager and capable of taking us to the next level.

Most of these questions and doubts center, not around his coaching ability, but on his feel for the flow of the game and common sense. In many ways I think Mullen is an Idiot Savant, in that he does somethings extremely well, but often times fails to perform simplest of tasks and decisions.

Due to this, and I'll have a manifesto on this next week, Mullen's tenure will either succeed or fail based on his ability be humbled, understand his limitations, and let people who are better at certain things that he is weak at, do their jobs. Mullen must learn to delegate, so that he can spend time on the things that he is good at, and less time on things that demand more attention and are things he is dreadful at.

As a new coach when he hired Mullen, he had no feel for how much he could handle or what his weaknesses were. After 5 years, it has become very apparent that, like every coach, he has some glaring weaknesses.

Therefore, the key to Mullen's tenure will be his ability to admit mistakes, understand his limitations, and take action to fix them. In other words, less Mullen = more wins. He needs to admit he isn't the god of football and hire others to help him.

and this is a pretty easy thing to assess and respond to for our AD: when Mullen comes in for his end of year review, go over these deficiencies, then tell him there will be changes, and lay them out (hiring ST coach, etc). if he objects, tell him this is how it's going to be, and if he doesn't like it he knows where the door is. problem solved, one way or the other.

[Dawg61]

Nobody hates Dan. Think a little harder on your next thread title.

[ShotgunDawg]

and this is a pretty easy thing to assess and respond to for our AD: when Mullen comes in for his end of year review, go over these deficiencies, then tell him there will be changes, and lay them out (hiring ST coach, etc). if he objects, tell him this is how it's going to be, and if he doesn't like it he knows where the door is. problem solved, one way or the other.

I agree, Strick could do that, but it will be much more effective if it's Mullen's ideas. Mullen needs to have control over his staff, and full conviction in what he is doing.

If Mullen is forced to make changes that he doesn't personally believe in, then our staff chemistry will be terrible and that will be passed on to the players. Mullen is a decent head coach, but could become an excellent head coach if he will mature, look himself in the mirror, and admit that DAN MULLEN is a small part of the puzzle. Strick can suggest things, but laying down any ultimatums will just make him pissed and be counter productive in the end.

[bluelightstar]

Don't hate Mullen, but the end of last year was an atrocity. Couple that with looking clueless against OK State and choking against AU, and I was one unhappy camper.

[Jack Lambert]

I had to only read two post to come to the conclusion this thread is bull shit. Mullen is here for another year and if things go like they should and they will he will be here the year after that. So better get use to the idea that mullen is here for a while. So all of you can just poke your Hemroids back up your butts and be happy.

[archdog]

Nobody hates Dan. Think a little harder on your next thread title.

I will add, how about you edit your subject of this thread. No one hates Mullen here. You may not agree with him and cringe when the same 5 scenarios play out over and over again, but hate is
something personal. More personal than a fan / coach relationship could be baring one doesn't suffer from a psychological problemtgis message board cannot fix.

[engie]

He lost me after the OK State and Auburn games.

There's a big difference between "predictions" and "expectations" that people seem to have difficulty realizing. Predicting that we'd go 5-7 didn't mean that 5-7 was going to be a satisfactory result.

7-5 and continued improvement in recruiting(2012 being the consistent expectation) was always what it was going to take for me to be happy and still convinced that we were going in the right direction.

7-6 and a few nice surprises to round out recruiting and I'll get back alot closer to/if not on the fence...

[archdog]

The beginning of this year was tough. Mostly due to the injury to Tyler. I hate seeing the same mistakes come and go every season. Losing our doth at the DB position also made things worse. Think about what your prediction would have been week 1 if you knew that we would be playing Dak after installing Tyler's offense. We can stop the bleeding that started last year in Tuscaloosa Thursday.

[engie]

The beginning of this year was tough. Mostly due to the injury to Tyler. I hate seeing the same mistakes come and go every season. Losing our doth at the DB position also made things worse. Think about what your prediction would have been week 1 if you knew that we would be playing Dak after installing Tyler's offense. We can stop the bleeding that started last year in Tuscaloosa Thursday.

Many of us saw the continuation of a problem being KEEPING Tyler's offense in the offseason -- after we proved it wouldn't work last year...which is just another example proving Dan's inability to see/fix the obvious when it involves looking in the mirror. The only reason that many of us were "ok" with the attempt in the offseason was the promise that the offense had truly been modified to fit Russell -- with 2 TE sets and lining up under center. Even then, many had their doubts...

How good would we be right now IF we had the ability to introspect on the offense -- had realized early on(2011) that it wasn't going to work with Russell -- and had gone 110% after Bo Wallace and some of the other targets that we missed on -- or even, gasp, turned it over to Dak Prescott last year with a full corps of senior wide receivers to help him out?

I just don't feel like we're getting the most out of what we have -- and have no faith left in the affinity to fix it...

[Will James]

I just don't feel like we're getting the most out of what we have -- and have no faith left in the affinity to fix it...

This x The National Debt number.

[Dawg61]

Whichever QB you wanna go with for the year we still end up needing both. Dak would just of been injured earlier. What this year has taught me most in Dan's offense is that we MUST keep 3 capable QBs at all times. Elijah Staley you better be ready to play next year because there's zero chance we don't use you.

[Todd4State]

I've thought about this one for awhile. I don't hate Mullen. But back to that in a minute. Here are my qualms with Dan.

1. Unexplainable personnel decisions. Perkins over Robinson. Not starting Bear Wilson at WR. Not playing Fred Brown more. Holding Quay to what seems to be an unreasonably high standard. Not moving Nikoe to OLB where he fits better and would make the team better, and the Devon Bell saga. We benched a Ray Guy candidate and then bench Evan Sobiesk for missing one field goal while Bell continues to miss over and over again? And playing Milton yesterday almost made me completely lose it in my den. Shumpert, Robinson, or Griffen probably score and we get to put the game away. Instead we fumble, keep them in it, have to win in OT and are wondering if Tyler can go Thursday or a true freshman at QB. We do things like this EVERY single game. And it's probably a big reason why Dan hasn't upset very many ranked teams.

2. He can't adjust his offense. We have a guy that has set school records for passing and our coach doesn't know how to use him. That's unexcusable at this level. And we can't have that since we aren't Alabama where we can just recruit whomever we want. We have to be able to adjust to our personnel. People can downplay our school records all we want, but the fact of the matter is even Bobby Hall can adjust his offense to fit his personnel. I expect our coach whomever that is to also be able to adjust as well. We don't know if we are going to get a great dual threat guy in Mississippi, or a great drop back guy in Mississippi- but it makes zero sense to tell a great drop back QB that really wants to come to MSU "we don't want you because you don't fit our offense" and then have the recruiting fallout that comes with that. This was a big reason why Croom was fired.

3. His recruiting could be a lot better. I'm not going to say that Dan has been all that bad- but I don't think he maximizes what he could do either. I'm not suggesting that he cheat- but I am suggesting that he hire assistants that are better recruiters- like Steve Campbell and Will Hall. I also think that Dan needs to be a lot more realistic abotut recruiting. He wants everyone to commit and then everything be over and done with. No more work for him. But with any high school kid- most of them like to go around and visit places and see things. Much less a big time football recruit. And then he wants every JUCO recruit to be out by December- when academics are a big reason why many of those players are in JUCO in the first place. You can tell that Dan doesn't like to play the recruiting game- and again, I'm not talking about cheating. I'm talking about flipping recruits, hat parties, etc. A lot of fans and recruits like that. Saban does it- he has at least one guy flip from Auburn every single year.

4. He needs to make Gonzalez, Campbell, or Hall the special teams coach. Why he insists on coaching special teams is unexplainable as well. It's even more unexplainable if he is indeed calling plays on offense as well as some have suggested. And on that note- why is the defense always having to change staff members out, but the offense has stayed basically the same aside from the WR coach?

5. His roster management is awful. We have what? NINE seniors? How does that happen? He should have redshirted Chris Smith, Bumphis, Josh Boyd, Cam Lawrence, and Banks. He also should have signed at least 3-4 JUCO o-linemen. That would give us a more reasonable 17-18 seniors. I could understand it if we're talking Fletcher Cox or if we really needed those guys- but in most cases, those players saw very little action and had their redshirt year burned. Also, we should have made sure that we added a JUCO QB along the way in case- you know, Dak and Tyler went down. Which is very possible since he insists on running the QB 20 times. And I will volunteer to make depth charts for free for MSU. It's not that hard to make one for 3-4 years out.

So, I don't hate Dan. But I do think we can do better. I also think he can do better too. But coaches tend to be stubborn people. So, for me it's more about what I think is best for MSU. And Dan is doing an OK job- he's not bad- but is he doing the best job? Can he get better? Is there someone out there that can do better? And no- that's not necessarilly Hud when I say that. It could be Chad Morris at Clemson, it could be someone like North Dakota State's coach- (11-0 and routinely beats D-I schools like Minnesota), and yes it could be Hud. I just want what's best for MSU- and I hope that if Dan stays that he takes a long look at all of the things that I mentioned and corrects those things.

[maroonmania]

This thread with the title of "hate" is ridiculous, those that are ready or near ready for a change, its certainly not anything personal. I believe Dan Mullen has the respect of most every MSU fan out there. He seems to be a good character guy who is a family man and has never done anything to bring any negative light onto the university. I believe he will be back which is OK, but I still believe Hud would be a better long term fit for us because of the ability to close the deal with recruits' families in the South and because from what I see Hud doesn't make as many headscratching personnel and playcalling decisions. But I certainly wouldn't want to move on from Dan at this point and bring in another non-D1 HC without a track record. That would be like starting the Mullen experiment all over again. since it looks like we will stick with Mullen for the time being I'm just hoping he continues to mature as a HC, gets better at being a salesman in the recruiting game and brings in the type players that fit the read option spread because its obvious that when he tries to veer away from that due to not having the needed personnel that his offense becomes very vanilla and ineffective for the most part. I also hope he gets some better coaching help with our "bad news bears" special teams. That is a critical part of the game and has been consistently average to poor the entire time Mullen has been HC.

[It_Could_Happen]

I want to add. I get frustrated at Mullen at times, but I'm 100% for bringing him back next year for one reason. The kids play for him. You saw that in LR on Saturday. Almost everything that could go wrong went wrong and yet they never quit.

[Coach34]

Half this board predicted a 4 or 5 win season for Ole Miss, with several prominent posters predicting even less. Backlash from being so wrong has got to play into it for those people.

I had them at 7-5 and think that is where they are going to finish...but I had them 4-4 in the SEC instead of 3-5

[dawgoneyall]

Don't hate him but went to a call in show last year (2012) and noticed had much rather have been somewhere else than there. Texting the whole time during the show and totally ignored Ellis....nothing but rude. Observed him since....this is a man who is at a place where doesn't want to be...that is the reason for the year of indifference (and don't anyone deny that) Mullen has demonstrated for a couple of years (yes...as i looked back it was a couple of years). he doesn't want to be here.... then he needs to be gone.

[HunterDawg]

It all goes back to recruiting. Maybe you can "coach em up" enough to win in the ACC or wherever, but you can't do that in the SEC West. You have to start with major talent to beat teams like Alabama and LSU. Until we start getting classes that are comparable to the top half of the SEC, we will always fall short. You just can't win consistently in this league with diamonds in the rough.

Dan's recruiting classes just haven't been strong enough for us to beat the good teams, and I don't see them getting better right now. We have to find a way to get major talent from out of state. There just isn't enough in this state to go around.

[Op4isabitch]

This thread with the title of "hate" is ridiculous, those that are ready or near ready for a change, its certainly not anything personal. I believe Dan Mullen has the respect of most every MSU fan out there. He seems to be a good character guy who is a family man and has never done anything to bring any negative light onto the university. I believe he will be back which is OK, but I still believe Hud would be a better long term fit for us because of the ability to close the deal with recruits' families in the South and because from what I see Hud doesn't make as many headscratching personnel and playcalling decisions. But I certainly wouldn't want to move on from Dan at this point and bring in another non-D1 HC without a track record. That would be like starting the Mullen experiment all over again. since it looks like we will stick with Mullen for the time being I'm just hoping he continues to mature as a HC, gets better at being a salesman in the recruiting game and brings in the type players that fit the read option spread because its obvious that when he tries to veer away from that due to not having the needed personnel that his offense becomes very vanilla and ineffective for the most part. I also hope he gets some better coaching help with our "bad news bears" special teams. That is a critical part of the game and has been consistently average to poor the entire time Mullen has been HC.

+1

I couldn't have written my own thoughts any more accurately than this.

[Dawgface]

So better get use to the idea that mullen is here for a while. So all of you can just poke your Hemroids back up your butts

That's a pretty good description of what it's going to feel like going forward with out masterful HC.

[EngineerDawg]

No hate here... just try to see things as they are and take them as they come. I do believe the true CDM supporters would agree with those of opposite opinions that he needs to delegate some responsibility.

I actually thought we would be needing an egg bowl win to become bowl eligible in the pre-season... but I sure didn't think expect the level of coaching/performance for a few of the games. And realistically (Dan or no Dan), I only see 4 guaranteed wins next year. Vandy is no slouch, UK will be tough in Lexington, Ark is going to get better, and the egg battle is in oxford. We could win all of those games, but I don't think it will be easy. We could very well be in this same situation next year (having to beat OM to become bowl eligible).

[SignalToNoise]

Good post, Todd, and I agree with just about all of it. Point #5 is where you lost me a little.

Bumphis was a major contributor his freshmen year, and so was Banks. If I had to guess, those guys played as true freshmen because otherwise we would have had total crap to play at those positions instead. I would love to be having another year of everyone you listed there but from what I recall in '09, those guys were needed badly.

[Coach34]

We only had a couple of WR's on the roster when Mullen got here. He had no choice to play Bump and that other Freshman that never amounted to much

[Vandownbytheriver]

He lost me after he never recovered from the Bama game last year. His fire seems to be gone. He can correct all of that by winning this week. The only thing he ever had was beating Ole Miss. Right now he doesn't have that. With the injuries at QB this year, if he can get us to a bowl this year, I won't say shit else about him.

[Coach34]

He lost me after he never recovered from the Bama game last year. His fire seems to be gone. He can correct all of that by winning this week. The only thing he ever had was beating Ole Miss. Right now he doesn't have that. With the injuries at QB this year, if he can get us to a bowl this year, I won't say shit else about him.

Winning this week would get alot of people back in the boat. A loss and I may go to Bora Bora for a year

[gravedigger]

When I got word the team did not respect him.

He used to make the statement "we'll get thAt fixed."Now he seems to point fingers and never take responsibility publicly for the head scratching moments. Players recognize those things.

I also cannot stand the empty backfield sets. It's telegraphing.

[dawgs]

the fact that in year 5 we were apparently predicting "between 4 and 6 wins" says it all. that and the fact that in 3 seasons at vandy, james franklin has had 2 seasons as good as mullen's single best season in 5 seasons.

[Jack Lambert]

the fact that in year 5 we were apparently predicting "between 4 and 6 wins" says it all. that and the fact that in 3 seasons at vandy, james franklin has had 2 seasons as good as mullen's single best season in 5 seasons.

I would take Vandy's schedule over that period time any year. They did not play LSU all three years and they only play Alabama and Arkansas once and lost both those games. I would take that over our any time. Remember mullen first three years Arkansas was pretty dang good.

[dawgs]

It's Vanderbilt dude

[Behrdawg]

It's eggbowl week. Let's stop this nonsense.