Originally Posted by
Johnson85
1. Mullen has job security. I can't believe this needs to be said, but holy shit people are going crazy. I don't even know what to say to people that even mention firing Mullen as a realistic possibility at this point. If the rumors are true (and that's a big IF) and Mullen has been hell bent on getting out of Starkville after this year but ends up stuck there, at worst he has just eaten up some of his good will for future years and impacted negotiations surrounding his buyout this year. If he wins 6 next year and 8 the year after, he'll still be plenty safe even if he hates it in Starkville the whole time.
2. You judge an employee based on overall performance. No doubt, Mullen has flaws. It's a real problem that we showed up unprepared and/or disinterested in three of our five toss-up games (A&M, LSU, UM) and of the two we won, one of them (Auburn) was a dumpster fire (but winning in Arkansas is a big win). It's a real problem that we have basically not shown up in three of the past four egg bowls. That said, it's not nothing to get any SEC program where you're four OOC games and UK are practically gimmes and where everybody but Bama is a toss-up or better. It's also not nothing to go basically six years straight without a slip-up against your weaker opponents. This season was only disappointing because Mullen is so good at the things he is good at, that we take those as given and only judge him on the things that he is mediocre or worse at. Looking at his overall performance, he's a very good coach.
3. We are not likely to improve on Mullen with our next coach. This is not a 'poor ole mississippi state' sentiment. It's possible to end up at a local maximum and we are there. LSU and UGA are there also. Yes, LSU, UGA, and MSU could do better than their respective coaches this year, but hiring a coach is always a crap shoot. Miles, Mullen, and Richt are all at worst top 35 coaches. There are coaches out there that are better, but it's not a slam dunk to identify them, especially when you look at coaches that are realistically available. There's no reason for LSU, UGA, UF, or Bama to be bad, but they all will inevitably be bad at some point, and it will be because of a bad coaching hire. You don't want to jump out there unless your current coach really is unacceptable.
For example, UGA has missed a huge window these past five years. They have had an incredibly easy east and not capitalized because Richt has been on the downslope of his career. But keeping him up until this point (and possibly beyond) still has been the right call. The program has steadily been good and they have continued to make money and remain relevant. You don't pull the plug on that just because there is potentially a better hire out there. The East has been so easy largely because Florida and Tennessee have made bad hires, and UGA could have done just as poorly. Sometimes good enough is good enough. You don't build an elite program by tearing it apart every time you spend a few years where you are good but not elite.
4. 99% chance we are going to have a fatal flaw every year. All but two or three teams at most each year have a fatal flaw that will prevent them from winning a championship. Up until last year, Mullen had continually addressed existing weaknesses without any new ones appearing. For all people bash his recruiting, our talent level had consistently trended up and the only place we ever really regressed was on OL (where Crooms left a huge void to fill) and a pass rush DE. Last year, Safety really hurt us. This year, it was safety and RB, and CB depth. Next year it will be CB. It's incredibly hard to evaluate and recruit well enough to have a championship caliber team. It's unlikely that Dan or another coach will do it at MSU (just like it was always unlikely that Beamer would do it at Va Tech). The fact that we are going to be flawed doesn't reflect that poorly on Mullen.
The only question is why our O-Line has yet to be a strength with Mullen. O-Line has been a fatal flaw every year since '09. Is that basically just a reflection of the talent available in MSU strongholds? Or is it a glaring weakness in coaching and/or recruiting? Take out last year, and it's obvious that something has to change. While last year wasn't a championship caliber OL, it was solid enough to suggest Hevesy's coaching is not a deal breaker and that it may just be a recruiting issue.
5. Mullen has mellowed. 2009 Mullen would have been driven crazy by the way we finished last year and there's no way we would have come out with a poor game plan in the egg bowl after last year's shit show. 2015 Mullen has a fat bank account, has a healthy and wonderful family, and is not defined by W's and L's on the football field. (Really, I think Mullen had already mellowed before last year, it's just he caught lightning in a bottle with Dak and a slightly down LSU and Auburn.) No doubt, it's not good for MSU football that Mullen has mellowed. (And if Mullen wanted out, that would be why he would go to a place like Maryland.) But even mellowed, Mullen has built the program up to a point that he will be successful enough to stay for the foreseeable future. I would bet that just with what he has in the pipeline and his current intensity will get us six wins next year and an average of 8 over the next two before cracks really begin to show. And that's ok. There is no expressway to success. We made a very good hire and like most very good hires in college football, it's going to result in some winning football without a championship, and his tenure will end with the program lower than it's peak but in a better position than when he got here.
6. Mullen can coach QB's. This is sort of a subset of numbers 2 and 5, but just keeping a good QB year in and year out will allow you to win games each year if you're not totally 17ing up everything else. We won 8 games this year with a pretty shitty OL just because our QB was evaluated and coached well. We've got two more in the pipeline that are actually more promising as RS freshmen than Dak was (obviously it's not likely they will turn out as well, but they should still be good). And recruiting and developing a QB does not require sell your first born intensity. QB's are going to want to come play for Mullen after seeing Russell, Dak, and Fitz/Staley and coaching them up doesn't require 60 hours of film session each week.
7. Some people aren't made to be college football fans. The egg bowl has left a sour taste in my mouth, but if this season wasn't more enjoyable than not and if you can't enjoy going to a bowl game this year, being a college football fan is not for you (unless you give a lot of money to MSU, in which case, continue to be miserable and give lots of money in the hopes it gets better).
