We All Underestimated How Good Mullen Was

I think it's clear that we took him granted and never realized how much garbage and lack of talent he covered up.

Just look at the evidence:

- Last night Florida's OL can't block us. What does he do? All quick passes. Gets the ball out of the QB's hands with quick reads.

- 2010 vs Florida, has a QB that can't throw and beats Florida at the swamp without throwing in the 2nd half.

- 2015 he has a 160 lb running back and decides to throw all year.

We can complain all day about why Mullen didn't recruit better but it's more than evident that he was willing to adapt his offense to the strengths and weaknesses of the team and it's clear that we never gave him enough credit for that and that JoMo May not have the ability do that.

Some of us knew Mullen was really good all along

I didn?t. Mullen was not perfect. He made some mistakes. However he had the MSU football program hitting its head on the glass ceiling.

They scored 13 points.

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Originally Posted by Jack Lambert

They scored 13 points.

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We scored 6. We've only scored 13 in 2 sec games combined

Mullen scored 13 points. Moorhead’s offense beat us last night

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Originally Posted by mstatefan91

Mullen scored 13 points. Moorhead’s offense beat us last night

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They scored what they had to win. We didn't, and we won't except for maybe la tech and ark

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Originally Posted by msstate7

We scored 6. We've only scored 13 in 2 sec games combined

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My point is Mullen did not beat us. Our suck ass offense beat us.

No, it?s not that at all. Please folks get your head out of the sand. The issue is Cohn tried to outsmart folks and went and hired an OC from a big 10 school to be our HC. He had numerous options and he shit the bed. Mullen did a frat job here and left Joe with a ton of talent. Joe Moorhead was the worst hire in the SEC period.

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Originally Posted by Dawgfan77

No, it?s not that at all. Please folks get your head out of the sand. The issue is Cohn tried to outsmart folks and went and hired an OC from a big 10 school to be our HC. He had numerous options and he shit the bed. Mullen did a frat job here and left Joe with a ton of talent. Joe Moorhead was the worst hire in the SEC period.

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Who were our numerous options?

Mullen was always good until the last three games of the year when he was hunting a job.

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Originally Posted by Dawgfan77

The issue is Cohn tried to outsmart folks and went and hired an OC from a big 10 school to be our HC. He had numerous options and he shit the bed.d.

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Who were the options?


Not trying to argue. I’d really like to know.

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Originally Posted by MetEdDawg

Who were our numerous options?

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Jeremy Pruitt
Lane Kiffin
Mike Leach (Actual offensive genius)
Neil Brown
Chad Morris
Mike Norvell
Bill Clark
Les Miles

Edit: Added Lane Kiffin and Neil Brown

Mullen did a lot with inferior talent. He wasn't perfect, and no coach is. But he covered up a lot. He made Fitz look amazing last year, and now he looks like crap.

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Originally Posted by Dawgs87

Jeremy Pruitt
Mike Leach (Actual offensive genius)
Chad Morris
Mike Norvell
Bill Clark
Les Miles

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Pruitt is a dud, as is Morris. Norvell isn't that good, they were good on O last year but are 2-2 this year. He's not an SEC level coach and he has off field problems. Bill Clark did a nice job resurrecting UAB, but that in no way means he can recruit at a high level, or runs a scheme that'll work in the SEC. All he's proven is that he's a good culture builder, we'd need more. Less Miles is a washed up fool who literally runs a Croom offense with no QB development. "He's a great recruiter!" you say, I say anyone at LSU would have top 10 classes. "he has great defenses", yeah because LSU always paid more than we can for top DCs, plus the talent level which we overall can't compete with. All Miles can do good is motivate the team and create a physical culture.

Mike Leach.... Let me get this straight, we complain about Moorhead ruining our O by throwing the ball more than 40% of the time, and you also want us to hire an air raid coach? If we don't have the QB or WRs to be balanced ho the heck would Leaches system work? It would be a disaster. OM can run it, not us. There's also a reason he's at Washington State and not a bigger program after 17 years of HC data to pull from.

No, if we were to hire someone it should be Neil Brown. He resurrected a dead program (similar to Bill Clark), yet has his team playing at a higher level. This is the 3rd year in a row he's had them pretty good (like upset ranked P5 teams, win 10 kind of good). He knows how to beat big teams in tough environments. I don't know if he needs 2 good coordinators to succeed, if he does then that's a problem due to our small pocket book. But the man can build a roster and a consistent, winning culture. he was the guy I wanted before we hired Moorhead, and if Moorhead really misses a bowl game he's the only one I have confidence in to be good.

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Originally Posted by Dawgs87

Jeremy Pruitt
Mike Leach (Actual offensive genius)
Chad Morris
Mike Norvell
Bill Clark
Les Miles

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OK, other than Coach Asparagus who really was interested in our job?

And Mike Leach couldn't make Fitz any better. And if he brought in Menshew it would have split the fanbase and most of the QBs would have quit the team.

Lane Kiffin and Neal Brown would've taken our job

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Originally Posted by mstatefan91

Mullen scored 13 points. Moorhead?s offense beat us last night

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This. Mullen and the country club will not meet Floridsla's expectations and will be gone in 3-4 years. Book it. Mullenz is Mullenz.

Nothing changed for Florida last night. Everything changed for us. It is NoJo that we overestimated, not Don that we undervalued.

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Originally Posted by the_real_MSU_is_us

No, if we were to hire someone it should be Neil Brown. He resurrected a dead program (similar to Bill Clark), yet has his team playing at a higher level. This is the 3rd year in a row he's had them pretty good (like upset ranked P5 teams, win 10 kind of good). He knows how to beat big teams in tough environments. I don't know if he needs 2 good coordinators to succeed, if he does then that's a problem due to our small pocket book. But the man can build a roster and a consistent, winning culture. he was the guy I wanted before we hired Moorhead, and if Moorhead really misses a bowl game he's the only one I have confidence in to be good.

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Forgot about Neil Brown. Great coach. I have a great admiration for Bill Clark given what he went through. Took UAB to their first Bowl game in over 10 years. Don't forget he's one of the reasons people didn't think much of us at first in 2014, because of the way they played us in Starkville. The program is terminated, he stays and fights to get it back. First season back he goes 8-5. This year 3-1.

The difference in Pruitt, Morris and Moorhead is that Tennessee and Arkansas had both lost the fans and the team. They had to start from ground 0. Moorhead started with what was anticipated to be a top 10 team, maybe our best of all time and is currently running it into the ground.

About Mike Leach, I don't give a 17 how we score as long as it's more than 6.5 ppg.

What folks undervalued was how Mullen ran the program. Everybody bitched and bitched about how he chose to play players...specifically RBs but that was all part of his program expectations. No doubt Mullen had control of the team. Folks bitched that he had too much control but we never looked unorganized and undisciplined under him.

IMO the lack of real discipline is the biggest thing this team lacks. It's showing up in our play and it's costing us.