Losing to MSU in those days was the kiss of death. It may still be.
They are coming across as uninformed idiots by thinking Dan and the country club can out-recruit the likes of Ga, FSU, Miami, and bama, much less have a pipeline back to Ms. to get the best of the best. Did they never look at our recruiting ranks? He found several diamonds in the rough often out of laziness and managed to develop some. Our lack of finishing in our temporary #1 year and not building on it should have been a real eye-opener also. Hail JoMo & Staff! Hail State!
Yea, I see Florida has their version of 'Taylor' on twitter.
I'll bet most Florida fans are of the wait and see variety. Problem is, Loafers hitched his wagon to someone who may do just well enough to piss off the fanbase. Meaning, Mullen is going to do well. He is a pretty good coach. But he may have a ceiling that the fans wont be satisfied with.
But most fanbases, including ours, get way too hung up on recruiting rankings. Especially in the summer when we are a month and a half from Fall practice and 2 months from games.
We arent going to be good for the next few years because of a recruiting ranking. We will be good based on Joe Moorhead and staff demanding excellence and managing the program.
But websites and magazines dont make money off of a coaching staff's ability to manage. They make it off of a mythical rating system that is correct at the same rate as someone predicting a coin flip.
Dan is a good to great Xs and Os guy, but his limits as a recruiter are not going away and will keep him from being all he could be. If he hasn?t changed his recruiting approach (or, ya know, adopted one) a decade into his career, he ain?t gonna.
There's been enough posts detailing how, on the whole, teams with higher recruiting rankings win bigger than teams with shitty ones. Of course not all great recruiters wins big, but the teams playing for natty's almost always have at least 1 or 2 top 10 classes on the roster. 4-5* guys have a much higher rate of success than 3* guys. So yeah, coaching matters, but talent does too. If we sit 20-30 in crootin, our ceiling ain't changing from where Mullen had it which is primarily 7-9 Ws. We had 2014 because we combined a once a generation QB for MSU with an experienced roster full of diamonds in the rough (dak himself being one). The problem is not many coaches can consistently recruit and coach up 3* guys to compete with teams with stacked 4-5* rosters. Even Mullen couldn't do that consistently. The only way to reliably compete and win the west/sec and make a CFP push is to recruit like we are now AND coach them up.
Mullen and staff were very good at finding the guys with the better potential that were in our traditional recruiting wheelhouse. They were excellent at developing those guys. Overall they probabaly upped our recruiting slightly. Florida is a different ball of wax. Their traditional wheelhouse is a lot higher off the ground than ours. If they maintain the same approach and approach the same level players there it won't sit well.
If the Florida fans expected Mullen to bring a pipeline from Mississippi with him that is probabaly just delusional. Mississippi kids that leave the state are much more likely to go to Alabama, Auburn, and LSU than anywhere in Florida. You will get one every so often, but it's never been a pipeline to anywhere down there. The only reason they really care this year is that the Mississippi class is so good.
FL has bought into their own hype that they can get any recruit just because they are FL. They are living in the past. These recruits probably barely remember FL winning national championships. GA and FSU are the schools that can recruit themselves at this point. I?m gonna really laugh when Lane Kiffin gets a higher recruiting class. Man, that would be something.
And can we put to bed the notion that recruits pick a school based on the city/town the college is in. That is probably about the last consideration. The most important stuff to these kids is getting playing time and the relationships they have with the other players and coaches. After that, facilitates do matter. These kids could care less if the town has a putt putt golf course and a Target. I went to State 20 years ago, and Starkville was nothing. But we had no idea at the time. We were just happy to be with our friends and away from home.
I went to MSU in the early 80s. Back then Starkville was Aberdeen with a university sitting next to it. Starkville has morphed into a pretty decent college town. The stuff that did that is about to explode too. I barely recognize it now in places. In 10 years kids that are there now may not.
Great X's and O's? Revisit Hollaway up the middle, other RB's can't pass block, too much QB draw on 4th down, record against bama, record against ranked foes, losses to UMN after he had checked out at the end of the season. He did good things also: learned to win again by winning most OCC games, beating teams we we supposed to beat (Ky, Arky, weaker SEC East teams, great temporary run to # 1 but he didn't build on). When he was our smart***, we loved the act. Now not so much. Go JoMo and staff! Hail State!