Originally Posted by
Quaoarsking
OK, but they were ranked #12 at the time and widely expected to be a playoff contender, so yes, worse than expected.
I'm thrilled he won that game, but come on, winning a home game over a team that doesn't finished ranked is a basic, baseline expectation for any coach. Mullen and Leach generally did that here.
And again, my point wasn't that those teams aren't good, it's that everyone's preseason expectations were made under the impression that those teams were a lot better than they actually turned out to be. Everyone would have predicted more wins for this year's team if they'd known that 6 of our 9 P4 opponents were clearly worse than we were all thinking. We kinda got lucky with the schedule this year and didn't take advantage of it.
We should have beaten a 3-9 team that was known to be firing his coach. Period. 100%. Any loss in that situation was unacceptable, but the fact that it's largely because Lebby made very rudimentary coaching errors is even worse on him.
We also should have beaten Texas (a team that's one of Florida's 3 wins and has been mediocre for most of the season, despite the record) once we got up by 17 with 10 minutes to go. If we'd only lost because we got out-talented, I could live with it (like I like with the A&M and Georgia losses, despite Lebby having some questionable decisions in both of those) but when we were snapping the ball many times with 20 seconds on the play clock after that, then no, that's unacceptable.
I know we're "poor ol' Mississippi State" and can't expect to beat programs like Florida even when they suck or Texas even when they are a shadow of their former selves and we have a 17-point lead in the 4th quarter, but I hold us to a higher standard. If Mullen or Leach or Moorhead or whoever had blown either of those games, they would rightfully have gotten just as much blowback from the fanbase.
I don't know why you keep making this point at me when I have never said that Lebby has to play Taylor or any particular QB. I've always said personnel decisions are solely the call of the head coach, but he will have to live with the consequences of how his preferred players/coaches perform.