Just looking at Mullen's record as a head coach at all 3 stops, it's completely reasonable to think that he probably would had several more wins across the 2024-2025 seasons.
- Mullen almost certainly beats Toledo in 2024, and if he does lose, he at least doesn't get absolutely embarrassed and humiliated. (Yes, Mullen did lose to South Alabama one time in a fluky game where we outgained them and missed a 28 year FG at the end, but Mullen almost always won these types of games, so it's safe to he probably wins this one too.)
- Mullen usually won home SEC games against mediocre teams who didn't finish ranked - he went 15-2 in those games in his 9 years here. Maybe Arkansas and Florida were just too out of reach in 2024, but his record suggests that he would been at least competitive with them (unlike Lebby) and potentially beaten one or both of them.
- Similarly, Mullen probably beats Tennessee and Florida this year. I can see an argument against him beating Texas (he usually lost to good teams), but given that Texas and Arch were considered to be overrated all year, I lean toward a win.
- Ultimately, I think that instead of 7-17 (1-15), Mullen would be something like 12-12 (5-11), and even that is me being conservative.
And if we had hired someone the fanbase wanted like Mullen, we probably better funding right away, just like what happened in baseball this past year. Also, Lebby in particular was a bad choice for our fanbase, with the perception that Selmon just lazily hired his friend from his old job after overpromising. You also have Lebby's "baggage" which has made a chunk of our fanbase pretty uncomfortable with the hire - I know a couple of fans who canceled their season tickets in December 2023 and haven't followed the team at all since then.
Just ... what??
- First of all, you're calling Lebby a "rookie" when he made his "mistakes" in the 19th and 20th games of his head coaching career (2nd year rookie?), and at a time when he had been coaching in college football for over 20 years. And things like "don't snap the ball with 20 seconds left on the play clock when you have a lead late in the 4th quarter" and "don't call passing plays in field goal range when you're down 2 with 30 seconds to go" are really basic things that most high school football players would know are bad calls.
- Trying to tie these coaching miscues back to Mullen is bizarre. First of all, 2009 was Mullen's first year, not his second. More importantly, Mullen didn't blow the LSU game! Check the play log. He had first and goal at the 1, ran Dixon up the middle on 1st and 2nd downs, and after that didn't work, tried the jump pass, which was open but Lee missed the throw, and then on 4th down called an option play that would have scored, but Lee didn't pitch it. You can't blame Mullen's playcalling at all for our failure to score. He tried Dixon up the middle twice, and then switched to two plays that would have been TDs if our QB had executed. That's not even a knock on Lee (I like Tyson Lee), but he choked away that game, not Mullen.
- Against 2009 Houston and Case Keenum, he got screwed over by the refs, just like Leach did in 2021 against Memphis. No guarantee that we win either game if we don't get screwed, but we probably do.
- You "can't figure out why" most of our fans were happy with 2009 and unhappy with 2025 because the seasons were completely different and you apparently misremember how 2009 actually went down.
You probably have a fair point about DL, but I'm not sure what more we could have asked for from Thompson and Evans, both of whom had an awesome late TD catch to flip a loss (and a 3-9 season) to a win. Did they really do everything in spite of Bumphis?
I also want what is best for MSU, given that we are keeping Lebby for 2026, I want him to win big. I'll happily pretend like I never doubted him if that actually happens. I just haven't seen a shred of evidence that makes me think it will. Mullen and Leach had losing seasons in their first year, but showed enough that I knew they would be successful here. Lebby hasn't given me any reason to think he's going to ever have a winning season here. Even his defenders always give qualifiers like "yes, Lebby has to start winning at some point" and "yes, there's a good chance that Lebby is fired after 2026 but giving him one more chance is the right thing to do."
I don't know if the recent Mullen rumors were true, but if Mullen really was willing to take the job a few weeks ago and we decided to turn him down in favor of giving Lebby another year, that reeks of an administration and boosters who put their own pride above "what is best for MSU." I suspect we'll be having this conversation over again in about 11 months.