MSU People Need to Educate this Guy

Another mis-understanding of post 1990 Mississippi State.

This is what we're fighting.

No mention of very few home games vs LSU for the better half of a century.

No mention of play Alabama every year when other schools did.

No mention of virtually no conference home games for the better half of a century.

Again, it appears that no matter how much we win, there still appears be a bad narrative.

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It sounds like he has it right to me. Everything he said is factually correct except POSSIBLY with MSU being the hardest place to win in the West.

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Originally Posted by Liverpooldawg

It sounds like he has it right to me. Everything he said is factually correct except POSSIBLY with MSU being the hardest place to win in the West.

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Yeah, it just comes with such little understanding of the context of MSU's history.

MSU is absolutely not the hardest place to win in the SEC West. The JUCO & local talent pool are something that Arkansas can't compete with & Ole Miss has trouble tapping into.

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Originally Posted by ShotgunDawg

Yeah, it just comes with such little understanding of the context of MSU's history.

MSU is absolutely not the hardest place to win in the SEC West. The JUCO & local talent pool are something that Arkansas can't compete with & Ole Miss has trouble tapping into.

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The last 100 years say it is. The last 10 years say it's not. The question is were those 10 years because of Mullen like this guy thinks or is it because of MSU advancing? Leach will go a long way in answering these questions.

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Originally Posted by Ifyouonlyknew

The last 100 years say it is. The last 10 years say it's not. The question is were those 10 years because of Mullen like this guy thinks or is it because of MSU advancing? Leach will go a long way in answering these questions.

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That Croom hire is a real pimple on us that ruined what should be close to 30 years of sustained winning by now.

While the Sherrill era proved we could win, the Croom era wiped away any national remembrance of what Sherrill did.

While your right, I think it's pretty easy to reason your way to MSU not being the hardest place to win the SEC West, with the MS JUCO being the #1 reason.

When did the twelve game schedule come into play? For most of Jackie's tenure (if not all) he had one less game that would would have been an automatic win against a cupcake like Mullen did. Mullen was great for sure, but he had 9 or 10 wins extra simply from a 12 game schedule.

Also, he talks about Mullen taking us to 8 straight bowls but but let's be honest the St. Pete bowl we didn't deserve. Plus, a coach we fired took us to two in a row.

Like others have said looking at the last 100 years he's absolutely right. Looking at the last 25 he's not close to being right. Arkansas and Ole Miss are absolutely harder to win at if you look at any data point for that time period.

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Originally Posted by ShotgunDawg

That Croom hire is a real pimple on us that ruined what should be close to 30 years of sustained winning by now.

While the Sherrill era proved we could win, the Croom era wiped away any national remembrance of what Sherrill did.

While your right, I think it's pretty easy to reason your way to MSU not being the hardest place to win the SEC West, with the MS JUCO being the #1 reason.

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While you can reason your way there, we are still, from the outside hampered by sharing a state with a known cheater, our close location to Alabama, and our history. That Ole Miss consistently has shown to flagrantly break the rules to win, makes MSU a harder place to win.

Arkansas has the entire state and a history of being able to recruit Texas.

The entry of Mizzou and A&M is what is relegated ARK to the lower tier in the SEC. It killed thier out of state recruiting base into Texas, Missouri, and Oklahoma.

But like Ifyouonlyknew said, that's recent history...

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Originally Posted by gtowndawg

When did the twelve game schedule come into play? For most of Jackie's tenure (if not all) he had one less game that would would have been an automatic win against a cupcake like Mullen did. Mullen was great for sure, but he had 9 or 10 wins extra simply from a 12 game schedule.

Also, he talks about Mullen taking us to 8 straight bowls but but let's be honest the St. Pete bowl we didn't deserve. Plus, a coach we fired took us to two in a row.

Like others have said looking at the last 100 years he's absolutely right. Looking at the last 25 he's not close to being right. Arkansas and Ole Miss are absolutely harder to win at if you look at any data point for that time period.

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Mullen would have failed to make a bowl game in 2011, 2013, and 2016 had he played an 11 game schedule like Sherrill did and had bowl games not been so readily available for anyone who got to 6 wins. That’s nearly half of his time in Starkville That he would not have made a bowl game if you add the 2009 year. He probably would have been fired instead of getting the Florida job had he been in Sherrill’s situation. Sherrill was the better coach due to doing what he did without all of the SEC money and extra cupcake game per year.

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Originally Posted by gtowndawg

When did the twelve game schedule come into play? For most of Jackie's tenure (if not all) he had one less game that would would have been an automatic win against a cupcake like Mullen did. Mullen was great for sure, but he had 9 or 10 wins extra simply from a 12 game schedule.

Also, he talks about Mullen taking us to 8 straight bowls but but let's be honest the St. Pete bowl we didn't deserve. Plus, a coach we fired took us to two in a row.

Like others have said looking at the last 100 years he's absolutely right. Looking at the last 25 he's not close to being right. Arkansas and Ole Miss are absolutely harder to win at if you look at any data point for that time period.

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Good post.

I think this makes the Leach tenure all the more important.

MSU needs to prove that someone other than Mullen can really win here.

If MSU maintains winning over 3 different coaches, it should become fairly clear that MSU is a good job

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Originally Posted by Jarius

Mullen would have failed to make a bowl game in 2011, 2013, and 2016 had he played an 11 game schedule like Sherrill did and had bowl games not been so readily available for anyone who got to 6 wins.. Sherrill was the better coach due to doing what he did without all of the SEC money and extra cupcake game per year.

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Sherrill coached in a much different SEC. It's a tough comparison

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Originally Posted by gtowndawg

When did the twelve game schedule come into play? For most of Jackie's tenure (if not all) he had one less game that would would have been an automatic win against a cupcake like Mullen did. Mullen was great for sure, but he had 9 or 10 wins extra simply from a 12 game schedule.

Also, he talks about Mullen taking us to 8 straight bowls but but let's be honest the St. Pete bowl we didn't deserve. Plus, a coach we fired took us to two in a row.

Like others have said looking at the last 100 years he's absolutely right. Looking at the last 25 he's not close to being right. Arkansas and Ole Miss are absolutely harder to win at if you look at any data point for that time period.

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Not to mention, it's way easier to get to a bowl than even in Jackie's time

Signed
1997 MSU Football

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Originally Posted by Liverpooldawg

It sounds like he has it right to me. Everything he said is factually correct except POSSIBLY with MSU being the hardest place to win in the West.

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they always leave out that Miss State in the past 10 years have been to more bowl games than, Ole Miss, Arkansas and Auburn.

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Originally Posted by Jarius

Mullen would have failed to make a bowl game in 2011, 2013, and 2016 had he played an 11 game schedule like Sherrill did and had bowl games not been so readily available for anyone who got to 6 wins. That?s nearly half of his time in Starkville That he would not have made a bowl game if you add the 2009 year. He probably would have been fired instead of getting the Florida job had he been in Sherrill?s situation. Sherrill was the better coach due to doing what he did without all of the SEC money and extra cupcake game per year.

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The number of available bowls and the 12th cupcake game really benefited Mullen. In 1970, the 11 game schedule was added. If you go back to 1970 and add a 12th cupcake game and assume a win, and apply 6 wins making you bowl eligible you get this:
- 3 additional seasons of 9+ wins (plus additional 10 wins - '74, '76, '80)
- 7 additional "bowl eligible" seasons ('77, '82, '85, '86, '89, '90, '96)
- 4 seasons we were already "bowl eligible" but did not go to a bowl ('75, '76, '78, '97)
- 6 additional regular seasons of .500+

That would be a huge perception changer outside of the Croom Error, giving us 5 Bowls in the '70s (instead of 1); 6 in the '80s (instead of 2); and 8 in the 90s (instead of 5).

This should not detract from the job Mullen did - he did great. But, it does show the benefits the era gave him compared to others.

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Originally Posted by ShotgunDawg

Another mis-understanding of post 1990 Mississippi State.

This is what we're fighting.

No mention of very few home games vs LSU for the better half of a century.

No mention of play Alabama every year when other schools did.

No mention of virtually no conference home games for the better half of a century.

Again, it appears that no matter how much we win, there still appears be a bad narrative.

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None of those things changes any of the points that he's making in his tweets. Sherrill was our most successful coach since McKeen, and he went .500 (and had to get two Bama forfeits to get there). Mullen has had more on-field success than any other coach in the prior 60 years at MSU.

All those other items you mention don't change that. Our administration allowed it to happen because they didn't give a shit about football. That's on MSU, not the world. And for someone who routinely castigates others for being all "po' ol' MSU", you sure are making a lot of excuses for our shitty past. We sucked, with a few bright spots (Murray Warmath, 2 seasons, left for Minnesota and won a NC, Darrell Royal, 2 seasons, left for Texas, won a NC, Bob Tyler, 6 seasons, thought he could beat the NCAA, Jackie Sherrill, 10 seasons, .500 record) until Mullen came along.

Like it or not, MSU historically is the worst job in the SEC, and it will take another 10 years of winning seasons (and maybe an actual SEC title) to change that perception. Regardless, the perception of MSU HAS changed over the last decade. We aren't a laughingstock any more - we're just another average school in a vicious, soul-crushing conference.

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Originally Posted by Jarius

Mullen would have failed to make a bowl game in 2011, 2013, and 2016 had he played an 11 game schedule like Sherrill did and had bowl games not been so readily available for anyone who got to 6 wins. That’s nearly half of his time in Starkville That he would not have made a bowl game if you add the 2009 year. He probably would have been fired instead of getting the Florida job had he been in Sherrill’s situation. Sherrill was the better coach due to doing what he did without all of the SEC money and extra cupcake game per year.

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Jackie, coaching in a much worse sec west, also put up four 3 win seasons and a 2 win season (I think). And left us on probation on the way out the door and with the program in a freaking mess. Even if dan would have barely missed a bowl game in 11,13, and 16, he never bombed like Jackie and ran a much better program internally than Jackie.

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Originally Posted by QuadrupleOption

None of those things changes any of the points that he's making in his tweets. Sherrill was our most successful coach since McKeen, and he went .500 (and had to get two Bama forfeits to get there). Mullen has had more on-field success than any other coach in the prior 60 years at MSU.

All those other items you mention don't change that. Our administration allowed it to happen because they didn't give a shit about football. That's on MSU, not the world. And for someone who routinely castigates others for being all "po' ol' MSU", you sure are making a lot of excuses for our shitty past. We sucked, with a few bright spots (Murray Warmath, 2 seasons, left for Minnesota and won a NC, Darrell Royal, 2 seasons, left for Texas, won a NC, Bob Tyler, 6 seasons, thought he could beat the NCAA, Jackie Sherrill, 10 seasons, .500 record) until Mullen came along.

Like it or not, MSU historically is the worst job in the SEC, and it will take another 10 years of winning seasons (and maybe an actual SEC title) to change that perception. Regardless, the perception of MSU HAS changed over the last decade. We aren't a laughingstock any more - we're just another average school in a vicious, soul-crushing conference.

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We were Po Mittittippi Tate, but we aren't anymore.

Weeding out that mentality is what I fight against, not that there wasn't a good reason that it started.

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Originally Posted by Jarius

Mullen would have failed to make a bowl game in 2011, 2013, and 2016 had he played an 11 game schedule like Sherrill did and had bowl games not been so readily available for anyone who got to 6 wins. That’s nearly half of his time in Starkville That he would not have made a bowl game if you add the 2009 year. He probably would have been fired instead of getting the Florida job had he been in Sherrill’s situation. Sherrill was the better coach due to doing what he did without all of the SEC money and extra cupcake game per year.

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Yep, valid point. In 1997 (Jackie) we went 7-4 and did not go to a bowl as I recall.

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Originally Posted by confucius say

Jackie, coaching in a much worse sec west, also put up four 3 win seasons and a 2 win season (I think). And left us on probation on the way out the door and with the program in a freaking mess. Even if dan would have barely missed a bowl game in 11,13, and 16, he never bombed like Jackie and ran a much better program internally than Jackie.

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The highs for Jackie were higher than Mullen, but to your point the lows were much lower than Mullen.

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Originally Posted by ShotgunDawg

We were Po Mittittippi Tate, but we aren't anymore.

Weeding out that mentality is what I fight against, not that there wasn't a good reason that it started.

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I agree - we aren't Po Mittittippi Tate but we also ain't Bama. For a visual analogy, Bama's on the mountain top. 30 years ago we were down in the valley. Now, we're probably 1/3rd of the way to the mountain top but the guys who pay attention to the Bamas of the world don't keep up. They think we're still in the valley. Keep winning, keep going to bowls, keep beating teams you should beat and eventually you'll start to get that recognition (and we are).

We still have a ways to go to be on the mountain top, but we're getting there. The fact the JoMo was let go after 2 seasons of making bowls tells me that our donors and AD aren't putting up with stuff like they used to.

I don't have a problem with your passion, but I do think you need to take a step back and see where we are in relation to where we were. Always strive for improvement but you have to understand you don't go from nothing to championships overnight. You have build it the right way, and it's a long-term plan and process. Shortcuts are for UM, not us. And they never work out in the end.

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Originally Posted by QuadrupleOption

I agree - we aren't Po Mittittippi Tate but we also ain't Bama. For a visual analogy, Bama's on the mountain top. 30 years ago we were down in the valley. Now, we're probably 1/3rd of the way to the mountain top but the guys who pay attention to the Bamas of the world don't keep up. They think we're still in the valley. Keep winning, keep going to bowls, keep beating teams you should beat and eventually you'll start to get that recognition (and we are).

We still have a ways to go to be on the mountain top, but we're getting there. The fact the JoMo was let go after 2 seasons of making bowls tells me that our donors and AD aren't putting up with stuff like they used to.

I don't have a problem with your passion, but I do think you need to take a step back and see where we are in relation to where we were. Always strive for improvement but you have to understand you don't go from nothing to championships overnight. You have build it the right way, and it's a long-term plan and process. Shortcuts are for UM, not us. And they never work out in the end.

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Great post.

It's not that I don't recognize where we are, it's that I believe we have a good portion of fans that think like someone in the Valley rather than seeing what we could be.

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Originally Posted by confucius say

Jackie, coaching in a much worse sec west, also put up four 3 win seasons and a 2 win season (I think). And left us on probation on the way out the door and with the program in a freaking mess. Even if dan would have barely missed a bowl game in 11,13, and 16, he never bombed like Jackie and ran a much better program internally than Jackie.

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Mullen also had us on probation. Jackie played in a slightly weaker SEC west with ten times the disadvantages that Mullen had. Jackie had a much tougher job and It’s not even close. Mullen also never had to deal with his wife having cancer during the middle of a witch hunt for probation either.

Mullen did an outstanding job at MSU but if you switch places the records end up looking the same more than likely. It’s a lot easier to bottom out when your budget is closer to USM than your SEC counterparts. That terrible visitors locker room Leach talks about at MSU May have been because Jackie wanted it that way but the primary reason was we had no money to speak of....Jackie was borderline elite at Pitt and A&M. When he had real resources (or played in a conference where everyone else didn’t have a lot more than him like at Pitt) he kicked everyone’s ass.

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Originally Posted by SheltonChoked

The entry of Mizzou and A&M is what is relegated ARK to the lower tier in the SEC. It killed thier out of state recruiting base into Texas, Missouri, and Oklahoma.

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This is just factually incorrect. Arkansas has finished with a higher recruiting ranking than Missouri 90% of the time. And Arkansas signed the exact same number of players from Texas that they did before A&M joined the SEC.

If you go back across the last decade you'll probably find that Arkansas, Mississippi State and Ole Miss all recruit within about 3-5 spots of each other on average (outside of the Freeze years where Ole Miss was obviously cheating). We don't recruit Missouri or Oklahoma a whole lot to begin with (though Pittman is putting more emphasis on Oklahoma and having more success) but our main problem has been coaching. Sure our talent isn't Alabama level, but we've had the same number of players drafted as Florida State in the last 5 years. Just 3 fewer than USC and Wisconsin and 25th nationally. We easily have the worst record among the top 25 during that time span as well.

I do think that moving to the SEC from the SWC hurt our Texas recruiting but statistically A&M coming into the conference has had very little impact on it at all.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EAU50wvW...pg&name=medium

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EAU50wwW...pg&name=medium

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Originally Posted by WPS

This is just factually incorrect. Arkansas has finished with a higher recruiting ranking than Missouri 90% of the time. And Arkansas signed the exact same number of players from Texas that they did before A&M joined the SEC.

If you go back across the last decade you'll probably find that Arkansas, Mississippi State and Ole Miss all recruit within about 3-5 spots of each other on average (outside of the Freeze years where Ole Miss was obviously cheating). We don't recruit Missouri or Oklahoma a whole lot to begin with (though Pittman is putting more emphasis on Oklahoma and having more success) but our main problem has been coaching. Sure our talent isn't Alabama level, but we've had the same number of players drafted as Florida State in the last 5 years. Just 3 fewer than USC and Wisconsin and 25th nationally. We easily have the worst record among the top 25 during that time span as well.

I do think that moving to the SEC from the SWC hurt our Texas recruiting but statistically A&M coming into the conference has had very little impact on it at all.

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Yeah, based on the graphs, it's hurt Texas Tech. At the same time Bama has made huge inroads into Texas and LSU & Baylor have added some - which is probably why Texas has been down and A&M has been relatively average in the SEC.

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Originally Posted by WPS

This is just factually incorrect. Arkansas has finished with a higher recruiting ranking than Missouri 90% of the time. And Arkansas signed the exact same number of players from Texas that they did before A&M joined the SEC.

If you go back across the last decade you'll probably find that Arkansas, Mississippi State and Ole Miss all recruit within about 3-5 spots of each other on average (outside of the Freeze years where Ole Miss was obviously cheating). We don't recruit Missouri or Oklahoma a whole lot to begin with (though Pittman is putting more emphasis on Oklahoma and having more success) but our main problem has been coaching. Sure our talent isn't Alabama level, but we've had the same number of players drafted as Florida State in the last 5 years. Just 3 fewer than USC and Wisconsin and 25th nationally. We easily have the worst record among the top 25 during that time span as well.

I do think that moving to the SEC from the SWC hurt our Texas recruiting but statistically A&M coming into the conference has had very little impact on it at all.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EAU50wvW...pg&name=medium

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EAU50wwW...pg&name=medium

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1. I don't think you get the same player from Texas now that you were getting then. I realize this graph says here that you kind of do, but I think you're missing out on far more of those high 3 star types that may not be included in the "Blue Chip" category.

2. Secondly, you don't have a JUCO system. The Mississippi schools have the best JUCO system in America from which to fill holes or find immediate impact players & those players get destroyed in the recruiting rankings. For Example: Montez Sweat was a 3 star & Jonathan Abram was a low 4 star yet both were 1st round picks less than two years later.

Arkansas is easily the hardest job in the SEC West & Ole Miss makes their job harder than it should be due to a terrible program culture that attracts turd type players &/or gets them put on serious probation. The JUCO players also don't seem as attracted to Ole Miss as they are MSU. I think JUCO ball builds a certain type of grinder mentality that makes Ole Miss' culture less appealing.

A big problem that I think Ole Miss faces & will continue to face is that many of the players they attract to their football program, sign there for reasons other than football.

Think about it:

When a JUCO kid or player signs with MSU, it's usually because they see MSU as their way to the NFL

When a player signs with Bama, football is undoubtedly the reason.

However, when a player signs with Ole Miss or Texas, what's their reason for doing so? To be with friends? To party? etc?

I think that's a struggle that they have. Many of the kids they get are there for other reasons.

I think the best Ole Miss player are those that sign with Ole Miss for actual football reasons. AJ Brown was paid, but he wanted to play in Ole Miss' passing offense. So at least, he went there for a football reason. Many others did not.

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Originally Posted by Jarius

Mullen also had us on probation. Jackie played in a slightly weaker SEC west with ten times the disadvantages that Mullen had. Jackie had a much tougher job and It’s not even close. Mullen also never had to deal with his wife having cancer during the middle of a witch hunt for probation either.

Mullen did an outstanding job at MSU but if you switch places the records end up looking the same more than likely. It’s a lot easier to bottom out when your budget is closer to USM than your SEC counterparts. That terrible visitors locker room Leach talks about at MSU May have been because Jackie wanted it that way but the primary reason was we had no money to speak of....Jackie was borderline elite at Pitt and A&M. When he had real resources (or played in a conference where everyone else didn’t have a lot more than him like at Pitt) he kicked everyone’s ass.

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Not all probations are the same.

Jackie did a lot of good for us, but he coached too long and drove our program into the ground. He finished 3-8, 3-9, 2-10 and was dead last in the conference all three years. And left us on probation. We were arguably the worst power 5 program in the country when he left.

This dude is clearly not aware that we won a National Championship in 1940.

Does Florida have the easiest SEC schedule this year?

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Originally Posted by ShotgunDawg

1. I don't think you get the same player from Texas now that you were getting then. I realize this graph says here that you kind of do, but I think you're missing out on far more of those high 3 star types that may not be included in the "Blue Chip" category.

2. Secondly, you don't have a JUCO system. The Mississippi schools have the best JUCO system in America from which to fill holes or find immediate impact players & those players get destroyed in the recruiting rankings. For Example: Montez Sweat was a 3 star & Jonathan Abram was a low 4 star yet both were 1st round picks less than two years later.

Arkansas is easily the hardest job in the SEC West & Ole Miss makes their job harder than it should be due to a terrible program culture that attracts turd type players &/or gets them put on serious probation. The JUCO players also don't seem as attracted to Ole Miss as they are MSU. I think JUCO ball builds a certain type of grinder mentality that makes Ole Miss' culture less appealing.

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Do you think that Texas High School football recruits are over rated?

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Originally Posted by SmokeyDawg

Does Florida have the easiest SEC schedule this year?

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Maybe so but they will not beat GA. GA is going to be Dan's new Alabama.

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Originally Posted by Jack Lambert

Do you think that Texas High School football recruits are over rated?

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No.

They're just extremely hard to rank and evaluate due to the number of them, less talented guys with advanced coaching, and hype.

The stars are off in the state but the great players absolutely exist.

Pat Maholmes was a 3 star. There are numerous other examples.

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Originally Posted by WPS

This is just factually incorrect. Arkansas has finished with a higher recruiting ranking than Missouri 90% of the time. And Arkansas signed the exact same number of players from Texas that they did before A&M joined the SEC.

If you go back across the last decade you'll probably find that Arkansas, Mississippi State and Ole Miss all recruit within about 3-5 spots of each other on average (outside of the Freeze years where Ole Miss was obviously cheating). We don't recruit Missouri or Oklahoma a whole lot to begin with (though Pittman is putting more emphasis on Oklahoma and having more success) but our main problem has been coaching. Sure our talent isn't Alabama level, but we've had the same number of players drafted as Florida State in the last 5 years. Just 3 fewer than USC and Wisconsin and 25th nationally. We easily have the worst record among the top 25 during that time span as well.

I do think that moving to the SEC from the SWC hurt our Texas recruiting but statistically A&M coming into the conference has had very little impact on it at all.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EAU50wvW...pg&name=medium

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EAU50wwW...pg&name=medium

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Now do the 1995-2011 period when you were the good in the SEC and won the division 4 times. That you have recruited shitty in Texas since 2011 is my point...

Players like Clint Stoner, Fred Talley, Caleb Miller, dacori Birmingham, Jason Peters...

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Originally Posted by BrunswickDawg

The number of available bowls and the 12th cupcake game really benefited Mullen. In 1970, the 11 game schedule was added. If you go back to 1970 and add a 12th cupcake game and assume a win, and apply 6 wins making you bowl eligible you get this:
- 3 additional seasons of 9+ wins (plus additional 10 wins - '74, '76, '80)
- 7 additional "bowl eligible" seasons ('77, '82, '85, '86, '89, '90, '96)
- 4 seasons we were already "bowl eligible" but did not go to a bowl ('75, '76, '78, '97)
- 6 additional regular seasons of .500+

That would be a huge perception changer outside of the Croom Error, giving us 5 Bowls in the '70s (instead of 1); 6 in the '80s (instead of 2); and 8 in the 90s (instead of 5).

This should not detract from the job Mullen did - he did great. But, it does show the benefits the era gave him compared to others.

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The twitter guy ain't wrong, but you provided the "why" Mullen's years seemed so much more fruitful. You should copy and paste this in a reply to him! Well done!

Arkansas is the hardest play to win in the West. Any sports mouth that says otherwise doesn't know too much, if anything.

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Originally Posted by ShotgunDawg

That Croom hire is a real pimple on us that ruined what should be close to 30 years of sustained winning by now.

While the Sherrill era proved we could win, the Croom era wiped away any national remembrance of what Sherrill did.

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Not taking up for Croom, but I don't think you understand the hot water we (MSU) were in with the NCAA (much of it thanks to the private investigators working for OM, and the booster lady sleeping with the NCAA lead investigator)

Hiring the first African American head football coach in the SEC is something we needed to do at the time. And yes, it killed the early to mid 2000s for us.

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Originally Posted by Jarius

Mullen would have failed to make a bowl game in 2011, 2013, and 2016 had he played an 11 game schedule like Sherrill did and had bowl games not been so readily available for anyone who got to 6 wins. That?s nearly half of his time in Starkville That he would not have made a bowl game if you add the 2009 year. He probably would have been fired instead of getting the Florida job had he been in Sherrill?s situation. Sherrill was the better coach due to doing what he did without all of the SEC money and extra cupcake game per year.

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People that weren't around when Sherrill took over have no idea the disadvantages we had to most other SEC teams during that time in terms of facilities, fan attendance, alumni support, TV exposure, budgets, no history of winning at all, etc. Heck, Sherrill had one team miss a bowl at 7-4 while Mullen had one go at 5-7. Just a different time. I seriously doubt Mullen would have even taken our job at the time Sherrill did. They are both great coaches but I would put Sherrill ahead of Mullen because without what Sherrill did in his first ten years here the Mullen years here would not have even been possible. The last few years sort of tarnish what Jackie did but he really had to build from scratch when he arrived. Mullen had much more to work with including weekly TV exposure plus quickly started getting big money from the SEC Network that allowed the end zone stadium expansion. So when Sherrill took over we absolutely were the hardest place to win in the West. At this point I would say we are ahead of Arkansas and are at least tied with if not ahead of Ole Miss.

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Originally Posted by maroonmania

People that weren't around when Sherrill took over have no idea the disadvantages we had to most other SEC teams during that time in terms of facilities, fan attendance, alumni support, TV exposure, budgets, no history of winning at all, etc. Heck, Sherrill had one team miss a bowl at 7-4 while Mullen had one go at 5-7. Just a different time. I seriously doubt Mullen would have even taken our job at the time Sherrill did. They are both great coaches but I would put Sherrill ahead of Mullen because without what Sherrill did in his first ten years here the Mullen years here would not have even been possible. The last few years sort of tarnish what Jackie did but he really had to build from scratch when he arrived. Mullen had much more to work with including weekly TV exposure plus quickly started getting big money from the SEC Network that allowed the end zone stadium expansion. So when Sherrill took over we absolutely were the hardest place to win in the West. At this point I would say we are ahead of Arkansas and are at least tied with if not ahead of Ole Miss.

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Totally agree. As a reminder, this was the stadium when Jackie took the job (and the practice facilities were, um....interesting):

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pr...zwTYNO66dQf-KZ

I don't have a problem with a single thing Gall said. What Mullen did here on a consistent basis in unprecedented, that is a matter of fact. Jackie obviously had some good years but the consistency was not there other than a 3-4 year stretch from '97/98-'00.

For me the biggest thing Mullen did for us was raise the floor of what we are as a program. The fact that Joe Moorhead for all his flaws still finished above .500 as a head coach speaks more to what Mullen left him than anything else. The fact that Mike Leach is about to radically shift our philosophy and our fans still expect us to go to a bowl game in Year 1 after the dysfunctional season we had last year also speaks volumes about the culture that Mullen built.

Mullen is not perfect but he can flat out coach and is the best we have ever had to this point.

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Originally Posted by ShotgunDawg

1. I don't think you get the same player from Texas now that you were getting then. I realize this graph says here that you kind of do, but I think you're missing out on far more of those high 3 star types that may not be included in the "Blue Chip" category.

2. Secondly, you don't have a JUCO system. The Mississippi schools have the best JUCO system in America from which to fill holes or find immediate impact players & those players get destroyed in the recruiting rankings. For Example: Montez Sweat was a 3 star & Jonathan Abram was a low 4 star yet both were 1st round picks less than two years later.

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1. But that's irrelevant if we're still recruiting in the 20s-30s on average just like MSU and Ole Miss. I'm not sure why recruiting Texas matters so much if we end up getting the same type of talent regardless...hell Morris actually signed the most Rivals 4-stars we've ever signed just last year.

2. Some players pan out, some don't. We've signed the #1/#2 JUCO DE twice in the last 5 years (the Kansas JUCOs aren't that far away) and also got good contributions from the SEC's leading tackler in 2014 Martrell Spaight who was a JUCO. Even our current RB Rakeem Boyd was a JUCO and he's one of the best backs in the league. We've also signed some highly ranked JUCOs that didn't work out. It's about like flipping a coin.

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Originally Posted by SheltonChoked

Now do the 1995-2011 period when you were the good in the SEC and won the division 4 times. That you have recruited shitty in Texas since 2011 is my point...

Players like Clint Stoner, Fred Talley, Caleb Miller, dacori Birmingham, Jason Peters...

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Those teams also had key players from Arkansas like Matt Jones, Darren McFadden, Shawn Andrews, Brandon Burlsworth, Jonathan Luigs, Peyton Hillis, Tyler Wilson, Joe Adams, Jarius Wright, Jamaal Anderson, etc. In fact I would say our best teams in the SEC have been anchored mostly by in-state players. Talent is talent no matter where it comes from. We're still sending players to the NFL at a pretty solid rate like I mentioned it's just our coaches lately have had no idea what to do with it. There are probably 20+ players from the 2014 team who were drafted, for example, and yet that team lost 6 games.

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Originally Posted by Bothrops

Arkansas is the hardest play to win in the West. Any sports mouth that says otherwise doesn't know too much, if anything.

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But that's not backed by history or recruiting rankings. It's just recency bias because we've sucked extremely bad lately due to poor hires. If it was the hardest place to win then we wouldn't have won the West 3 times and wouldn't have a winning record against teams like Ole Miss, MSU, South Carolina or Texas A&M. Literally nothing has changed since Petrino was here with our average recruiting ranking so our talent is still the same as it was (on paper) back then yet we were winning 11 games then and 2 now. It's pretty obvious to see that a guy who plays 8 different QBs in two seasons just isn't a coach worthy of being in the P5 much less the SEC.

I mean if you say we're the hardest place to win in the west just based on on-field performance currently then that means that San Jose State and North Texas are better jobs too lol.