Mullen year 5 vs Cohen year 5

[FlabLoser]

It is fair to say that both Mullen and Cohen started their eras in a really shitty position. They inherited losing teams. Both had rosters that needed to be coached up. Both rosters needed major restructuring.

Mullen's inheritance needed a lot more restructuring than Cohen's did. The Croom leftovers were (poorly) structured for the I formation, 2 WRs, and a QB under center. Mullen had to find warm bodies to occupy WRs lots and a run-first spread offense with a walkon QB.

You baseball guys can better comment on what Cohen started out with, but I think Mullen was farther behind the 8 ball than Cohen was.

In 4 years, Mullen is 2-1 in bowl games, twice appearing in the Gator Bowl which is a fairly high bowl game. I would equate the Gator, Chick Fil A, and Capital One with a Super Regional. A BCS game would be equated with the College World Series.

In 4 years, Cohen as been to a Super Regional and a Regional. In the 2011 Super Regional, Cohen made it to the final game of the Super, losing 8-6 to the host team, Florida. Cohen was 3 runs away from making the College World Series.

Year 5 is young and so far, Cohen's team is underachieving. Mullen's year 5 hasn't begun, but it is fair to say his year 4 team underachieved. Today, neither team looks poised for the post season in year 5.

Who is doing better? The answer to this question isn't a knock on the other guy. Both of them are doing fairly well. We all wish both of them were doing better.

I'd call it a dead heat. Cohen has had higher success in the post season, but Mullen has had post season success more often.

[Will James]

It definitely takes longer to turn a football program around than a baseball program. I'm saying Mullen has done better.

[Spider-Man]

Given the tradition of the two programs. I would say that Mullen is doing a better job. Also, it is a little early to be saying that Cohen's team is underachieving. Let's see how we do when we aren't playing top 10 teams on the road before we say that.

[CadaverDawg]

Given the tradition of the two programs. I would say that Mullen is doing a better job. Also, it is a little early to be saying that Cohen's team is underachieving. Let's see how we do when we aren't playing top 10 teams on the road before we say that.

Completely agree, Spider.

To me, looking at this baseball season as a likely underachievement is equivalent to viewing football as a likely overachievement after the 7-0 start.

But, if we're talking about as of Right This Second....I think they are very close, with a slight edge to Mullen based on 3 straight bowls and the history of each program. Mullen has a tougher row to hoe year in and year out in order to stay competitive.

I definitely have that feeling that we're beginning a down trend in football and an up trend in baseball though. So I feel better about Cohen long term than I do Dan. Hopefully this football season changes that though.

[BeastMan]

Given the tradition of the two programs. I would say that Mullen is doing a better job. Also, it is a little early to be saying that Cohen's team is underachieving. Let's see how we do when we aren't playing top 10 teams on the road before we say that.

Agree on all that. Well put

[Coach34]

I think it's a dead heat to this point.

Mullen inherited a shitty, shitty offensive football team. However, we have come to see that he inherited some talented mf'ers on defense. He and the staff did a good job of developing them- but they had something to start with on D that was top half in the SEC

Cohen inherited a decent offensive baseball team- but the pitching staff was garbage. Cohen's pitching talent he inherited was actually worse than the offensive talent Mullen inherited.

So where are they now?

Mullen has built the program to being a middle of the road SEC team. Which is good for Miss State. Everybody wants more of course and we will see what Mullen's group does in year 5. He could easily have a better football team and a worse record in 2013 than in 2012.

Cohen is being hurt by the injury bug. Are we really underachieving if we arent able to pitch our top 3 talents? Take the top 3 talents off every pitching staff in the SEC and lets see how things look. But it's up to Cohen to get things fixed. I think you will see us perform better the next 3 weeks.

[HereComesTheSpiral]

I'm going to say Cohen had it worse coming in than Mullen had it. Mullen had it bad, but Croom did leave him with excellent defensive talent and a foundation in that recruiting class that gave him something to work with. Cohen came into a job that was garbage in every way you can think of. The talent was sub-JUCO level and he had to weed most of the players out. Cohen literally had to build from the ground up. With all that said, Cohen has been underachieving because the team is stocked with excellent talent that is being squandered playing the matchup game he likes to play.

[FISHDAWG]

I think there is better parity in baseball and therefore harder to make an instant mark ... both guys had their work cut out for them however, I think Mullen is in a more difficult situation competing in the SEC West in football but has yet to make a serious statement in that division ... toss up either way in my book

[JHdawg]

Right on Coach. I think there is less than 5 coaches in the country who could do what Mullen did with his inheritence of players. Now that the talent is here I think were about to see us go on a run at least that's my opinion.

[Coach34]

Right on Coach. I think there is less than 5 coaches in the country who could do what Mullen did with his inheritence of players. Now that the talent is here I think were about to see us go on a run at least that's my opinion.

I wouldnt embellish that much Arlo.

[FISHDAWG]

sounds like the message got through **

[WutheringDawg]

I don't know how comfortable I am comparing postseason success. Just based on the nature of baseball post season, Cohen has the advantage of moving and strengthening a single season's successes. Would that 2010 football team have made a great run in a playoff system? Probably. Why should Mullen be penalized because he can't build on a seasons success immediately. But would that mean the other gator bowl is like hosting a regional and losing? does that even matter because it's football-a sport with lesser expectation- and not baseball? I don't know, it kind of falls apart.

At first blush I would have to say that Mullen has had more success because he's met preseason expectations every year- having only had one season without postseason play. While Cohen had two terrible years thanks to what Polk pt. II left him. But now he's got the program trending upward with a Super Regional birth and an SEC tournament championship last year.

I'm also convinced that Cohen had the tougher road because of the disparity in the quality of the athletes playing baseball vs. football. So if baseball makes a good run into the post-season, then Mullen is going to have to make and win a good bowl game in order to keep up the pace.


I don't really like the way that post came out, oh well- only got 3 hours of sleep. I may come back and clean it up later.

[Todd4State]

I think Cohen has/had it tougher than Dan simply because he was replacing a legend that did not approve of him and a lot of our fans didn't support him to start with. Dan replaced a guy that is generally disliked by almost all MSU fans and he had support from the MSU family from the start. You don't see any ex-Croom players trying to tear him down like you see with some of Polk's ex-players like Steve Gendron.

I don't know who had less to work with, but in my opinion it was probably Cohen. At least Croom left Dan Anthony Dixon, Sherrod, KJ Wright, Charles Mitchell not to mention he at least started a really good recruiting class with the likes of Tyler Russell, Bumphis, Fletcher Cox, Banks, Chris White, Pernell McPhee, Perkins, Gabe Jackson, Whitley and etc. that Dan finished off strong. Really the only player that Cohen inherited from Polk's last class that were productive was Caleb Reed and Devin Jones. Cohen did get Jarrod Parks to finish that class out. And as far as what Polk left Cohen- it was pretty much Conner Powers and Brent Brownlee and an almost entire pitching staff that was on the DL. And on top of that, most of the players didn't like Cohen and wouldn't play hard for him. Trainwreck.

So, year one we sucked with Polk's players and had about the same record as Polk's last year.

Year two, we brought in a bunch of JUCO's and freshmen pitchers to go along with Polk's players hoping to maybe make a regional, but our pitching injuries caught up to us after the UT series and our pitching staff and the team imploded after a respectable start to the year.

Really, any baseball coach in college anywhere should get a two year grace period because of how the recruiting cycle works. No coach gets any of their players until the start of year two.

Now that the grace period for Cohen is over:

Year 3- We have a team of JUCO's, some freshmen, and a few of Polk's players. We scrap our way to a SR.

Year 4- Cohen has his players in, but our lineup is racked with injuries. Our pitching staff carries us to a SEC Tournament championship and a regional appearance.

Year 5- Now our pitching staff goes down. The season is still going on, but our RPI is in the top 20 and as long as finish with about 32-34 wins which we are well on pace to do, we are likely going to a regional again.

All of that is to say, the talent is there, and we are getting production from it- but we just have to find a way to keep our talent healthy. People forget that we neglected our baseball program for seven years. It's going to take a little bit of time to build it back because of that- but we are well on our way to doing that. The results on the field the past three years and the recruiting classes are showing that. It's only a matter of time before Dudy-Noble gets upgraded as well.

[SnakePlissken]

I definitely have that feeling that we're beginning a down trend in football and an up trend in baseball though. So I feel better about Cohen long term than I do Dan. Hopefully this football season changes that though.

This is what frightens me the most. I'm not worried about baseball but football....perhaps we can break the cycle but I think we saw the beginning of the downturn with the end of last season. To top it off we stupidly open in Houston against OSU and that will set the tone for the season. I doubt it will be as dramatic but I can see what happened to Auburn (after losing to Clemson) happen to us this fall (again, but not as dramatic a failure as Auburn)

[engie]

I think they are pretty equal overall. Certainly by initial results, it appears that Cohen inherited the worse overall situation. Could be that his style didn't work as well with others, etc...

Overall, I'd put them roughly equal I guess -- with this year leaving the ability to sway that one way or the other.

People often don't realize exactly how baseball(and basketball for that matter) recruiting works....Cohen was hired in early June. The class of incoming freshman for his first campaign were signed the previous November -- and Cohen's first true class was signed the following November. He inherited a signing class that really only had Caleb Reed, Nick Routt, and Devin Jones in it...

So, his "first class" which he only had 5 months to recruit(not even half of a whole cycle) included: Stratton, Graveman, Bracewell, Shepard, Vickerson, Girodo, Ogden, Frost...

His first full recruiting cycle was the class that actually didn't show up until year 3 -- a bunch of guys that hadn't seen MSU success in their ENTIRE HIGHSCHOOL LIVES and it included: Frasier, Bradford, E. Mitchell, Henderson, Rea, R. Mitchell, Norris, Pollo, Renfroe.

Year 4 -- his second full(third overall) class, which also hadn't seen MSU success in their entire highschool lives upon their signing in November: Ammirati, Britton, Cox, Fitts, Fullerton, Holder, Lindgren, Porter, Slauter, Woodruff, Flair

Year 5 was the first class that had seen our success--or any sign of the program turning around on the field prior to signing...