Quote Originally Posted by Bothrops View Post
Thing is Dan has worked harder at Florida than he did much of his time here. Whether people were ready for him to go or not, his time here had expired. At least that's how I read it from judging from his point of view.
I have never understood this logic. This is a really hard place to win, just look at what we've become since Mullen left. If Mullen didn't work hard here, we would've continued to be a bottom feeder like we've been for the majority of our history. Mullen has some flaws as a coach, and there are certainly some areas he is lacking in, but effort is not one of them. Interviewing for other jobs is not the same thing as not trying at your current job, and not working hard at MSU would have sabotaged his own chances of getting a better job.

He left in 2017 because there were a ton of big jobs open that year, he was coming off his best season since 2014, and he had come closer to beating Bama than any other point in his career. Maybe he could've stuck around one more year and had another really good team, but the job market wasn't going to be nearly as good the following year. The time was right for him. Maybe you can complain about how the 2017 Egg Bowl was handled, because we can all agree that he knew it was his last game here, but it's not like we laid down and quit in that game. We win if Fitz doesn't get injured or if KT doesn't turn the ball over a ton, and in spite of that we mounted a big comeback late to get within 3 but fell just short.

The longer Mullen is gone and we continue to struggle, the weaker the arguments against him become.