Quote Originally Posted by Really Clark? View Post
And who is to thank for that? Croom and JWS sure struggled with those teams. That's why the point doesn't work, they had the same type of scheduling and couldnt get it done. Our SOS on average is harder under Mullen than is was under JWS. And when Mullen got here we only had a what? $30-35 MIL budget. The money part hasn't come into play until the last few years. That's why it's a tired argument that statistically isn't true. The narrative is we added an incredibly weak OOC and that's part of why it has been for Dan to win than in the past. It's not true for the vast majority of the years.
The point absolutely works because this really has only changed in the last 10 years with the rise of the SEC and the budget, facility and exposure change at MSU due to the rise of the SEC in revenues and the SEC network. Of course I will say a Croom coached team would still have trouble with anyone. You are free to have a different opinion but from being a student in the early 80s, OOC games at that time were just as worrisome to try to win as conference games for us. I think USA was Mullen's first loss to a non-P5 team since playing the Houston team with Keenum at QB back in 09.