Quote Originally Posted by smootness View Post
That isn't true. It seems true now, but once we started beating teams like that every once in a while, the expectations would grow and people would be upset it was only every once in a while. You would see people all over our message boards saying, 'Mullen has done a good job up until this point, but we have to start beating these teams more consistently. I mean, we clearly have the ability to do it but we keep making dumb mistakes that keep us from doing it consistently. I don't know if he's the guy to take us to the next step. Winning 8-9 games is fine, but when you have 4 gimme OOC games every year, then add Kentucky and (insert 1-2 teams that are down at the time), you're only talking about one extra win a year. We can do better than that'.

That is the cycle, and I'm not even saying it's a bad thing; it's natural. But it's funny to me to see fans say something like, 'If we just did x or y, we would be content'. Naturally, once you reach a certain level, that is your new basis for expectations. When you are terrible, all you want is a bowl game here and there. But then when you go to a couple of bowl games, you want them every year. Then when you're making a bowl game every year, you no longer think of yourself as the same program you were when you were terrible. In the fan's mind, you're now a better program than you were then, and just going to bowls isn't good enough. You expect to start beating some really good teams here and there. Once you get to that point, you expect to continue to get better and beat them consistently.

I know it may sound absurd to think of Mississippi State fans expecting to compete for championships every year, but that is the natural progression if you keep improving. The expectations don't just remain constant. 4 years ago, we weren't saying, 'We just need to go to some bowl games and beat top 10 teams'. We weren't even saying we needed to go to a bowl every year. Now we are. This is how it works.
You are just flat out wrong and the best example is JWS from 1997-2000. We occassionally beat good teams and were competitive most of the time when we lost and the fanbase was happy as clams. I know I was. One thing the MSU fanbase is not is delusional. Mullen is the one who came in talking about wanting to regularly compete for championships which I believe the fanbase never really bought into but I think most believe we CAN consistently win 7-9 games per year with a 12 game schedule and beat some good SEC teams in the process on occassion. So far with Mullen we are in the 5-8 win range and really haven't beaten any good teams since 2010.