Quote Originally Posted by Captain Falcon View Post
I'm kinda amazed at how you dog Mullen for how 2014 ended but give Jackie a pass for the end of '99 which was almost identical. Both teams lost in Tuscaloosa to Bama teams that won the SEC and then both had a road loss to a 4-loss team where we just played really poorly. People argue that our best wins in 2014 were against overrated teams, and while that is true, they were still solid wins in games that we dominated. And it's not like we beat a bunch of powerhouses in '99. Our best win was against an 8-4 Ole Miss team and we got to play a 6-6 Clemson team in our bowl game. The Georgia Tech team that beat us in the Orange Bowl was an 11 win team that finished in the Top 10. And in '99 we also had eek out wins against 3-8 LSU, 5-6 Memphis, 5-6 Auburn, and 6-6 Kentucky.

You say people are too young to remember, I say that nostalgia may have you misremembering what the situation actually was. We had some memorable teams in that era that were definitely good. But the run that Mullen put together as a whole was better than Jackie's run. And since we are bashing Mullen for missing an opportunity to win the West in 2014, let us not forget that in addition to '99, Jackie had teams in '97 and 2000 that were very much in the hunt to win the West and both years we proceeded to go 0-2 in our final two games against Arkansas and Ole Miss teams we should have beaten.