Any thoughts on our line movement?

[AROB44]

Well... I just feel differently. I liked winning and never expect to see that level again. I have nothing but good memories from his time here. Was he perfect? No, but I haven't seen a coach that was. Keeping his eyes open for better opportunities seems normal to me but I know some don't agree with that.

[Quaoarsking]

I can tell you what Dan did. He shopped himself every season. His wife talked trash about Starkville. When he had the #1 team in America, he wanted out. So no.. He did not give us 9 years. He gave us a half ass effort and bolted as soon as he found another job FOR THE SAME PAY we offered him.

There are no excuses for what he did when we were #1. His mind was not on finishing the season. It was on "I'm outta here".

I wish our current coach would get us to #1 in the country one day, or even just beat an SEC team who isn't 0-8 in the conference, or even just have 7 winning seasons in 9 years or have one single win over an SEC team who didn't go 0-fer in the conference that year.

Could Mullen have done more while he was here? Maybe, but I'm not going to be too critical of our most successful post-integration coach.

[msstate7]

I wish our current coach would get us to #1 in the country one day, or even just beat an SEC team who isn't 0-8 in the conference, or even just have 7 winning seasons in 9 years or have one single win over an SEC team who didn't go 0-fer in the conference that year.

Could Mullen have done more while he was here? Maybe, but I'm not going to be too critical of our most successful post-integration coach.

It is pretty hilarious that Lebby's biggest supporters are Dan's biggest critics. Those guys have zero self reflectance

[The Federalist Engineer]

It is pretty hilarious that Lebby's biggest supporters are Dan's biggest critics. Those guys have zero self reflectance

I have my festivus list of grievances with DM but at least MSU did not suck. DM forced OM to fire 2 or 3 coaches (McNutt, Some Retard, and Freezus). People were concerned he could turn MSU into a reliable winner. Lebby on the other hand, I bet OM hopes we keep him for 20 years and let MSU win 12 SEC games in those 20 years. They might even be cool with Lebby beating OM once in those 20 years and for a pathetic "SEC storied" documentary made with Stingray crying about how good it felt to win that day.

[Todd4State]

Well... I just feel differently. I liked winning and never expect to see that level again. I have nothing but good memories from his time here. Was he perfect? No, but I haven't seen a coach that was. Keeping his eyes open for better opportunities seems normal to me but I know some don't agree with that.

All I ask is that MSU doesn't hire him back. It's a waste of time. And it's something that MSU would probably do and realize it was a mistake like 2-3 years later.

[Todd4State]

It is pretty hilarious that Lebby's biggest supporters are Dan's biggest critics. Those guys have zero self reflectance

I'm not sure if you are referring to me or not but I will put my two cents in anyway. My stance on Lebby is he needs to continue to show improvement and if he doesn't, he will be gone. And he probably needs to win the Egg Bowl next year too.

It's hilarious that you of all people on here are talking about "self reflectance" about anything when you literally don't even give any coach a chance to build a program at all whereas I am at least giving him a FAIR chance to do his thing. I'm even giving him a fair chance to see if Arnett will work even though I strongly disagree with bringing him back because it's unnecessary and quite frankly stupid to bring in a distraction that MSU has had to spend time basically covering up because of who he is. But because he did something I disagree with it doesn't mean I don't support Lebby or the whole program. And that's something- that you and some of our other fans should learn to do.

I have enough "self reflectance" to understand the complete shit show that Lebby took over. And if you think that Dan Mullen would have done much better or any better at all in 2024-2025 - you don't know what the **** you are talking about. For your information he took over a program that had a NIL war chest that was so bad it was the equivalent of a self imposed probation and then paired that with some of the most difficult schedules in the SEC for two years in a row. And then we have fans like you hammering Lebby over rookie coach mistakes when we all knew that hiring any inexperienced coach was going to have that happen. At the same time Dan got a complete pass for similar mistakes against LSU and Houston in 2009 for whatever reason I can't figure out why. On top of that Lebby had to keep assistants that some of our fans just had to have on staff like Bumphis and Turner. Turns out that two of our worst coached positions this past year were WR and DL. What kind of season do we have with better DL and with better coached WR's?

So, time will tell if Lebby is the right guy for here or if he is simply the guy that is going to hand the baton off to the next Jackie or Dan like Felker and Croom did. Either way we are going to be in a much better position than we were at the end of Arnett's head coaching era that MSU doesn't want us to remember- but I want what is best for MSU and what is best for MSU is for Lebby to work out.

[Quaoarsking]

I have enough "self reflectance" to understand the complete shit show that Lebby took over. And if you think that Dan Mullen would have done much better or any better at all in 2024-2025 - you don't know what the **** you are talking about.

Just looking at Mullen's record as a head coach at all 3 stops, it's completely reasonable to think that he probably would had several more wins across the 2024-2025 seasons.

• Mullen almost certainly beats Toledo in 2024, and if he does lose, he at least doesn't get absolutely embarrassed and humiliated. (Yes, Mullen did lose to South Alabama one time in a fluky game where we outgained them and missed a 28 year FG at the end, but Mullen almost always won these types of games, so it's safe to he probably wins this one too.)
• Mullen usually won home SEC games against mediocre teams who didn't finish ranked - he went 15-2 in those games in his 9 years here. Maybe Arkansas and Florida were just too out of reach in 2024, but his record suggests that he would been at least competitive with them (unlike Lebby) and potentially beaten one or both of them.
• Similarly, Mullen probably beats Tennessee and Florida this year. I can see an argument against him beating Texas (he usually lost to good teams), but given that Texas and Arch were considered to be overrated all year, I lean toward a win.
• Ultimately, I think that instead of 7-17 (1-15), Mullen would be something like 12-12 (5-11), and even that is me being conservative.

For your information he took over a program that had a NIL war chest that was so bad it was the equivalent of a self imposed probation and then paired that with some of the most difficult schedules in the SEC for two years in a row.

And if we had hired someone the fanbase wanted like Mullen, we probably better funding right away, just like what happened in baseball this past year. Also, Lebby in particular was a bad choice for our fanbase, with the perception that Selmon just lazily hired his friend from his old job after overpromising. You also have Lebby's "baggage" which has made a chunk of our fanbase pretty uncomfortable with the hire - I know a couple of fans who canceled their season tickets in December 2023 and haven't followed the team at all since then.

And then we have fans like you hammering Lebby over rookie coach mistakes when we all knew that hiring any inexperienced coach was going to have that happen. At the same time Dan got a complete pass for similar mistakes against LSU and Houston in 2009 for whatever reason I can't figure out why.

Just ... what??

• First of all, you're calling Lebby a "rookie" when he made his "mistakes" in the 19th and 20th games of his head coaching career (2nd year rookie?), and at a time when he had been coaching in college football for over 20 years. And things like "don't snap the ball with 20 seconds left on the play clock when you have a lead late in the 4th quarter" and "don't call passing plays in field goal range when you're down 2 with 30 seconds to go" are really basic things that most high school football players would know are bad calls.
• Trying to tie these coaching miscues back to Mullen is bizarre. First of all, 2009 was Mullen's first year, not his second. More importantly, Mullen didn't blow the LSU game! Check the play log. He had first and goal at the 1, ran Dixon up the middle on 1st and 2nd downs, and after that didn't work, tried the jump pass, which was open but Lee missed the throw, and then on 4th down called an option play that would have scored, but Lee didn't pitch it. You can't blame Mullen's playcalling at all for our failure to score. He tried Dixon up the middle twice, and then switched to two plays that would have been TDs if our QB had executed. That's not even a knock on Lee (I like Tyson Lee), but he choked away that game, not Mullen.
  • Against 2009 Houston and Case Keenum, he got screwed over by the refs, just like Leach did in 2021 against Memphis. No guarantee that we win either game if we don't get screwed, but we probably do.
• You "can't figure out why" most of our fans were happy with 2009 and unhappy with 2025 because the seasons were completely different and you apparently misremember how 2009 actually went down.

On top of that Lebby had to keep assistants that some of our fans just had to have on staff like Bumphis and Turner. Turns out that two of our worst coached positions this past year were WR and DL. What kind of season do we have with better DL and with better coached WR's?

You probably have a fair point about DL, but I'm not sure what more we could have asked for from Thompson and Evans, both of whom had an awesome late TD catch to flip a loss (and a 3-9 season) to a win. Did they really do everything in spite of Bumphis?

So, time will tell if Lebby is the right guy for here or if he is simply the guy that is going to hand the baton off to the next Jackie or Dan like Felker and Croom did. Either way we are going to be in a much better position than we were at the end of Arnett's head coaching era that MSU doesn't want us to remember- but I want what is best for MSU and what is best for MSU is for Lebby to work out.

I also want what is best for MSU, given that we are keeping Lebby for 2026, I want him to win big. I'll happily pretend like I never doubted him if that actually happens. I just haven't seen a shred of evidence that makes me think it will. Mullen and Leach had losing seasons in their first year, but showed enough that I knew they would be successful here. Lebby hasn't given me any reason to think he's going to ever have a winning season here. Even his defenders always give qualifiers like "yes, Lebby has to start winning at some point" and "yes, there's a good chance that Lebby is fired after 2026 but giving him one more chance is the right thing to do."

I don't know if the recent Mullen rumors were true, but if Mullen really was willing to take the job a few weeks ago and we decided to turn him down in favor of giving Lebby another year, that reeks of an administration and boosters who put their own pride above "what is best for MSU." I suspect we'll be having this conversation over again in about 11 months.

[1eyedog]

Tyler, Sherrill, Mullen all took over shambles of a program and immediately won the first year or showed signs it was coming. The difference is they all inherited great players, I don’t know if Lebby did. I really, really want Lebby to pull it off but the NIL has changed everything. Schedule SHOULD be a little easier this year but he HAS to win EB.....it’s just a must unfortunately for Lebby because I actually think PG is going to be a good Coach and they will have some major talent back I think.....we shall see said the Zen Master...

[HoopsDawg]

Tyler, Sherrill, Mullen all took over shambles of a program and immediately won the first year or showed signs it was coming. The difference is they all inherited great players, I don’t know if Lebby did. ...

You dont know? You really dont know?! I?ll give you the answer, he didn?t.

[parabrave]

Well I bit my tongue and put some down on us today. So I'll take full responsibility for our loss.

[Todd4State]

Just looking at Mullen's record as a head coach at all 3 stops, it's completely reasonable to think that he probably would had several more wins across the 2024-2025 seasons.

• Mullen almost certainly beats Toledo in 2024, and if he does lose, he at least doesn't get absolutely embarrassed and humiliated. (Yes, Mullen did lose to South Alabama one time in a fluky game where we outgained them and missed a 28 year FG at the end, but Mullen almost always won these types of games, so it's safe to he probably wins this one too.)
• Mullen usually won home SEC games against mediocre teams who didn't finish ranked - he went 15-2 in those games in his 9 years here. Maybe Arkansas and Florida were just too out of reach in 2024, but his record suggests that he would been at least competitive with them (unlike Lebby) and potentially beaten one or both of them.
• Similarly, Mullen probably beats Tennessee and Florida this year. I can see an argument against him beating Texas (he usually lost to good teams), but given that Texas and Arch were considered to be overrated all year, I lean toward a win.
• Ultimately, I think that instead of 7-17 (1-15), Mullen would be something like 12-12 (5-11), and even that is me being conservative.

And if we had hired someone the fanbase wanted like Mullen, we probably better funding right away, just like what happened in baseball this past year. Also, Lebby in particular was a bad choice for our fanbase, with the perception that Selmon just lazily hired his friend from his old job after overpromising. You also have Lebby's "baggage" which has made a chunk of our fanbase pretty uncomfortable with the hire - I know a couple of fans who canceled their season tickets in December 2023 and haven't followed the team at all since then.


Just ... what??

• First of all, you're calling Lebby a "rookie" when he made his "mistakes" in the 19th and 20th games of his head coaching career (2nd year rookie?), and at a time when he had been coaching in college football for over 20 years. And things like "don't snap the ball with 20 seconds left on the play clock when you have a lead late in the 4th quarter" and "don't call passing plays in field goal range when you're down 2 with 30 seconds to go" are really basic things that most high school football players would know are bad calls.
• Trying to tie these coaching miscues back to Mullen is bizarre. First of all, 2009 was Mullen's first year, not his second. More importantly, Mullen didn't blow the LSU game! Check the play log. He had first and goal at the 1, ran Dixon up the middle on 1st and 2nd downs, and after that didn't work, tried the jump pass, which was open but Lee missed the throw, and then on 4th down called an option play that would have scored, but Lee didn't pitch it. You can't blame Mullen's playcalling at all for our failure to score. He tried Dixon up the middle twice, and then switched to two plays that would have been TDs if our QB had executed. That's not even a knock on Lee (I like Tyson Lee), but he choked away that game, not Mullen.
  • Against 2009 Houston and Case Keenum, he got screwed over by the refs, just like Leach did in 2021 against Memphis. No guarantee that we win either game if we don't get screwed, but we probably do.
• You "can't figure out why" most of our fans were happy with 2009 and unhappy with 2025 because the seasons were completely different and you apparently misremember how 2009 actually went down.

You probably have a fair point about DL, but I'm not sure what more we could have asked for from Thompson and Evans, both of whom had an awesome late TD catch to flip a loss (and a 3-9 season) to a win. Did they really do everything in spite of Bumphis?


I also want what is best for MSU, given that we are keeping Lebby for 2026, I want him to win big. I'll happily pretend like I never doubted him if that actually happens. I just haven't seen a shred of evidence that makes me think it will. Mullen and Leach had losing seasons in their first year, but showed enough that I knew they would be successful here. Lebby hasn't given me any reason to think he's going to ever have a winning season here. Even his defenders always give qualifiers like "yes, Lebby has to start winning at some point" and "yes, there's a good chance that Lebby is fired after 2026 but giving him one more chance is the right thing to do."

I don't know if the recent Mullen rumors were true, but if Mullen really was willing to take the job a few weeks ago and we decided to turn him down in favor of giving Lebby another year, that reeks of an administration and boosters who put their own pride above "what is best for MSU." I suspect we'll be having this conversation over again in about 11 months.

Dan had more talent than Lebby did when he first got here. That's why he won. Dan might go 12-12 with the guys he had in 2009. But not with the guys that Lebby had. We literally have no defensive line and an abysmal offensive line. And there is no way in hell Dan beats Tennessee this year. WTF?

The second part about funding is based off of what? He never had the funding when he was here and all of a sudden our boosters are going to just pour out money to a guy who couldn't get the funding to buy Cam Newton or AJ Brown? Remember when Dan increased our scouting, recruiting, and built that IPF? Oh yeah- that none of that ever happened while he was here either. And he might have been able to get it while he was here but the issue is he doesn't know what to ask for because he was awful at recruiting and hated it. So, he doesn't see the value in any of it. That's a big reason why I don't want him back and why bringing him back would be a huge mistake. I do not give a shit about the two fans we lost because of something Lebby's father in law did. Very few fans give a shit about it either. It would be like me being upset that we hired a coach who was the son in law for Charles Manson. And guess what? I could find some baggage on pretty much every coach in America. And that includes Dan too with his recruiting coordinator affairs that are pretty obvious and his child with another woman.

If Dan didn't blow LSU than Lebby didn't blow Florida. Attempting a 45 yard plus field goal isn't exactly a gimmie. AND the analytics supported Lebby's play call. In the meantime, Dan tried to run a walk-on QB through LSU's All-American safety while our future NFL RB who set a ton of school records and might be our best RB in school history walked in without the ball. Again- making excuses and giving passes to Dan for doing the same things that other coaches get fired for.

Thompson and Evans were both recruited primarily by Lebby. So, yeah maybe they did do everything in spite of Lebby. I think with Bumphis there were multiple issues ranging from recruiting evaluations, coaching in general and leaking info.

Lebby had a top 25 win against Arizona State this year and we were competitive enough and won enough to make a bowl game in year two. We made a ton of strides and literally doubled our win total despite an insane schedule more difficult than any Dan ever had to deal with. And you don't see ANY reason for hope? And why the hell would our administration fire Lebby and just hire Dan after he doubled our win total? We would look insanely stupid. Why was Dan even asking about our job when we didn't even have an opening? That would be a terrible look by our administration. And you think it's about "pride"? WTF? If that played out we would look like the most ass backwards program in the SEC. And heaven help us if Lebby's agent gets wind of Dan trying to get our job behind Lebby's back and our administration going along with it. Talk about massive PR disaster.

[Pancho]

Lebby will be her for a good while. sit back and relax.

[msstate7]

Lebby will be her for a good while. sit back and relax.

Well a good chance for him to end the season on a high note Friday. We are favored, and we should win. If he loses, he will lose even more of the fanbase.

[StarkVegasSteve]

Well a good chance for him to end the season on a high note Friday. We are favored, and we should win. If he loses, he will lose even more of the fanbase.

Our secondary is a big worry. We also need to be able to establish a run game.

[State82]

Our secondary is a big worry.

Really big.

[HancockCountyDog]

Lebby will be her for a good while. sit back and relax.

I don't see how any coach at MSU in the portal era can be that safe after going 1-15 in the SEC, losing to Toledo at home and choking two games away.

I'm on team Lebby, but to act like he is safe as can be is just nuts.

[Thick]

Why do yall have to bring Dan into EVERY thread? Why does our fanbase cry and whine about Lebby? We hired exactly the type of coach we?ve always hired since JWS! For the record, Dan would have closed out the Texas game in the 4th. He would have definitely had KT packages for every game. We probably win 4 SEC games this year under Dan. That said, I would NOT want him back! He showed his true colors in the end of his time here.