Dear/Gibson/Lee/Murphy?

[Tripp McNeely]

Nothing is wrong, Dan won't let them play because he has 2 senior RB's.

^^^It's this, and I'm not sure why people try to make it more complicated than it is.

[dawgday166]

We have 6 RBs who have been on campus long enough to reasonably expect them to be able to play. Holloway can do pretty much everything but be bigger than 160 lbs. Shump can do everything but run the ball. That's just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. But then we have Aeris, D Lee, Murphy, and Gibson who can't get on the field. With a streak like this, it seems like a coach should be fired. Either we have been awful in recruiting at the easiest position to recruit to for MSU, or we are doing an awful job with developing players. Out of 5 players over 4 recruiting classes, you completely strike out on finding somebody that can be an everydown back (I say 5 b/c Holloway is capable of doing exactly what he was recruited to do)? That's not bad luck. That's incompetence that somebody needs to answer for (somebody besides Holloway getting killed having to do the job that one or two of the other 5 should be doing).

This seems to make pretty good sense.

[Johnson85]

Once again we don't have a feature SEC back whatwver the reasons are..
And if we do then Knox should be fired last year for not having him ready

Who should be fired if we don't have a feature SEC back between four different recruiting classes? As bad as OL recruiting has been, RB has probably been worse when considering how easy it is for us to recruit one RB versus 5 OL.

[dawgday166]

Who should be fired if we don't have a feature SEC back between four different recruiting classes? As bad as OL recruiting has been, RB has probably been worse when considering how easy it is for us to recruit one RB versus 5 OL.

Honestly, if you take away JRob (which is also a little lightning in a bottle) and Vic Ballard, Mullen's RB recruiting has been horrible compared to previous MSU coaches (including Croom).

If you can't get a good RB out of MS somewhere, you being lazy. Or you don't know how to coach them. One or the other.

[msstate7]

Honestly, if you take away JRob (which is also a little lightning in a bottle) and Vic Ballard, Mullen's RB recruiting has been horrible compared to previous MSU coaches (including Croom).

If you can't get a good RB out of MS somewhere, you being lazy. Or you don't know how to coach them. One or the other.

Perkins was hardly horrible...
3,268 career yards from scrimmage and 25 td's

Please don't stop your Mullen bash marathon though

[dawgday166]

Perkins was hardly horrible...
3,268 career yards from scrimmage and 25 td's

Please don't stop your Mullen bash marathon though

I forgot about him.

[msstate7]

I forgot about him.

So that pretty much covers every year of Mullen except last year and this one. I'm still hopeful aeris or shump finish strong

[dawgday166]

So that pretty much covers every year of Mullen except last year and this one. I'm still hopeful aeris or shump finish strong

You're right and I stand corrected on this one. My mistake.

ETA: I do remember being impressed with Perkins either his SO or JR years and then underwhelmed the next year. And I've seen on this board many mentions of Perkins vs. JRob and how JRob should've been starting. And if you compare Perkins to Norwood or Dixon, I don't believe he compares well. At least he doesn't to me.

[msstate7]

You're right and I stand corrected on this one. My mistake.

Happens to the best of us

[TimberBeast]

So that pretty much covers every year of Mullen except last year and this one. I'm still hopeful aeris or shump finish strong

And if Mullen plays one or both of them the entire SA and SC games, we would have won both games instead of one, and would have a RB that was ready to start and play vs. LSU. But he didn't, and here we are.

[dawgday166]

Happens to the best of us

I don't know if you read my ETA above but, I had to go look up Perkins career stats. They were better than I expected. I jumped the gun on this one before I had my facts straight.

[TimberBeast]

You're right and I stand corrected on this one. My mistake.

ETA: I do remember being impressed with Perkins either his SO or JR years and then underwhelmed the next year. And I've seen on this board many mentions of Perkins vs. JRob and how JRob should've been starting. And if you compare Perkins to Norwood or Dixon, I don't believe he compares well. At least he doesn't to me.

This is correct. Perkins started over JRob his senior year when everyone could see it should have been JRob starting. Perkins was good on the short passes. But, JRob was in "Mullen's doghouse" that year. That has to be an awfully big doghouse.

[dawgday166]

This is correct. Perkins started over JRob his senior year when everyone could see it should have been JRob starting. Perkins was good on the short passes. But, JRob was in "Mullen's doghouse" that year. That has to be an awfully big doghouse.

LOL. I'm starting to think you should get an honorary degree, gold star, or some other award if you're able to stay out of it as a Fr or So RB.

[Bothrops]

I think it's been overblown by both sides of the argument. And I get tired of the it's a copout side blowing it off just as much. But if you couldn't see the instances last weekend of missing assignments and blocks then you are just blinded by what you want to see. And no Holloway is not superior in pass blocking, just his size makes that absurd. But he knows his assignments more consistantly than the others and has the best hands as far as security. Even before the season I stated I wanted Williams to be the feature and still thinks it will happen but he is making glaring mistakes that is severely limiting his ability to get on the field.

This is a Dan issue.

[Really Clark?]

This is a Dan issue.

No. Players have half the responsibility. Too many with the desire to get better have come through the program and took too the coaching and became great players.

[BB30]

Definitely part of it is on Dan. The other part is somewhat of a crap shoot. Aeris was projected to be extremely good and still has not been able to learn the system. Some of these kids might have all of the athletic ability in the world but if they can't learn the plays then you can't put them out there unless you want to get your QB killed in the process. You miss on one or two guys in consecutive classes and you have created a hole on the depth chart. It does not take but one or two mistakes in recruiting to create a problem. I think that is why you saw us sign so many backs a couple of years ago because we realized the current group was not catching on I.E. Aeris and Lee.

[Bothrops]

All I know is that if Mullen had started plugging Lee back in the offense last season, and started giving Murphy, Williams and Gibson snaps in week 1, we wouldn't have this RB issue that we now face. Good job, Dan!

[Really Clark?]

All I know is that if Mullen had started plugging Lee back in the offense last season, and started giving Murphy, Williams and Gibson snaps in week 1, we wouldn't have this RB issue that we now face. Good job, Dan!

That's not knowledge. That's false supposition without all of the facts and disregarding what we saw just last weekend from one of these backs you mention. And a big no on Lee last year and this.

[Johnson85]

Definitely part of it is on Dan. The other part is somewhat of a crap shoot. Aeris was projected to be extremely good and still has not been able to learn the system. Some of these kids might have all of the athletic ability in the world but if they can't learn the plays then you can't put them out there unless you want to get your QB killed in the process. You miss on one or two guys in consecutive classes and you have created a hole on the depth chart. It does not take but one or two mistakes in recruiting to create a problem. I think that is why you saw us sign so many backs a couple of years ago because we realized the current group was not catching on I.E. Aeris and Lee.

Mullen and Co. haven't missed on one or two guys in consecutive classes. They've missed in four consecutive classes on at least 6 prospects. They got no everydown prospect in 2012 (signed Holloway; only other RB prospect was I guess Xavier Grindle). In 2013 they got Shumpert; no other prospect. In 2014 they got A. Williams and D. Lee. In 2015 they got N. Gibson and Alec Murhpy. If neither Gibson nor Murphy can get playing time considering the competition they are against, I don't think we should expect much out of either, even if it's only their second year on campus.

So for the second year in a row we've ended up with no legitimate SEC back when we didn't go after a JUCO back, and we didn't even use all of our 17ing scholarships. That really is worse than OLine recruiting considering how much easier it is to fill a RB position, where there are at most two positions to fill and realistically anybody good will be able to play their second year on campus compared to OL needing to fill five spots and nobody but studs being ready to play by their second year on campus.

[msstate7]

Mullen and Co. haven't missed on one or two guys in consecutive classes. They've missed in four consecutive classes on at least 6 prospects. They got no everydown prospect in 2012 (signed Holloway; only other RB prospect was I guess Xavier Grindle). In 2013 they got Shumpert; no other prospect. In 2014 they got A. Williams and D. Lee. In 2015 they got N. Gibson and Alec Murhpy. If neither Gibson nor Murphy can get playing time considering the competition they are against, I don't think we should expect much out of either, even if it's only their second year on campus.

So for the second year in a row we've ended up with no legitimate SEC back when we didn't go after a JUCO back, and we didn't even use all of our 17ing scholarships. That really is worse than OLine recruiting considering how much easier it is to fill a RB position, where there are at most two positions to fill and realistically anybody good will be able to play their second year on campus compared to OL needing to fill five spots and nobody but studs being ready to play by their second year on campus.

Johnson, I really respect your opinion... you're probably the smartest con on the political board. With that said, I think you're melting prematurely. You essentially just called 2 rb's 3 games into their sophomore year and 2 rb's that haven't even stepped on the field yet busts. There's been flashes of us running the ball well with our rb's this year even though it hasn't been consistent yet. I think you see shump take over the primary ball carrier this Saturday and we get back to using Holloway as a supplement. I really think this will get us going offensively