Quote Originally Posted by biggun View Post
There is still some serious ?Dan Hate? around here and I somewhat get it. But honestly I really don?t.
Mullen took a floundering program that had been severely ?Croomed? and a disillusioned fan base due to having to endure 8 straight years of football futility (Liberty Bowl year was still brutal due to an awful and boring O) and quickly turned around the attitude of the team and fan base. Record sell out streak, winning record vs Ole Miss, 8 straight bowls, 9 wins in just his 2nd year including whipping national power Michigan and a year end Top 15 national ranking. I could go on and on about 5 weeks at #1, an Orange Bowl invite, hosting Gameday, Dak, etc but I don?t think some will care due to their blinding hate of Mullen.

Mullen expanded the stadium by consistently putting a quality product on the field every year sans 2016 which was a post Dak rebuild. So Why the bitter hate????
No hate, just a realistic look at his limitations. I think since bama 2014, it's been readily apparent that Mullen didn't have the balls to consistently win big games and the lack of a recruiting bump post-dak was indicative of his limitations as a recruiter. Funny thing with the crootin aspect is that Florida fans told us in 2009 how Dan nearly screwed up the Tebow recruiting and Meyer had to make a last minute save to keep him from going to bama. The fact that we didn't capitalize after 2014 is entirely on Dan. Dan can find undervalued talent and develop guys, but to win big, you at least need to have a top 10 class every once in awhile and consistently hang around in the top 15-20 other years.

As an in game coach, Dan is overly conservative and runs one of the most boring spread option systems out there. If it was 3rd and 5 or less, I bet we ran dak or fitz between the tackles 90% of the time since 2013. That works against la tech and vandy, but it doesn't work against bama or consistently against LSU and auburn, which is why we almost always won the games we should and lost the games we should. And how often would we sit on the ball at the end of the half when we were within striking distance of FG range and a couple time outs in our pocket?

And since bama 2014, he has flirted with any and all P5 openings that would listen, even inferior programs like Minnesota and Maryland. Seemed like every good season went out with a whimper because he'd be checked out working the coaching carousel instead of beating the shit out of OM and winning a bowl game.

Clearly his positives outweighed his negatives and he is an overall good coach, and I'm forever thankful for turning us around post-croom, but he had a couple of obvious, yet fixable flaws, but he refused to addressed those flaws, which imo likely meant we were perpetually stuck in a cycle of essentially 7-9 win seasons. There's obviously worse scenarios out there (croom), but when you can see the couple of fixable flaws that could take us from a 7-9 W program to a 8-11 W program and Dan continuously refused to work on those flaws, then it gets frustrating. Throw in the constant flirting with any and every HC opening, and I think most MSU fans are thankful for what Dan did for the program but ok with him moving on.