re: The case for Dan Mullen

ah. all i've found online or heard is that they had a good relationship.

your guess is as good as mine as far as their relationship keeping stricklin from axing mullen if it was needed.

Stricklin is a shark. I wouldn't worry too much about him not firing a friend.

My deal with Mullen is that I think he would win a lot of games here and score a lot of points. I'd be surprised if he didn't have a QB in the Heisman race pretty early. And he definitely is a prick, and he will take our rivalries to the next level. The things he says about Ole Miss at any given chance are, in my opinion, often beyond the pale, "It's just that I hate them. I hate everyone up there." I know folks that cover State football, and while they love him being coach there, most of them would skip dinner with him.

But he knows what the fanbase wants and feeds it. Dude is red meat 24/7.

So one man's tasteless prick is another's swag. Granted.

In addition, I don't think people outside of Mississippi know just how hard what he has done at State is. Miss. State is not a wealthy school, it has really no athletic tradition aside from baseball, and Starkville - well imagine Starke, Florida, except there is no Jax or Gainesville right there or beaches or springs or anything. Just a crap small town at least two hours from an even remotely interesting city, which in Starkville's case is marvelous Birmingham.

Mullen is currently 67-44 there with one 10-win season and two 9-win season. Prior to Mullen's arrival, this is a program that officially had won 48% of their games in the century or so MSU has been playing. I suspect he will beat UMASS, Arky, and Ole Miss this year, which will give him at least his third 9-win season. He's also taken them bowling 7 times, winning 5. State has only been to 20 bowls since they started playing in 1902 and won 12 of them, Mullen accounts for roughly a third and a half of those. State is not a winner, yet under Mullen, they have been and consistently so, and in a period where the SEC West was probably the best division in CFB.

He may be a complete a-hole, but what he has done at Miss State, and done consistently, is nothing short of remarkable to those of us who grew up in these parts and are familiar with the black hole that generally is Miss State football. The only other guy who came close to Mullen's success managed one 10-win season and completely destroyed the program to get it.

So what's not to love? Well, his recruiting classes have never really seemed to benefit from all of the Ws. He's cracked the top 20 nationally a few times, but also not made the top 30. The #1 gripe you'll hear from Miss State alumni is that he never translated those big seasons into better recruiting, some going as far as to say he's pretty much just a lazy recruiter in general. It's tough to know because Starkville looms, and there is no way of knowing what kind of ceiling that creates and how high it actually is.

So my problem with Mullen is two-fold. He's really not my kind of guy for one, and it's not that I mind a guy who comes off as an arse. I love Nick Saban and his kind of cold, systematic way of approaching everything. I'm fine with an asschewing perfectionist. But Mullen just seems mean-spirited with an enormous ego. I'm also not entirely sure that he is better than a 10-win coach, though I am pretty comfortable thinking he'd have lots of 10-win seasons. So what worries me is ending up with someone who has a Mark Richt-type ceiling but not even getting the Mark Richt-type personality to at least go with it.

However, despite all of that, if he is the hire, after doing the background research for these numbers, I have to admit I'd be excited to see what he could do with the upgrade in resources. And I will also give him credit for running a mostly clean program in the ridiculously dirty world of Mississippi football.

Anyway, sorry for the long post. Been pretty much stuck at home all week sick and getting a little stir crazy.

So Lucius in your opinion is Striklin going to get this thing right/is he a good AD?

I won't pretend to know that much.

What I do know about Stricklin is that even people that find him personally disagreeable, of which there are more than a few, will also be the first to tell you that he is damned good at what he does. Generally, I think that speaks to someone who isn't afraid to make an unpopular decision if he thinks it is right. I also know that he was very good for Miss. State and was never afraid to invest money in any area of athletics to make it better. Everything at Miss. State improved while he was there, though he was not the person who hired Mullen. But he made damn sure to keep that train on the tracks once it got going.

He gets selling the program and optics. When I was griping about our uniforms for the aTm game, a guy in my office who still works Miss. State games as a reporter said, "Well, that's what you get with Stricklin. He's going to make you older guys wince sometimes, but he's never going to miss an opportunity to get more young people into the program."

He does stuff like this, which I think is brilliant:

LINK /

That story bounced around for a good month and got Miss. State no telling how many millions in earned media.

However, this is his first rodeo with picking, rather than just managing, "the guy" as far as I know. I don't think he'll treat it like a rummaging through a pawn shop for the best deal like Foley seemed to. I think his main concern will be getting someone in here that can actually make Florida look like Florida again and quickly. However, I have no idea how he will approach that as much as I guess I am saying I don't think he'd be the kind of guy to miss on a Stoops or Kelly if that's who he wanted because of sticker shock.

quote:

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Starkville is dead but right in the heart of Dixie where you could recruit a helluva lot of talent...Louisville is in fricking Kentucky where there is NO high school talent.

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Man, for a guy who has spent as much time in Mississippi as you say you have, you know jack all about it. You know who is also right on down here in the heart of Dixie? Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Georgia, and Ole Miss, not to mention the Ohio States of the world who seem to have located road maps and can get down here as well.

There are 3 million people that live in MS. There are actually more people who were born in Mississippi that no longer live here than actually live here. While we have tons of talent per capita, it's not like we're just so eaten up with so much great football talent that we can afford to lose it all to 20 other universities and still have enough left to make Miss. State a powerhouse. I don't think State has ever had a class better than 18 or so. You know why? Because no one wants to go there. If you have talent, unless you just can't make the grades, there is always a better place to go than Miss. State unless that is just where you want to be.


I won't get into to Mullen vs. Petrino because I don't want either, but seriously, your read on Miss. State is pretty ridiculous.

yeah reel, way the hell off base on state recruiting. louisville also isn't in the sec west, but petrino has shown he can do well in that division. finished 2nd in the div one or two years.

Well lets dispel some myths

ANYBODY could have been OC at UF during 2007-2008 and had instant success...a once in a lifetime Heisman who needed no coaching.

Some folks want to bring up his ranking in the BCS one year (of course Moo State lost 3 out of their last four games), well ok...look no further than one Will Muschamp who had us at # 2 in the BCS standings (2012) in his second year for God's sake. How that play out?

I will give you the limitations at Miss State in resources and ability to have the facilities that match those of other west teams. BUT, he has been at Moo State since 2009 for shite's sake. Why haven't the Maroons (they were called that back in the 50s & 60s BTW) done something special?

Hmmmmm Vandy exceeded all kinds of expectations under its previous HC who is now at Penn State. Compare Vandy to Moo State if you dare. Vandy doesn't even have a real athletic dept. They operate on a frayed shoestring budget.

Dak Prescott was a special gem in the rough nobody wanted and Moo State recruits a LOT of 3 stars...it turned out well for them. Fitz also a great get.

We will see in two years how this board feels if he is hired. I myself thought Stricklin would conduct a real HC search...he didn't...he wanted Merlin from the getgo imo and everything else was window dressing.

You mean besides having almost half their total bowl wins, in eight years?

You mean besides having them ranked more times in his tenure than I believe they had been in 35 years before Mullen?

Dude this is a good hire. He can win 8-9 games in the WEST with the Bama dynasty, Ole Miss cheating, LSU at their peek level, and Auburn having really strong years.

That's very good, considering before Mullen, they were considered Kentucky level.

Note Franklin didn't do anything amazing at Vandy. Would he have been a bad hire for us?

Gundy has no titles, Leach has no titles..why? Because they have less talent than Bama, Florida, FSU, Clemson, etc.

This is the least likely to fail. Simple as that. If he can win 8 at Miss State, he can win 10 at Florida. If he can get to a BCS bowl at Miss STate, he can win a title at Florida.

Lol yeah. Though we could skip the Coach Kelly ones :(