Would you begin to question Mullen if we go 6-6 this season?...

[dawgstudent]

Let's think about it, we should win all of our OOC game and as it stands right now - Ole Miss and KY should be wins.

So we have to win one out of UGA, USC, or Arkansas. IF he doesn't win one of those 3, what would you think?

 

[dawgstudent]

Let's think about it, we should win all of our OOC game and as it stands right now - Ole Miss and KY should be wins.

So we have to win one out of UGA, USC, or Arkansas. IF he doesn't win one of those 3, what would you think?

 

[dawgstudent]

Let's think about it, we should win all of our OOC game and as it stands right now - Ole Miss and KY should be wins.

So we have to win one out of UGA, USC, or Arkansas. IF he doesn't win one of those 3, what would you think?

 

[dawgstudent]

Let's think about it, we should win all of our OOC game and as it stands right now - Ole Miss and KY should be wins.

So we have to win one out of UGA, USC, or Arkansas. IF he doesn't win one of those 3, what would you think?

 

[aTotal360]

[No message]

 

[PBRME]

I can see us losing all 3 of those games. If we do I'm not going to be overly disappointed just because we're going bowling. Arkansas can be marked down as a loss. UGA is away which is going to be a tough game for us regardless of how far they are down. USC is a really good team that still hasn't put it all together. Anyone that questions Mullen for back to back bowl games needs to be reminded of the 2001-2008 debacle.

 

[JackBauer.sixpack]

After having 9 wins last year, but I don't think I could question him.

UGA on the road isn't a gimmie

South Carolina has the top RB/WR combo in the country

Arkansas is at a point of reloading instead of rebuilding

The biggest thing I realized after our first 3 games is how much we miss those 3 NFL defenders we don't have from last year. We just didn't replace them with players of equal talent.

 

[deltafan]

I do not think it is reasonable to fire any coach who is winning. 6-6 is not ideal for any team, but it is a helluva step up from where we were.

 

[dawgstudent]

[No message]

 

[Big Sheep81]

We are still short some players on OL, DL, and LB. We also need a lights out punter and a KO guy. I would be disappointed but not for lack of faith in Mullen. He's headed in the right direction, he is gonna make some mistakes, but he is gonna be a solid coach given time.

We have folks expecting undefeated seasons and BCS championships right now. Not gonna happen. YET. Just amazing that some of these people cannot see how much better we are and how close we are to being really good.

IT'S COMING...................

 

[deltafan]

You did not and I guess I jumped the gun on that one. Should have said questioning a coach. 17 I'm dumb as hell on Friday morning, especially during football season.

 

[Hanmudog]

A bit disappointed yes but it would also mean that we went to back to back bowls for the first time in more than a decade and beat Ole Miss for a third straight year. Hard to question Mullen too much considering our football history.

 

[BehrDawg]

I still think we will beat a team we are not supposed to beat.

 

[SyonaraStanz]

but it would show his lack of success in recruiting, which is somewhat disappointing. We'll always be a 6 - 7 win team, with a shot at 8 or 9 wins, as long as he continues to miss out on big time recruits. That said, I think his recruiting will pick up because of the success (however minimal it may be this year) we're having/will have, and the **** storm that is Mississippi Black Bear football. Hell, he has a decent class so far this year, with a good shot at being a great class, but he just has to real in some of these big names.

 

[coach66]

would say we underachieved. The thing I am looking at closely is are we going to continue to improve on defense and offense for that matter. The key is to keep getting better; that Mullen can control. If we win 7 I will be very pleased as I thought that is what we would dothis year. It is interesting to see how much is riding on one win.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

A little questioning has already crept in for me. To wit:

1.) In two plus years he's done what most of us expect a coach to do in games where we are better. He's won. Where he's fallen short of course are the "big games" like all the real SECW games. Got to at least break through at some point. 6-6 would not be a breakthrough. It would be meeting minimal expectations.
2.) The third down play call over here was inexcusable. Completely inexcusable. Our goal line offense against LSU was also terrible. Are we that afraid to throw it from the 8 yard line?
3.) We are on our third defensive coordinator in three years. The first was terrible, the second was very good, the third one......jury is out. He needs Wilson to come through for him.
4.) Recruiting, although I'm not sure if that is on him or on other factors that are out of his hands.

Are we light years ahead of where we were three years ago? Of course. Am I willing to be patient? Yes. These things aren't complaints as much as tiny seeds of doubt that don't amount to much. To state it clearly, I think Dan is a great coach and I hope he is our coach for a long time.

 

[saltybulldog]

I predicted 7-5, so 6-6 would mean we did not beat any good to really good teams this year. If we have 6 wins and play competitively in the rest of them (especially Bama) I will be okay for this season. Looking back to 2009 and that 5-7 year, we were really close to 7 wins...really close. Everyone was high on us even with a losing record. In one year Mullen turned a team completely around. Last year, we took another step forward. Like we always do, most State fans overlooked the personnel we lost last year and probably expected too much out of this team.

 

[FISHDAWG]

to bring some heat .... having said that, I also realize Dan had an enormous task ahead of him and he rolled up his sleeves and went to work and we are enjoying the fruits of his labor .... also realize that it will take more than 3 or 4years to bring us out of the bottom dwelling identity that we have had the last 10 years

 

[maroonmaniac]

I would be a little disappointed but only because we would loosing out on allthe momentum the program has picked up over the last 3 years. I have to say I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Diaz's departure as part of the problem... Too early to Wilson on the hotseat but we need to seecontinual improvement on the D side, just like last week as the season goes on.

 

[kired]

Wouldn't question Mullen, but would say that we underachieved because we should have won 7 games this year. Unless Auburn ends up winning the west this year - I'll always believe that's one we letted slip away.

I'll be trilled with 8+ wins, satisfied with 7, disappointed with 6, and pissed with <6. But it will take a lot for me to begin questioning Mullen. He's made us competitive in almost every game we play. He's coached almost 30 games for us now and we'veonly had about 5 what I would call blowout losses. We used to get blown out 5 or 6 times every year back during the really dark days of 03, 04, 05- plus we regularly lost to teams like Maine, Tulane, Vandy, UAB, etc. Regardless of wins & losses, anyone can watch our team today and see we're light years ahead of what we watched for most of the past decade.

The fact that a top 10 team can come to town and the whole crowd stays till the closing minutes is amazing. I remember so many games when LSU or Auburn would have their second & third string in for most of the 2nd half. So as much as losing 6 games this year would suck --- it'd benowhere near as bad as what we had to put up with during the last 10 years.

 

[GloryDawg]

Keep getting to bowl games and good thing will eventually happen.</p>

 

[Seinfeld]

whether we really can ever get past the 6-6 to 8-4 range, but I don't think I'd have any reason to question Mullen unless the team completely took a nosedive in those losses or quit on him.

I thought we played about as good as we could have against LSU and while most thought we'd beat Auburn(including myself), winning there hasn't exactly been the norm in our program's history. I'd be disappointed to lose all three of UGA, SC, and ARK, but none would exactly be shocking unless we just tanked in them.

All that said, I think going 6-6 would show us pretty clearly that we're not going to break very far away from that record while continuing to recruit like we have been. You can make fun of star gazing all you want, but the talent gap between ourselves and pretty much the entire rest of the conference's perrenial Top 15 classes is just not going to be overcome by adrenaline and lifting more weights than them. Mullen and his coaches have made us highly competitive, but it's going to take another significant boost to get us over the next hump.

 

[shsdawg]

the way our schedule was set up this year the so called "winnable SEC games are are on the road. The really tough onesare mostly at home. Rebuilding projects almost never have completely upward trajectory.

 

[hulkbuster77]

Better question: Who on here thought we would beat LSU? Seriously. Okay it took the refs and speed AND LB's not maintaining gap integrity to beat us on the Plains. So with that understood, why in the HELL would we go 6-6 (baring an injury to Relf or Cam Lawerence)? Why are you people so 17'n negative? My God you would've thought we got beat by Maine. Guys, we will NOT go 6-6 (again baring no serious injury), the worst we'll be is 7-5. Write it down, save it to your blackberry or Iphone or whatever you want. I'm not wooly, I know what I'm talking about. Calm down!

 

[Seinfeld]

as to what makes you so confident that greatness is coming. I think that Mullen has done a solid job and at this point in his tenure, I'm still ecstatic with going bowling and simply being competitive in nearly all our games. However, I'm not so sure that we're as close to being "really good" as some like to believe. This year, we had huge question marks at LB, LT, and the D line. Next year, we're probably still going to have question marks at each of those positions and you can add RB and QB to the list. What I'm getting at is that we don't have the depth to compare to top notch SEC teams and based on our recent recruiting, I don't see that changing any time soon.

I realize that every team has to replace key players every year, but it's much different when you have to choose between your 3 parade all-americans sitting on the bench as opposed to throwing redshirt underclassmen into critical positions. Don't get me wrong. I think that continued success could eventually get us there, but I don't see us getting back to Atlanta in the very near future unless we see a significant bump in recruiting or Bama, LSU, and Ark all get joint death penalties from the NCAA.

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

with out WR corp is coaching or just the talent level. It is very apparent that we have a good FG kicker but no great kick off kicker and our defense did improve between Auburn and LSU.

I still think Dan is a victim of a lack of depth throughout the team and it will take another year or so to see how he and his staff address that.

6-6 would be disappointing but I still feel like we will go 7-5 or 8-4 with this bunch and schedule. South Carolina cannot stop the option and Georgia may be in so much turmoil by the time we get to them that a win is still possible on the road.

We will see just how good Arkansas is this weekend.

 

[00Dawg]

At 5-7 I'd start having some doubts, but with all the injuries and suspensions so far, 6-6 is an outcome that won't have me questioning the direction of the program.</p>

 

[Liverdawg]

If we go bowling this year and don't have a great recruiting class. I have a feeling that Ole Miss is gonna have a very rough November-December and if we can't capitalize it is going to very disappointing. It should not be very hard to convince recruits that STATE is going to more successful for the next four years.

 

[Foronce]

1.) In two plus years he's done what most of us expect a coach to do in games where we are better. He's won. Where he's fallen short of course are the "big games" like all the real SECW games. Got to at least break through at some point. 6-6 would not be a breakthrough. It would be meeting minimal expectations.

they have 3 losses going back to last season... and they have beaten some really good teams
South Carolina
Ohio State
Clemson

People want to make so much about us losing to the 4 SECW teams, they were probable the best 4 teams in college football last year ok maybe not Arkansas, but they were a top 10... they want to say we aren't beating them, who else is?

 

[DAWGS1.sixpack]

season in MSU football history. Especially now that we see our Defense is very suspect and our OL is down at least 1 starter and 2 are with sprained knees.
He and the Admin set us up to believe we could equal or better last season's run and we could still do it but we definetly needed to beat Auburn. Now we pretty much have to beat both Uga and SCarolina (and dontforget about Uabin Bham) which aint going to be easy unless we start getting the passing game going some to open the run more AND the Defense is going to really have to step up their game. If we give up more than 21 to La Tech then I am really going to be concerned that this season just may not go like we all had planned and hoped for.
</p>

 

[RonnyAtmosphere]

...Miss. State did not make Dan Mullen a millionaire so he could go 6-6.


I realize the time has long past in America when people getting paid a whole crapload of money are expected to produce results that reflect their enormous salaries, but still.


If you or me or anybody reading this was paid $2,500,000.00 to do something, pressure would be on to produce. And rightly so.


I don't think a man getting paid $2,500,000.00 should be producing 6-6 records. But I'm old school, & would actually feel obligated to go above & beyond the call of duty for any entity that is willing to pay me $2.5 million to do a job.

 

[klerushund]

...I thought we'd go 7-5, but one of those HAD to be Auburn. You just can't lose that game.<div>
</div><div>If he mentions getting to Atlanta again he should be laughed off the podium. If we can't beat Auburn's junior varsity squad, all that talk is a joke...</div>

 

[fishwater99]

Anything less is sub-par...

 

[esplanade91]

We need a special teams coach. I love Mullen, I have no doubts about him. He's a great coach. But he sucks like a $2 ***** at coaching special teams. He has the kickers/punters doing regular lower body workouts (#1 no-no) which is why we saw Heath Hutchins go from one of the best punters in the first two games his junior year to him regularly punting 18 yarders. Might also explain Braucle.

We give up huge yardage on coverage OR we send the guy off the field on a stretcher. Very Mullen-esk.

I'd love to hire on an ex-NFL guy or something strictly for recruiting and special teams.

 

[AssEndDawg]

Mullen is so much more than just a coach for us right now. I am far less inclined to ditch him because of a bad year than I would some other coach. I see him building a program, not just throwing what he can on the field for short-term gain. We aren't going to become an elite program overnight, it's just not going to happen, so I'm willing to cool my jets and let him work his plan. There will be up years and down years but I have no doubt right now we are working toward cracking that ceiling we have never been able to get through.<div>
</div><div>I want to win now, but I'm going to resist my natural urges. Plus, it's obvious that it bothers Dan more than anyone else. After that Auburn game he was far moredisappointedthan I was.</div>

 

[Dawgzilla]

I have never been very high on Mullen as a strategist. I don't care for the spread option offense, haven't been impressed with defense or special teams, and his recruiting has been less successful than hoped for.

But, Mullen has grown on me as a leader, and right now he means way more to the football program than just Ws and Ls. He has the fan base energized, and is selling tickets. He is generating more money for MSU than his $2.5+ million salary. He probably wouldn't be worth so much money to a school that didn't need a cheerleader as a head coach, but he is worth it to MSU. I think he deserves a bonus just for the way he defused the Dylan Favre tweet situation, which could have easily gotten out of hand.

I want to win games, and ultimately Mullen will have to be successful on the field to keep drawing the big bucks. But for now I'm just happy with the direction the program is heading.

 

[foxtrot127]

We actually have had a major injury already...Tobias Smith. I'm concerned about the OL at this point. I think the defense is going to have to step up like they did for the most part last week for the remainder of the season. I still believe we end up 7-5 which isalright this yearbut it has to end with agood (Top 25) recruiting class.

Someone stated that if we just keep going to bowl games good things will happen, which i generally agree with, although Kentucky has gone to like 5 straight bowls and they suck. So this year's recruiting class is very pivotal.

 

[saddawg]

I won't question him as long as we make a bowl every year. Making a bowl every year only equals more success.

 

[hulkbuster77]

First of all who's saying we'll have depth issues @ RB? Have you seen NIck Griffin? That guy is a 17'n BEAST! I saw him pre-bowl practices run over Virges and shake off a nasty stick by Nikoe (yes Nikoe). And as far as QB is concerned, a QB's best friend is a nice running game. And between Nick, Josh and Darius we'll be okay taking pressure off of whoever is behind center (although my money's on Dak). I never said we were gonna be "great", but us winning 8, 9 games is pretty good to me at least. Yes +#$ getting paid 2 mil and going 6-6 is gonna be an issue, even for me. But it ain't gonna happen, not this year (again baring no injuries). Plain and simple with Tobias getting hurt and moving some OL men around guys will NEED TO STEP UP! But I didn't think Dillon did a bad job (especially against LSU's DL). Clausell needs to work on his footwork and his punch. As far as the issues of WR, guys just need to do a better job running routes. To me if there is an issues with this team, it's TE. Marcus Green played like he **** the bed before the game. I mean, he missed blocks & dropped HUGE passes against LSU. Look at it this way, if your a rookie QB in the NFL going against an elite D, what's that QB's best out? Because let's face it, LSU has a NFL defense and Relf hasn't seen a D THAT fast before. What's his best out? CHECK DOWN's! TE's & RB's that are gonna be hard for LB's to account for. If the TE is dropping DRIVE SAVING passes that's pretty bad! Now luckily Vick & Darius were doing a good job, taking up slack catching the ball. I mean Relf was 9/11 @ halftime. That's nice numbers, for anybody. But guys we'll be fine. Hit me up on twitter @ hulkbuster77.

 

[MaxwellSmart]

There were people predicting 6-6 at the start and we are only in our3rd season removed from our probation. (croom) With the losses onD from last season and the losses in the O line, 6-6 won't make me jump for joy but we are bowling. If he wins the bowl we have 2 straight winning seasons and that's a big, big plus</p>