The Official Dan Mullen Thread

People look at his record and think that paints the whole picture. It doesn’t.

In relation to talent Mullen consistently and significantly out performs his talent. Think of I this way, in the SEC he should lose almost every game based on the talent he has, but he’s won almost half of his games. .

Lots of people say this but where does everyone get this information?

Mullen and MSU consistently has top 20-30 talent...... And they are consistently a top 30 or so team..... Other than 2 years.

Sure Mullen is coaching up his players, but the talent he gets is equal to his success, the success does not outperform the talent.

We are just used to our talent being under coached and under preforming.
 
SIAP, Barret Sallee on Fox Sports this morning. Told Clay he believes after Gruden #1 is Mullen. Said Mullen wants the job. Think's Kelly has/will pass on FL. Then they go get Frost. Said Frost has been pragmatic and would choose FL over Huskers. Huskers then will go after Chad Morris. Thinks Malzahn likely jumps to Arky. Jimbo, albeit begrudgingly, stays at FSU.

sounds plausible. but i wonder why Frost isn't a consideration here? are just that scared of the reaction of hiring UCF's coach?

i think Frost is the real deal, and if we could get him, i think we'd be most pleased. not a poo poo on Mullen. but i look at Frost and he just screams "i'm a winner, period".
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 people
this. he still has questions, but i agree with your premise 100%. and to take it one step further, just from a pure results stand point, MSU has only been to 20 bowls in their entire history, and Mullen has taken them to 7, in a row. they only have 12 Bowl wins in their history, Mullen has 5 of those. they went 11 years in between final rankings in the AP and coaches polls (2000-2010), and Mullen has 2 such finishes since 2010, and should get a 3rd this year.

the question is as you said, would his over performance at MSU combined with better talent opportunity at TN equal the improvement in the results we'd like to see....or at least how consistent could it be?

i think there are other coaches we should look at too, but i wouldn't lose a wink of sleep if Mullen got the job.

In my evaluations there are only a few coaches who have a history of significant over performance in the SEC: Spurrier, Petrino and Mullen.

One of those guys has a championship because he parlayed that over performance into better talent.

By this same evaluation, Chip Kelly, for instance, does not over perform. He wins the games he should by a bunch of points, but he really wasn’t racking up wins against teams that were more talented.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
I know how connected Malzahn is to Arkansas, but I just can't see him making that move. It just seems like a downgrade to me.
 
Nothing will energize the fan base and bring the recruits in like a guy that has a losing SEC record.
 
SIAP, Barret Sallee on Fox Sports this morning. Told Clay he believes after Gruden #1 is Mullen. Said Mullen wants the job. Think's Kelly has/will pass on FL. Then they go get Frost. Said Frost has been pragmatic and would choose FL over Huskers. Huskers then will go after Chad Morris. Thinks Malzahn likely jumps to Arky. Jimbo, albeit begrudgingly, stays at FSU.

No shot that Morris takes the Nebraska job over A&M.
 
In my evaluations there are only a few coaches who have a history of significant over performance in the SEC: Spurrier, Petrino and Mullen.

One of those guys has a championship because he parlayed that over performance into better talent.

By this same evaluation, Chip Kelly, for instance, does not over perform. He wins the games he should by a bunch of points, but he really wasn’t racking up wins against teams that were more talented.

Can you explain how Mullen over performs?

His teams get top 20-30 talent (a few times better)....his teams finish around the 30 Mark....except for twice which were better.

So where is the over performance?

Sure they don't under preform like Tennessee has for quite a while.
 
So we shouldn't be excited about Mullen but we should be excited about a guy whose team will crap the bed in the ACC after their starting QB goes down? The same Jimbo who got blown out by Mark Helfrich who is currently unemployed?

Jimbo at least has a natty, Mullen has nothing, but an egg bowl championship. That's equivalent to being life champions
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
Lots of people say this but where does everyone get this information?

Mullen and MSU consistently has top 20-30 talent...... And they are consistently a top 30 or so team..... Other than 2 years.

Sure Mullen is coaching up his players, but the talent he gets is equal to his success, the success does not outperform the talent.

We are just used to our talent being under coached and under preforming.
that's not entirely accurate. you go back and look at the recruiting the previous 3 years before Mullen got there, and the rankings the 3 years after he got there, and there was a roster flip...from top 40-50 talent, to top 30 talent. they mad a dip in to the top 20 twice. everything else is 20/lower, which is good for back half of the conf every year.

what i think you take from that is while he hasn't necessarily splashed as a recruiter, he did improve it.

and he took that improvement, and has parlayed it into the best run an MSU coach has had, at a time when the SEC W has been the best it's ever been.
Year national rnk sec rank
2006 40 10
2007 34 9
2008 53 10
2009* 18 8
2010 30 8
2011 41 11
2012 22 9
2013 24 10
2014 36 12
2015 18 8
2016 28 11

*DM 1st year. he took a team in 2014 to #1, and an Orange bowl with a roster made up of an average rank of 31 nationally, 11th in the conf.

in the 3 years prior to DM's arrival, MSU averaged 42nd nationally ranked class. since he's been there, he's improved that to 27th. 15 spots. that's good.

the hard part for him, is, at MSU, that gains you next to nothing in the conf, considering who he's recruiting against....3 years prior, conf recruiting rank, 10.2

since he's been hired...even with a 15 point improvement nationally....gets him to 9.6.

what i get from that...MSU has a lot to do with the recruiting limitations, his coaching has a lot to do with the results.

fwiw.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 4 people
sounds plausible. but i wonder why Frost isn't a consideration here? are just that scared of the reaction of hiring UCF's coach?

i think Frost is the real deal, and if we could get him, i think we'd be most pleased. not a poo poo on Mullen. but i look at Frost and he just screams "i'm a winner, period".

I agree with you on Frost. I would actually be pleased with Patterson, Frost, and then Mullen in that order. We would be in good shape with either one of those coaches in my opinion.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3 people
In my evaluations there are only a few coaches who have a history of significant over performance in the SEC: Spurrier, Petrino and Mullen.

One of those guys has a championship because he parlayed that over performance into better talent.

By this same evaluation, Chip Kelly, for instance, does not over perform. He wins the games he should by a bunch of points, but he really wasn’t racking up wins against teams that were more talented.

yep. Mullen is not getting a real fair shake by many here. there's a context to being at MSU that people simply ignore.

Mullen is a good coach.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 6 people
Jimbo at least has a natty, Mullen has nothing, but an egg bowl championship. That's equivalent to being life champions

So they were both coaching on an equal field with equal recruiting resources? For the record Jimbo almost found a way to lose that game against an Auburn team playing with a converted corner at QB?
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 people
"imagine what coach x would be able to do with the resources at school y"

this thinking does not apply in this case. does tn have better resources than ms st? yes. but the difference is not on the order of magnitude that would give the significant effect implied by the above reasoning. mullen would do about the same here as he has done there.
 
I agree with you on Frost. I would actually be pleased with Patterson, Frost, and then Mullen in that order. We would be in good shape with either one of those coaches in my opinion.

frost is my guy. but it's on a gut feeling...he passes my eye test, and i'd bet on his pedigree, he knows what championship football programs look like. but he comes with risk/questions too. he hasn't done it at this level, or even close to it, as a head coach. so i get why people are skittish, can't argue it.

Patterson. i mean, it's hard to argue against him. but for maybe the same reason about frost, i just have a gut feeling Patterson is just a great fit for TCU. and i think it'd be very difficult to replicate what he's done there, here. 10 years ago.......yeah, i was all in in him. i think the dynamic has changed though.
 
"imagine what coach x would be able to do with the resources at school y"

this thinking does not apply in this case. does tn have better resources than ms st? yes. but the difference is not on the order of magnitude that would give the significant effect implied by the above reasoning. mullen would do about the same here as he has done there.

Then why did Saban go from having about the same record as Mullen to winning NCs when he left Michigan State?? Did he suddenly become a 5 time better coach just from breathing the nasty air in Baton Rouge??🙄
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 people
Then why did Saban go from having about the same record as Mullen to winning NCs when he left Michigan State?? Did he suddenly become a 5 time better coach just from breathing the nasty air in Baton Rouge??🙄

it's not fair to compare any potential candidate to saban. that's not realistic.

i do get your point. i think Mullen could do well here. well enough to make most fans really happy. it will not be close to what SAban has done though.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
Then why did Saban go from having about the same record as Mullen to winning NCs when he left Michigan State?? Did he suddenly become a 5 time better coach just from breathing the nasty air in Baton Rouge??🙄

hmm...year 4 at michigan state is not comparable to year 9 at mississippi state... we've seen enough of mullen's trajectory at this point to know what he's capable of...not much
 
Mullen is my No.3 behind Gruden and Frost. Frost is going to Nebraska sadly. And Gruden is Gruden so here is Mullen the only one left. Mullen has done a fantastic job at MSU. Some of the players he is getting there is amazing. Starkville is one of if not the hardest place to recruit in the SEC. I think Mullen would get an amazing staff together because he has been an HC for almost 9 years now and has been in CFB for almost 20 years. He knows people and some assistant wouldn't go to MSU because it wasn't a big enough school for them but UT is a pretty big school and an easy place to recruit. So i think he could kill at UT. You can post that AP record all you want. He made MSU the No.1 team in the nation! No one has ever done that. He has created stability at MSU. Remember when MSU was a 2-3 win team almost every single year? He changed that culture and he can change it at UT as well.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 people

VN Store



Back
Top