I will admit that I have thoughts of 2001 from time to time (and there have been other threads discussing the similarities/differences between then and now). I think most State fans have a lot of built up scar tissue from getting their hopes up only to be disappointed every single time.
But, I still don't think the hype has any real effect on the actual games. I know a lot of times in the past we have won a few games and then laid an egg in a big game, and people will just assume that "the team couldn't handle success", or "were reading their own press clippings" as if somehow the team that had worked hard to win some games suddenly thought that winning games would be easy. I guess its possible that teams get over confident from reading what the press says about them, but it's hard for me to assume that media hype alone can screw up team psyche.
Mullen kept saying that the 2014 team had learned that you have to work hard every week to try to prove you deserve your ranking, and that maybe the 2015 team thought things were going to come easily to them. I think based on last season, the 2018 team should recognize that nothing comes easy, and they have to be ready to fight every single week.