If Mullen had went 6-6 last year, would people still be this upset?

[Goat Grindin]

Say, he did not beat Georgia and Florida. We could have lost both. But we won, so it doesn't matter, but I digress.<div>
</div><div>I just don't get the 'living up to expectations' crap. Anybody with a brain saw this coming. I was afraid our team would have the big head. I thought we'd beat Auburn, but every other game is about where I thought we'd be. Any talking head with intelligence thought the same. I guess I just don't understand all our message board fans bashing the first decent head coach we've had this decade, possibly one of the best we've ever had, because we didn't build on the overachievement of last year.</div><div>
</div><div>Check out Steve Spurrier's record, dude went 6-6 for like 5 years before he finally broke through.</div><div>
</div><div>Mullen's own wins is what is haunting him this year.</div>

 

[dawgstudent]

you always want to keep moving forward and this season - we didn't move forward. Hence people being a little upset.

 

[alabamadog]

I'm disappointed that we didn't beat South Carolina or Auburn, but if someone told me on the day Mullen was hired that he would get to two bowls in his first three years, I would have taken it in a heartbeat.

 

[Goat Grindin]

Our guys saw what it was like to be the underdog and get people's best shot, at least at the beginning of the year. But the fact that we are still (hopefully) headed for a bowl game shows what an outstanding job Mullen is really doing. Typically we'd have gone 3-8.

 

[dawgstudent]

this time last year - we were 7-4. If you dig, you can find a silver lining but from the outside - we aren't moving forward.

We will have a better record next season though.

 

[Phil Wenneck.sixpack]

Coming off narrowly missing a bowl in the first year at 5-7 and suddenly competing with the big boys, what we got last year was just a Christmas bonus or maybe God's intervention for us enduring horrible luck over the years. How often have we improved our record by 4 wins? We won games in the final plays (Florida, Georgia, hell even UAB) where this year we didn't (Auburn, S.C.). Alot of that was just the way the ball bounced but we were clearly a better team last year across the board. It's always disappointing to not step forward but reality is, not many times at State are you going to step forward from 9 wins.Probably the most disappointing part of it is dropping all the way to 6. I don't thinkthere'd be all that much disappointment if we'd have gone 8-4 or 7-5 realistically speaking considering what we lost off last year's O-Line. My biggest beef is our signature win is freaking La-Tech. You've got to find a way to beat at least 1 of the Auburn's, Georgia's, South Carolina's.

 

[1dawgfan09]

I have been disappointed with this season. We really should have beaten Auburn. We should have taken care of business verses USCe. But, I will take (crosses fingers) a stomping of Ole Miss and a another bowl. A couple of years ago, I would have gladly taken it.

 

[thatsbaseball]

that ain`t moving forward from ****. Go get your *** sheared so somebody can have a nice Christmas sweater.

 

[biguglyjoe]

This will be the first time we have hopefully gone to back to back bowl games in 11 years. That's progress. I would have hoped for a better W/L record at the end of the season, but I can live with it.

 

[dawgstudent]

[No message]

 

[biguglyjoe]

[No message]

 

[Todd4State]

most people probably on average thought that we would win eight games during the preseason, but I also think that most of those people would have said that we would struggle with injuries- especially on the o-line.

Well, guess what? We had some injuries on the o-line and struggled some and are likely to win six games.

The biggest thing that has been disappointing to me has been the playcalling in general. I think Dan learned some things about recruiting in general last year, but I also think that he will adjust- we'll see in Feb. if I am right. And no, I'm not saying that he is going to tell our boosters to start throwing money at people.

We need to get our o-line developed- I think there is some talent there. It's critical that the JUCO guys come in and do their job otherwise we may have to expose someone like we had to with Clausell this year. That's not fair to him or the team. We need some WR's that bring something to the table other then quickness in space because we have a lot of that, and we need to shore up our secondary.

You can say, well that's a lot of needs, and it is. But it's also a far cry from where we were under Croom. We have got to get to a point where we have quality juniors and seniors at pretty much every position and the only walk-ons that start for us are on special teams and maybe fullback. That doesn't happen overnight. We're not there yet, but Dan has us going in the right direction in general.

 

[bulldogs726]

7-5 was the best we could do without any earth shattering wins. Fact of the matter is that Auburn, SC, and UGA are riding years of sustained success while we are new to the party. Not to mention in our own division we currently have the 1,2 and 3 teams in the nation. It was only 4 short years ago we quivered at playing Houston, Tulane, and so forth because of terrible coaching. We have not lost ONE game that we should have in 3 years. We are filling our stadium, selling out tickets, record enrollment, winning a bunch of games, record donations, and going to bowls. Remember the days we were in the bottom 10 every week. That was not to long ago. The kids we are recruiting now had not picked up a football the last time we were good. It takes a couple of years of sustained success to make an impression with these kids. These same kids while we were terrible might remember Eli but they certainly remember the two Cotton Bowl winning teams in Oxford, 2 time NC Bama and LSU, and Arky with sustained success over that period. Throw in NC at Auburn and a lot of $$$ and we are going to have to overachieve for a couple more years to get where we need to. USC was also another program that it took a while before the kids in SC started staying home instead of going to UT, UGA, and UF.

There is unprecedented excitement around our program right now. However we have to win Saturday. It cannot be the first time we lose a game where we should have won.

 

[Phil Wenneck.sixpack]

"You can say, well that's a lot of needs, and it is. But it's also a far cry from where we were under Croom. We have got to get to a point where we have quality juniors and seniors at pretty much every position and the only walk-ons that start for us are on special teams and maybe fullback. That doesn't happen overnight. We're not there yet, but Dan has us going in the right direction in general."

This says it all really. I read a post earlier today where someone was actually asking why we fired Croom considering how we lost this past Saturday(maybe a flamer, I don't know) but look at it this way... in Croom's 4th year, a national title type LSU team came onto our home field and beat us by 40+ points. Now let's look forward...In Mullen's 3rd year, an equally or probably better LSU team came onto our home field and beat us 19-6. It may not be the big steps that everyone wants (me included) but we have to be realistic and consider exactly what Mullen took over. Sure he's made bone headed decisions at times and played certain players at really questionable times but if you look at this moment at the entire body of work (I actually hate that phrase and usually refuse to say it) but looking at it as of this moment, we could be in a whole lot worse shape. That said, simply competing and playing close will only keep people's attention for so long. We've got to start translating progress into more wins.

 

[RocketCityDawg]

According to this:

http://pollspeak.com.nmsr...,507/v_1,507/w,13/w_1,13

The SEC is a harsh world. We play against the best of the best.
And have had only one actual blow-out loss. Last weekend.

Perspective.

RCD