MSU finished in 3rd place in the West in Mike Leach’s 2nd year and Dan Mullen finished in 3rd place or higher in the West ONLY 1 time in 9 years that was in 2014 thanks to Dak. Pretty crazy stat! That should shut all the Leach haters up! Future is bright!
Leach vs Mullen
- Thread starter StateJCP
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Apply the tiebreakers and don't be an Ole Miss fan. We didn't finish 3rd this year. Mullen went 9-4 in his second year, finished in the Top 25, and had a two game win streak against Ole Miss by this time in his MSU career. Leach has yet to beat Ole Miss, won't be ranked, and at best will be one win behind Mullen in his second year. Leach may surpass Mullen in time, I hope he does, but at the same stage here, no.
The history books (Wikipedia) will show MSU finished 3rd in the SEC West in 2021. Just like the history books show in 2015 Mullen finished 5th in West tied at 4-4 with A&M and Mullen lost to A&M.
| Mississippi State Bulldogs (Southeastern Conference) <small>(2020–present)</small> | |||||||
| 2020 | Mississippi State | 4–7 | 3–7 | T–6th <small>(West)</small> | W Armed Forces | ||
| 2021 | Mississippi State | 7–5 | 4–4 | T–3rd <small>(West)</small> |
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Did you remember that, or that we beat Ole Miss for the second straight year, finished in the Top 25 (15th I think), and beat Michigan in the Gator Bowl? After that year we were all pumped as heck and couldn't wait till the next one. This year....ok maybe some few are. I just saw our schedule for next year, combine that with this year.... maybe we can go 7-5 again. If we do that then I WILL be pumped.
Mullen finished 5th in the West in his second year. Leach finished 3rd in the West in his second year. Just stating facts here!
And before some of you start, to get to 7-5 next year one of the 7 is about going to have to be Ole Miss. just the way I see it.
Ok. Ranked vs unranked, beating UM vs not beating UM....going to a crap bowl vs in all likelihood a crap opponent vs the Gator vs Michigan......OMG you got me. Laughing at you.
I don’t think there are many Florida fans upset with Mullen being fired. You are off your rocker. That ******* never cared about State or Florida, you are not remembering things correctly.
Most Florida fans didn't want him to begin with. He was damn stupid for taking that job. I wasn't arguing if he cared about anything at all, just his actual record HERE after two years, which was what the original poster posted about.
The original poster posted abt where he finished in the sec west.
Better than Mullen in finishing in the sec west.
If the egg bowl is so important to you, quit missing it.
Better than Mullen in finishing in the sec west.
If the egg bowl is so important to you, quit missing it.
Mullen was a seven win average coach. He averaged a losing record in the conference and blew every opportunity to do better. He stinks out loud when the big games are on the line. He blew it at state and blew it at Florida. He deserved to get fired.
It's funny the meaningless stats and trashing of Mullen that some State fans feel the need to write in order to prop up Leach. They are trying to convince themselves as much as anyone that Leach will work out.
Leach may win. He may be fair to middle. However Leach has a ways to go to accomplish the things that Mullen did at Mississippi State.
Leach may win. He may be fair to middle. However Leach has a ways to go to accomplish the things that Mullen did at Mississippi State.
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It was time for Mullen to go, he had lost his “fire” after he didn’t get another job in 2014. Mullen doesn’t have the drive that great coaches like Saban have. However, Mullen left MSU in a lot better shape than what it was when he came. Our program was “turn key” ready just don’t mess it up when Mullen left.
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FIFY
You're gonna love Cooterpoot & Shankly's new message board for people who get off to the wing-T.
That may be fair but there is no need to guild the lily on Mullen. In two years Leach has reached Mullen’s average and has room to grow. Nobody knows what will happen but I think it’s reasonable to believe Leach could get 10 wins at least once and reach 8 wins regularly. We should probably expect more from Leach than Mullen given his salary and experience. The SEC will probably be harder in Leach’s tenure but the expansion may provide a couple more beatable teams and Saban may retire. OU is no Bama and Texas flat out stinks.
Turn-key for one year. It was all going to fall apart in 2019.
This shows how little some of you baby boomers know. You're too damn short-sighted.
Hard not to see Leach meeting or surpassing Mullen's accomplishments at this point. It all depends on whether we can add more talent. We know that we'll be an 'older' team next year, but it's still up for debate as to whether we'll add the overall talent necessary.
We know one thing for certain - Mullen was NOT going to add the talent necessary. 10-2 once every 5 years was his ceiling, which is likely for Leach too unless, again, crootin takes another step.
We know one thing for certain - Mullen was NOT going to add the talent necessary. 10-2 once every 5 years was his ceiling, which is likely for Leach too unless, again, crootin takes another step.
The O line deficiency is the main concern in my mind right now. The interior looks ok but the tackles will need one solid replacement plus one better than Lashley. The receiving corps is intact for another year and defense recruiting looks pretty good. Even a modest improvement overall could equate to two more wins next year, even with having to play UGA. If they could eliminate special team screw ups that alone might do it.
Ah good one.... "wing T". But not any different than "you must like the triple option".
y'all are so sensitive above Leach. Hahahaha.
Ole Miss is a rival. Beating them is great and losing sucks. Beyond that, most years in the west beating ole miss, Arkansas and State is meaningless in the standings in the west. I’m not delusional like the Rebels who deny the rivalry but I do want our program to be at a level that we beat teams that matter in the West and in the overall college football landscape. IF leach does that I won’t be crying about an loss to Ole Miss.
You know you are a Mississippi State fan when finishing in 3rd place in the division is some kind of accomplishment.
True. As far as accomplishments go nobody but Sherrill has done anything much besides win some nice games. Mullen’s #1 ranking was empty after losing three games.
True dat. Mullen could've really separated himself tho if he had come back to our roster in 2018. He could've had his best year ever as a coach IMO with that team.
We all know that you would be fine with us finishing 7th in the west as long as we beat ole miss.
Yep, claiming 3rd when you were beaten head to head by the team you're tied with translates to 4th, unless, you're from the Univ of Northern MS and you're trying to claim being Co-Western Division Champs
Looking at the 2010 roster, the 2010 Defense had 7 or so NFL players on it, one who will likely be in NFL HOF, and 3 others that were studs in NFL too. It also had Vic Ballard and a SR Derrick Sherrod on O who played in the league. Some of the standouts on that team were actually committed to Croom before he left and Mullen was able to keep them in the fold. If Leach just had that D we probably come close to winning the West this year. Might've lost to Bama only.
Mullen finished 4-4 in West in 2010. If we get Cam Mullen does probably make run for Natty tho IMO. But the point is, Mullen inherited a pretty damn good roster overall just missing a QB really. He did fill in some of the pieces with Chris White, KJ Wright, and a couple of others too.
In 2009 Mullen had a Sr Boobie on his team. Croom also had recruited pretty darn well on OL and DL, probably due to his playing center for Bear so he emphasized that and knew what to look for in linemen. Mullen did keep the 2009 class intact and maybe added 2 or 3 to it tho.
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What things are those? Average 7 regular season wins per year? Finish 2nd in the West one time in 9 years, and 4th or worse every other time? Finish ranked in the Top 25 one out of every 3 or 4 years? Finish 6 games under .500 in SEC play over 9 seasons?
Those are all great accomplishments relative to our history, but are all pretty ****** compared to the other teams in our division. The bar really isn’t that high.
He left the program in better shape than Tyler, Bellard, Felker, Sherrill or Croom did. But that’s as far back as this Baby Boomer can remember.
He did and he didn't. Recruiting wise there was no depth behind the 2018 team cause Mullen went all-in on Jucos in 2017. Still had a decent roster in 2019 tho. JoMo is the one who let it slip. His recruiting isn't as good as the rankings IMO. And yesterday there were 2 Ms boys on the DLs for Bama and AU whose names were called a lot, that JoMo missed on. I can see missing on one to Bama, but it hurt to miss on both. I will say that Leach needs to keep our stud Ms DLs in the house.
You really can’t compare Mullen and Leach’s records fairly to this point. Leach’s first year was a 10-game all conference schedule. We had non conference games against Alabama A&M, New Mexico and Tulane canceled that we probably would’ve won (NC State would’ve been a loss most likely). Would’ve probably been 5-7 or 6-6 instead of 3-7. The improvement this year isn’t just the record, it’s the way we played. Offense looked 10 times better, and it should take another step up next season if we stay on trajectory with Leach’s career path.
Moorhead did a good job plugging holes, and his 2019 class did suck (mainly due to attrition). But Mullen's lack of any recruiting depth from 2016 to 2018 was the reason for the collapse.
We finished in 3 way tie for 3RD PLACE! Go look it up!
and IMO our record is really 9-3. I refuse to accept losses to Mem and Ark when we were robbed of Wins in both of those games. So with that being said we STILL finish in 3rd place except by ourselves without sharing it.
So either way we look at it we are 3rd best team in SEC West in 2021.