On this morning's B&B show - Mullen was quoted as saying

[dawgstudent]

"the crowd comes before the wins not the wins before the crowds".

To this - I disagree. You have to win first unfortunately or have excitement which is what we had in 2009. Now that we are winning on a consistent basis - we have sellouts. I think a lot of us would go win or lose. But to grow and keep the fringe of a fanbase, you have to have consistency.

People don't come to Alabama b/c they just want to. They have a history of winning.

 

[dawg21]

I don't want to take his words out of context, but I think he means you have to have support first to build a program. Which I agree, but after a few years that support dies unless it sees wins. I think he's gotten a generous amount of support from the fan base. Now go get us 7 wins that we can be proud of.

 

[57stratdawg]

What does he want? The crowd has been behind him 100% since the day he set foot on campus. Is he saying he would be winning more games if we had 60K in the stadium and another 10 outside of it?

 

[SkullCandy.sixpack]

He's saying if he doesn't win, it's not his fault.

 

[Crucifictorious]

My frist two year in Grad School at South Carolina

"the crowd comes before the wins not the wins before the crowds".

To this - I disagree. You have to win first unfortunately or have excitement which is what we had in 2009. Now that we are winning on a consistent basis - we have sellouts. I think a lot of us would go win or lose. But to grow and keep the fringe of a fanbase, you have to have consistency.

People don't come to Alabama b/c they just want to. They have a history of winning.

The Gamecocks went 1-21 and consistently averaged 80,000 fans at each game. Carolina has never had much of a winning tradition, but has always had loyal fan support. Though location helps.

 

[seshomoru]

Allow me to interpret based on what he said SBW

He's just stating what happened. He showed up and pretty much asked for the moon. Wanted sellouts, wanted expansion, wanted a football complex, wanted money. All this before we knew we'd be going to three straight bowl games and setting the new baseline, the minimum of what's acceptable, at 7-8 wins. He pretty much asked everyone who had even the slightest rooting interest in MSU football to support them like they were national champions with no guaranty that they wouldn't keep winning only 3 or 4 games. The pressure was on us to go all in on the program so they would have the facilities and the butts in the seats to go to work with. Well, that's happened, and that comment, to me, signifies that now the pressure is on him and the team to bring about the results that reflect that investment.

In other words, I don't think it's a statement of future need. It's a statement of what happened and now it's time to pay us back for the support. I agree with him, and his comments over SBW seemed to echo that. They have what they need and it's time to blow this thing up.

Comparing Alabama football support isn't exactly apples to apples. Tide football is like church. Most people, even when the preacher sucks, keep going and keep tithing. Then Moses Saban shows up and every single peon follows him blindly and builds statues. Except instead of 40 years in a desert, they get national championships... which really sucks for the rest of us meek, poor, and mourning.

 

[TBone.sixpack]

Good post. I agree with all of the above.

 

[57stratdawg]

Sounds good to me. I hope he's right.

 

[HueFreeze]

he wants a waiting list for season tickets

he doesn't want to be buying 1500 tickets to keep a sellout streak going

he wants to walk into a living room and say look at what is happening here, come be the first team since 1999 to go to atlanta, guess who has never been to atlanta. We can get there and we need you to help us get there.

that is what I would be saying

 

[Bobby Ricigliano]

He's been saying that since 2009.

 

[DAWG61]

I think he means the support helps get the wins. With an empty stadium it's almost impossible to be a winning program. So you go all in with your fan base and fill the stadium and support the team like hell and then the wins come. Which, given MSU's previous 8 years before Mullen, he has already attained. Mullen has done a tremendous job at MSU but he's also been the beneficiary of great timing with all the ESPN money getting pumped back into the school.

 

[seshomoru]

I think he means the support helps get the wins. With an empty stadium it's almost impossible to be a winning program. So you go all in with your fan base and fill the stadium and support the team like hell and then the wins come. Which, given MSU's previous 8 years before Mullen, he has already attained. Mullen has done a tremendous job at MSU but he's also been the beneficiary of great timing with all the ESPN money getting pumped back into the school.

Don't sell the fans and our staff short. The Seal Complex wasn't built with a dime of SEC money, and donations have skyrocketed.. Strick, Keenum, and Dan were practically full time fundraisers to get that thing built. Everyone on staff was pretty much a full time fund raiser, even Fanning was out on the trail shaking hands and shaking down wallets.

Haven't seen Stansbury but I hear he's looking to land a big fish sometime soon... Bazinga!

 

[MSUDC11]

I believe this comment was taken from the Road Dawgs Tour yesterday. I was there.

He was talking about 2009. We started the sellout streak then and had good crowds, yet we were 2-5 at home. The crowds have been good ever since, and we've started winning more. We were 6-1 at home last year.

Look at Stoops at UK. He hasn't coached a game and he had 50,000 at their spring game. With the backing of the fans, he will probably do a pretty solid job.

Rarely do you see coaches do well without fan support. I think that was his point.

 

[CookieMonster.sixpack]

I'm sorry but that is an asinine statement. Crowds do NOT come before wins. No one gave a rat turd about Duke Basketball until Coach K made them good. Now they are one of, if not the, most recognizable college basketball team in the country. You EARN a following and a crowd.

Maybe you don't have to work as hard to earn a crowd if you have some competitive advantage that draws followers (like being in LA, UCLA & USC or being a Roman Catholic school, like Notre Dame). But in most every case, the team was good, then the fan base grew. That's why they call it a bandwagon for goodness sake.

I hope that's taken out of context, or I'm misunderstanding what he's saying. If it's not, then that's just spineless excuse making.

 

[BulldogBacker]

I don't want to take his words out of context, but I think he means you have to have support first to build a program. Which I agree, but after a few years that support dies unless it sees wins. I think he's gotten a generous amount of support from the fan base. Now go get us 7 wins that we can be proud of.

I agree with this....Mullen knows he must market the program to build excitement. I really do think a full stadium helps motivate a team. It may not be the "reason" for wins, but it helps. You would understand that had you been at our basketball games this year. Many of the fans gave up and didn't show up, then Coach Ray beat the bushes to get students to the Ole Miss game. The team played with more emotion than the previous 10 games. Further, the revenue has jumped considerably from our football program. Mullen knows that no SEC team in the bottom 1/3 of revenue has sniffed a Championship in many, many years.

 

[Wooly17er]

I was at the Road Dawgs Tour in Biloxi last night. It was a great show. I think Seshomoru and MSUDC11 have done a good job at interpreting what Coach Mullen is saying. When Coach Mullen arrived at State, we were winning 3-4 games per year at best. He asked for crowd support (which includes financial support from donors and selling out the games), and he got it. Since then, our new norm has become winning 7-8 games per year. Obviously, a "good season" is one where we do better than our norm. We expect that now, and Coach Mullen knows that. He touched on it last night, specifically mentioning that we've been to 3 straight bowl games - 2 on NYD - and now we want to take that next step.

He's not looking to place blame on anybody if he doesn't win. I think what he is asking is that our typically "fair-weather fan base" not get tired of the new norm and bail at this point. He knows he's expected to win now, and I think he will. But you don't have to read this board long to know he is under pressure to deliver on his promise (and by that, I mean get us to Atlanta and win championships - which is a lofty goal for sure).

I think a good example of what he fears most is the fan base's swell of support immediately before the Alabama game last year versus the deflated reaction immediately after. I place much of the blame on the media department for the "We Believe/#8-0" fiasco, but our fan support and swagger seemed to die after that game.

Also - everyone should go to the Road Dawgs tour if it comes around your hometown. Coach Mullen and Coach Ray are good to listen to, but EVERYBODY needs to go hear Coach Schaefer speak at least one time. That guy is going to hang the first National Championship banner in the Hump - and it's going to happen sooner rather than latter. That guy would get Mutt to a NCAAW game if he'd hear what he was doing to our Women's program.

 

[rabiddawg]

I think what he is saying is "please make it to Houston for the first game"

 

[maroonmania]

The Gamecocks went 1-21 and consistently averaged 80,000 fans at each game. Carolina has never had much of a winning tradition, but has always had loyal fan support. Though location helps.

SC is definitely a good example of the EXACT opposite of what Mullen is saying. They have had great fan support for many, many years but until they got a great HC (Spurrier) they still couldn't win anything of note. Fan support is important and makes it easier to win but how well the HC and his staff perform in on the field coaching, developing players and recruiting are ALL more important factors to a winning program than just fan support. About the only corollary is that fan support generally does have a big influence on quality of recruiting. But even that can be overcome, I mean just look at OM this year, they had all kind of non-sellouts and empty seats galore at many of their home games this past season yet Freeze still pulled off a consensus Top 10 recruiting class.

 

[tenureplan]

I think he's saying that they open the gates before the game starts.

 

[121Josey]

I think he's saying that they open the gates before the game starts.

++1. Classic.

 

[121Josey]

Even if a team is winning, it doesn't mean that the (expected) crowd will come (e.g., Florida Marlins). DS is right that there has to be excitement. I'll add to that the product has to make people want to come, especially when they can now watch most games on TV.

But since I missed the context, according to Merlin, when will the (SEC)(Top 25)(road) "wins" come?

 

[Heidi123]

I disagree.

I'm sorry but that is an asinine statement. Crowds do NOT come before wins. No one gave a rat turd about Duke Basketball until Coach K made them good. Now they are one of, if not the, most recognizable college basketball team in the country. You EARN a following and a crowd.

Maybe you don't have to work as hard to earn a crowd if you have some competitive advantage that draws followers (like being in LA, UCLA & USC or being a Roman Catholic school, like Notre Dame). But in most every case, the team was good, then the fan base grew. That's why they call it a bandwagon for goodness sake.

I hope that's taken out of context, or I'm misunderstanding what he's saying. If it's not, then that's just spineless excuse making.

and so does South Carolina.