People bitching about Mullen need to calm the 17 down.

[rugbdawg]

Defense is ultimately Mullen's responsibility but he is not involved with it. He made a bad hire and he will correct it. He's not Croom. Blaming Mullen for the defensive performance is similar to giving Croom credit for Ellis Johnson's defenses. It's idiotic.

Let's talk about what Mullen does coach.

Special teams-A+,Great performance. It's fairly obvious to me that we have one of the best punters in the country. If we had a defense, he would be a weapon. Broccoli looked solid. Kickoff coverage was great. Kickoff returns were awesome. We allowed the fake punt, but we had players in position, just slow.

Offense-C+. They did enough to keep us in the game and give us a chance to win against a superior team. If we had any type of defense show up, it would have been a close game. For everyone bitching about us being vanilla, the fact remains our best weapons is Dixon and we can run the ball pretty well. The gameplan worked reasonably well but it's hard to run the ball when your defense sucks and you are playing catchup.</p>

</p>

Get rid of Torbush and we have a football team.

</p>

</p>

 

[rugbdawg]

Defense is ultimately Mullen's responsibility but he is not involved with it. He made a bad hire and he will correct it. He's not Croom. Blaming Mullen for the defensive performance is similar to giving Croom credit for Ellis Johnson's defenses. It's idiotic.

Let's talk about what Mullen does coach.

Special teams-A+,Great performance. It's fairly obvious to me that we have one of the best punters in the country. If we had a defense, he would be a weapon. Broccoli looked solid. Kickoff coverage was great. Kickoff returns were awesome. We allowed the fake punt, but we had players in position, just slow.

Offense-C+. They did enough to keep us in the game and give us a chance to win against a superior team. If we had any type of defense show up, it would have been a close game. For everyone bitching about us being vanilla, the fact remains our best weapons is Dixon and we can run the ball pretty well. The gameplan worked reasonably well but it's hard to run the ball when your defense sucks and you are playing catchup.</p>

</p>

Get rid of Torbush and we have a football team.

</p>

</p>

 

[thatsbaseball]

getting conservative just before the half when he had the lead over a superior team in front of 85.000 of their fans was a mistake. It cost us monentum and a score. When the coach starts coaching not to lose the players start playing not to lose. The good ones learn from their mistakes the bad ones don`t. He didn`t come as a finished product and only he can make himself one.

 

[beachbumdawg]

Get rid of Torbush and we have a football team.

</p>

I think this is what everyone is saying

 

[xxxWalkTheDawg]

Mullen has taken a qb that didn't sniff the field behind two qb's that transferred out because of how much they sucked or feared competetion and is actually running an offense with him... an offense that just scored 24 points on an SEC team where Crooms couldn't beat freaking Maine with a lot more talent in his first year.

We are running an offense where we are realistically relying on a qb that would be serviceable if he was taller than my 13 year old nephew. And then we switch to a qb that should be playing on that Jackson State team they just beat.

Could you imagine Connor and Norwood in this offense? along with the other wasted talent that was here in Croomz first year where the team got it *** drug all over the field by horrible teams?

We just had a pretty dang good recruiting class come in which alone gives a lot more to look forward to than that first all team swac class that came in on Crooms first go around. And those first classes that ole golfcart brought in is who MSU is relying on to beat the damn good players that Tubberville got in Auburn.

Talent is our handicap right now... not coaching. Well at least on the offensive side anyway. The jury is still out on Torbush for me right now.. lets see how this is corrected and then we will see about the Vandy game.

 

[thunderclap]

say into the headset, "Hey, Carl. We've been rushing three and sitting in a zone all freakin' night and it ain't working. Do something different for the love of God."

At least, that's what me and everybody else watching the game was saying about mid-second quarter through the fourth quarter.

 

[CuzDawg]

and also Charlie Harbison b/c State's D has been shredded and absolutely embarrassed each time we have played a run-oriented spread the last few years. I can easily argue that Ellis Johnson has no clue against this type offense. See Exhibits A., B. and C below.

A) West Virginia - 2006
B) West Virginia - 2007
C) Georgia Tech - 2008

I'll hold out my judgement based upon the entire season, not just this one game. Apparently, our personnel the last few years does not match up well with the run spread. Either that or Ellis Johnson, Harbison and Torbush are all pathetic.

 

[mstatefan88]

First off, Mullen has transformed our special teams into the most reliable group on the field. We get past the 25 on almost every kick return, weve blocked a punt and an extra point (and the offsides penalty on that was garbage). Offense looks better than it did last year. McRae, Berry, and Bumphis can make plays. But until we replace all these 2 stars on our O line, we wont do anything on offense. Defense is too slow at LB, especially Chris White. Zach Smith is an SEC backup at best. Until we replace these those 2 stars on defense, LIke Washington and Smith, we wont be able to do anything. I think this game revealed to us how awful Croom was at recruiting. We start on defense 6 2 star recruits, and on offense including Relf we start 6 2 stars. You cant win in the SEC with more than half of your starting lineup as 2 star recruits.

 

[Stansfield]

Mullen's offense is not what it was cracked up to be. They had billboards with his hunchback *** on their saying that they were going to "spread the fun" and **** was gonna be exciting. The past two games the offense has been no different then Croom's. Up the middle X 2, pass, punt. They mixed in a couple little fun plays, but nothing like I expected. There's Chizick who was a DEFENSIVE coordinator and he's running all kinds of snazzy plays and there's mullen with two NC rings running it up the 17ing middle.

 

[dudehead]

.

 

[Original48]

We needed a defensive hire like Chizik's OC hire but didn't get it. That was a HUGE hire for Auburn. The bottom line is we just don't have the players right now but the difference is Mullen is not making excuses..like "we're gonna need time" or "it's gonna take some time." We'll be ok long term.

 

[Stansfield]

You're telling me between Huds and Mullen they can't come up with something other then up the 17ing gut??? I thought I was on acid last night when I saw them going up the gut repeatedly. I though hell hath descended on earth and all state fans were damned to watch us go up the gut with a gain of nothing for eternity and a day.

 

[rugbdawg]

nm.

 

[Lion O]

He's only responsible for what he coaches.

Silly me, I thought the Head Coach was responsible for everything on his team, from the players (not Mullen's fault in this case for the most part, b/c very little are his players), to the coaches, to the game-plan.

Silly me.

 

[Stansfield]

the ENTIRE game I saw Auburn running trick plays, doing reverses, misdirection, option this option that, etc. You know and I know State reverted back to State ball for most of the game. Why am I an idiot for calling that **** out?

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

First off, Mullen has transformed our special teams into the most reliable group on the field. We get past the 25 on almost every kick return, weve blocked a punt and an extra point (and the offsides penalty on that was garbage). Offense looks better than it did last year. McRae, Berry, and Bumphis can make plays. But until we replace all these 2 stars on our O line, we wont do anything on offense. Defense is too slow at LB, especially Chris White. Zach Smith is an SEC backup at best. Until we replace these those 2 stars on defense, LIke Washington and Smith, we wont be able to do anything. I think this game revealed to us how awful Croom was at recruiting. We start on defense 6 2 star recruits, and on offense including Relf we start 6 2 stars. You cant win in the SEC with more than half of your starting lineup as 2 star recruits.

You summed this up really well. I was not too impressed with our defensive "strategy" either but it was very apparent that our biggest problem is talent on defense. 3-4, 4-3, lack of blitzing, yeah those were part of the problem last night but I still think it was much more about the guys on the field not being up to SEC defensive speed standards. It would also be nice to have some real headhunters on our defense that knock the **** out of folks. Maybe we can find some in the JUCO ranks.

 

[jbulldog]

if they aren't bitching they aren't happy.

 

[Captain WhupAss]

LMAO!!!

 

[Croomcream]

he looked like Rockey in his last year with his visor pulled down so far it was bending his ears (a bent ear hunchback CAN'T look COOL!) and a comical look on his face. He said we needed some big plays on his way to the dressing room in the first half...WHAT IN THE HELL DID HE DO TO ACCOMPLISH THAT??? 0, NADA!!!

I don't care who coaches what...the damn Head Coach is where the Buck stops!! We have already played Regis Philbin for one fat assed walrus POS making his sorry *** a millionaire and listening to his muttering "Winston Churchill say" type BS for four years! WE DON'T HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS CRAP...HE OWES US HIS BEST AND HIS BEST IS TO FIX IT NOW! FUN MY A$$..ANYBODY SEE ANY FUN IN THE HEAR FUTURE PLAYING THIS WAY....WELL I GUARANTEE YOU, ROCKEY II AND HIS WIFE ARE ENJOYING THERE MILLIONS. SPREADING FUN AND TANNING BUTTER....keep it coming suckers!

Sorry, Dad, but I'm sick of this!

"Relf = Tebow, you'll see!" bahahahha!

 

[HD6]

Sigh.

 

[Stansfield]

The hunchback needs to start spreading some fun soon.

 

[KurtRambis4]

We really DO have the dumbest fanbase in America

 

[Original48]

running all kinds of trick plays and he is a defensive coach. Chizik is not an offensive guy or call plays...that is all Malzahn. And I believe Mullen is every bit as creative on offense but I think Tubby left Chizik in a lot better shape than Croom left Mullen. I'm not too concerned about our offense. But our defense letting people get around the corner and no pressure on the QB whatsoever, that's what scares me. I had higher hopes for the D line and linebackers.

 

[Stansfield]

We have nothing to lose. We need to give it all we got and run it around the corners and do some reverse hand offs and some of the same sort of misdirection Auburn was doing. Have their defense guessing. We got enough RBs to have them all over the place with a couple good capable receivers SPREADING them out, don't we?? We aren't gonna be stopping any teams from scoring, so we need to score as much as we can with what we've got and we're not gonna do it by running it straight up the gut with the line we have. It just looked like to me at some point in the game we closed the playbook and digressed. Didn't we?