Record vs. Top 25

[Kojak.sixpack]

Mullen was 3-16 or something.

Morehead is 2-3.

Y’all need to chill out. Anyone who thinks Mullen would be 7-0 right now it’s possible but highly, highly unlikely and against all historical evidence. He would be 6-1 at best and probably 5-2 with this team.

 

[Strike.sixpack]

Mullen was 3-16 or something.

Morehead is 2-3.

Y’all need to chill out. Anyone who thinks Mullen would be 7-0 right now it’s possible but highly, highly unlikely and against all historical evidence. He would be 6-1 at best and probably 5-2 with this team.

Kind of nitpicking, but right now he is 1-3 since Auburn is not ranked.

 

[wtw2400]

His official record is 2-1. Texas A&M, Auburn, and LSU were ranked. Kentucky and Florida were not.

 

[bruiser.sixpack]

His official record is 2-1. Texas A&M, Auburn, and LSU were ranked. Kentucky and Florida were not.

This Records against Top 25 opponents should be based on where they were ranked WHEN you played them. Not where they finish. Your victory over them could be a reason they fell down the rankings.

 

[anon1787432961]

Florida is legit. Auburn isn't. 2-2.

 

[Tall Dawg]

Exactly correct. It makes no difference if they become unranked later.

 

[notoriousD_O_G]

Florida is legit. Auburn isn't. 2-2.

They were ranked when we beat them. That's what the statistic tracks.

 

[patdog]

I’d say season ending ranking is what counts. Nobody knows how good a team is in September, so their ranking (or not) is pretty meaningless. At the end of the season, we know how good the teams were.

 

[Leeshouldveflanked]

Kind of nitpicking, but right now he is 1-3 since Auburn is not ranked.

If you go by that logic, Mullen’s record is even worse as you have to throw out 2014 LSU and 2014 A&M who finished the season unranked and Mullen’s Top 10 win against 2014 Auburn who was #2 when we beat them but finished the year at #22

 

[QuaoarsKing]

This☝ Records against Top 25 opponents should be based on where they were ranked WHEN you played them. Not where they finish. Your victory over them could be a reason they fell down the rankings.

I definitely disagree with this. Only the final top 25 is the actual top 25 over the course of the season. If a team goes 4-8 but was inaccurately ranked early on, should those first few teams to beat them get credit that later teams don't?

Having said that, I could see making an exception for teams that had a big injury that affected their ranking, and I also think "record against teams that would have finished ranked had they beaten us" is an even better measure, since otherwise you have games that you don't get credit for but would have gotten that L had you lost -- Auburn may end up being an example for us this year, or Texas A&M in 2016.

 

[MSUDawgFan86]

Mullen was 3-16 or something.

Morehead is 2-3.

Y’all need to chill out. Anyone who thinks Mullen would be 7-0 right now it’s possible but highly, highly unlikely and against all historical evidence. He would be 6-1 at best and probably 5-2 with this team.

Nah he was more like 6-30. I used to know the stat but once his *** bolted I put it in garbage file in my head. I counted what their ranking was at the time of the game.

 

[MSUDawgFan86]

Kind of nitpicking, but right now he is 1-3 since Auburn is not ranked.[/QUOTE

nah man it’s ranking at the time. If State would have lost that game they are still ranked.

 

[Shamoan]

Let's see the big picture though. Mullen also won the games he was supposed to win. Moorhead has lost 2 he was a double digit favorite.


edit: I've also seen some revisionist history, but simple facts are Mullen beat Kentucky last year 45-7...that's a 60+ point swing you just don't see with experienced teams like ours

he also beat Lsu 37-7

if he coaches against himself in the Florida game, we win by 2 TD's easy

fact is, Moorhead is having a difficult time adjusting to our talent and the sec. to what degree, we don't know just yet, but aside from bama, he needs to continue to move the chains. Period.

 

[fishwater99]

For the statistic it is ranked at the Time played. Not ranked at end of the season that's crazy talk. Google the statistics.

 

[FordhamBulldog]

It's a misleading stat to begin with because beating the #25 team week 2 should not be weighed the same as beating the #5 team in week 10.

Honestly the only thing that matters is straight up wins and losses. Don't overcomplicate it.

 

[Drebin]

Florida is legit. Auburn isn't. 2-2.

No, Florida is not legit. We should have beaten them. Same for Kentucky. Neither is as good as their ranking.

Speaking of ranking, LSU is a bit of a fraud at #4, too. They're a top 15 team, but not a top 4 team.

 

[JoMo MoJo]

Where were all of you Mohead apologizes prior to late Saturday night? Most of us didn’t start complaining about him or Fitz until a pattern was well established. Y’all should do the same.

 

[Go Budaw]

No, Florida is not legit. We should have beaten them. Same for Kentucky. Neither is as good as their ranking.

Speaking of ranking, LSU is a bit of a fraud at #4, too. They're a top 15 team, but not a top 4 team.

Florida will win 10 games. If we hadn’t lost to them, that’s still 9 wins. That’s not a good team? Kentucky could have lost to us and still be in the same boat. Two 9-win teams even if you reverse the outcomes of our games. I don’t see how you can say they aren’t extremely good teams.

As far as LSU is concerned, I agree they have weaknesses, but what 1-loss team can you put above them? Oklahoma lost to a mediocre Texas team and was taken to OT by freaking Army. Michigan looks like a fraud, lost to a ND team that barely beat a terrible Vandy team. Ohio State got humiliated by Purdue.

A grain of wisdom from Bill Parcells....you are what your record says you are. 17 everything else.

 

[Pars]

Let's see the big picture though. Mullen also won the games he was supposed to win..

9/3/16
MSU 20 - U of SOUTH 17n ALABAMA 21

Mullen revisionist history has really been something to see from you turds

 

[blacklistedbully]

THIS...is correct. Final rankings are FAR more indicative of the quality of a team. If their loss to us is what keeps them from being ranked in the final polls, then they weren't a very good team after all.

The best you folks on the other side of this issue can logically claim are perhaps those rare instances where the loss to us is the only loss or is combined with a loss to another highly-ranked team that results in a team being ranked, but not quite as highly as they would have been had they beat us. Then you could argue, for example, that a 15th ranked team would have likely been a Top 10 team.

But how many of those scenarios are there compared to how many are teams that turn out to just not be as good as some thought earlier? No very many at all.

 

[00Dawg]

Please, all of you, stop this.

What was just another weak talking point in the over-saturated modern sports media world has somehow morphed into a defensible position.
The final poll doesn't take into account key injuries or hot teams that cooled off, nor does it give enough credit to teams who first find a way to stop a creative offense, shut down a key player, or score on a previously-cutting edge defense.
It also means that history becomes a lot more bland.
This century, #1 by this definition has only lost 8 times.

State 6 - Bama 3 loses a lot of luster if that's #6 Bama.

 

[blacklistedbully]

Things you mention are possible exceptions...not rules that prove. While there are specific instances where some things you mentioned have occurred, one thing you can absolutely count on happening over and over and over again every year is teams being ranked higher than they should have been early on, then losing enough to get a more accurate ranking of their quality.

Will some teams get ranked a little lower than perhaps they should by year's end? Probably a few. Will teams be overrated preseason and through the early weeks until they start to lose? You bet...and a whole bunch of them will every year.

 

[maroonmania]

Mullen was 3-16 or something.

Morehead is 2-3.

Y’all need to chill out. Anyone who thinks Mullen would be 7-0 right now it’s possible but highly, highly unlikely and against all historical evidence. He would be 6-1 at best and probably 5-2 with this team.

With Mullen running this offense that would have been experienced in his system plus another year with Grantham coordinating this elite defense there is almost no question we would be 7-1 right now and a pretty decent chance to have been 8-0. LSU, who is much better than we thought they would be, would still have been a tough win to get in BR at night but the other 2 losses under Mullen would have been wins.

 

[FordhamBulldog]

Florida will win 10 games. If we hadn’t lost to them, that’s still 9 wins. That’s not a good team? Kentucky could have lost to us and still be in the same boat. Two 9-win teams even if you reverse the outcomes of our games. I don’t see how you can say they aren’t extremely good teams.

As far as LSU is concerned, I agree they have weaknesses, but what 1-loss team can you put above them? Oklahoma lost to a mediocre Texas team and was taken to OT by freaking Army. Michigan looks like a fraud, lost to a ND team that barely beat a terrible Vandy team. Ohio State got humiliated by Purdue.

A grain of wisdom from Bill Parcells....you are what your record says you are. 17 everything else.

Great quote. That's the beautiful thing about sports- you can blame the refs, blame the weather, blame the way the ball bounces- all that matters is who has more points when the final whistle blows.

 

[Seinfeld]

It’s no secret as to where I stand with Moorhead, and overall, I’m still highly underwhelmed, but I agree with what you wrote.

Based on Mullen’s track record and the schedule that we’ve played thus far, I have zero confidence that he’d be 7-0 right now. Maybe he would have handled KY and who knows, he might have even knocked off LSU in Baton Rouge. But he would have inexplicably dropped at least one game due to poor clock management, a shanked FG, etc.

The thing is, though, I do think that there’s a very high likelihood that Mullen would be 5-2 or better right now, and while it’s just one game, this season is a totally different story at 5-2 as opposed to 4-3. We’d be talking a possible Citrus Bowl, a Top 15 ranking, and an outside shot at maybe giving Bama some kind of game. As it now stands, unless we pull out a miracle in Tuscaloosa, this will be a pretty forgettable season

 

[johnson86-1]

I’d say season ending ranking is what counts. Nobody knows how good a team is in September, so their ranking (or not) is pretty meaningless. At the end of the season, we know how good the teams were.

We know how good teams were, but the Top 25 doesn't show it. A lot middling SEC teams are in that 15-25 range if you were really ranking how good teams were, but because they play an SEC schedule, they fall out of the rankings. Granted you also get some teams that stay in the rankings that shouldn't because of their name recognition, but I think for the SEC, the former greatly outnumber the latter.

 

[00Dawg]

Preseason vs Final rankings is a zero sum game.

Throw that out. For a team to be underrated, someone was by definition overrated.

It also does a disservice to the game to hold off on ratings until conference championship time. Part of the reason college football is so great is that every week teams have an opportunities for upsets that mean something to fans. Dispensing with early polls reduces those opportunities.
Kentucky 28 - State 7 doesn't matter nearly as much to the world or Kentucky if there's no #14 by that second name.

 

[WutheringDawg]

I think Danny boy lost four games as a favorite in 2016. USA, BYU, Kentucky and Arkansas we were laying points in all of those games.

 

[Joe Schmedlap]

This team would be at least 7-1 under Mullen right now and ranked in the top 8. That's the worst case scenario.

It’s no secret as to where I stand with Moorhead, and overall, I’m still highly underwhelmed, but I agree with what you wrote.

Based on Mullen’s track record and the schedule that we’ve played thus far, I have zero confidence that he’d be 7-0 right now. Maybe he would have handled KY and who knows, he might have even knocked off LSU in Baton Rouge. But he would have inexplicably dropped at least one game due to poor clock management, a shanked FG, etc.

The thing is, though, I do think that there’s a very high likelihood that Mullen would be 5-2 or better right now, and while it’s just one game, this season is a totally different story at 5-2 as opposed to 4-3. We’d be talking a possible Citrus Bowl, a Top 15 ranking, and an outside shot at maybe giving Bama some kind of game. As it now stands, unless we pull out a miracle in Tuscaloosa, this will be a pretty forgettable season

 

[philduckworth]

I think if you have common sense, you know what a good win and a bad loss is. I consider A&M and AU to be good wins despite their records.

None of our 3 losses are bad losses, but we should not have lost all 3. 9-3 was very doable this season. We have the best defense in school history, Top 3 at worst.

 

[blacklistedbully]

You're advocating for trumped-up, manufactured, "feel good" at the expense of truth and accuracy. You want to be the fat wife who asks her husband if her outfit makes her look fat, not really wanting an honest answer.

I care more about, "getting it right" than I do about, "feeling better in the moment about beating a team that ultimately proves to be overrated".

A, "disservice to the game" to hold off on ratings until we actually have better data based more on results rather than mostly speculation? Are you serious?

BTW, who has advocated waiting until conference championship time to begin rankings? I haven't, though I do wish polls would wait until we are at least a few games in, as the preseason polls have an inappropriate season-long influence on the rankings.

"Zero sum game"? Say what?? That's nonsense and a gross misunderstanding of what, "Zero sum game" actually means.

 

[VegasDawg13]

Moorhead has lost 2 he was a double digit favorite.

Patently false.

Edited wording because you could be ignorant and not lying.

 

[00Dawg]

I'd prefer to be labeled as a traditionalist.

This whole discussion is about having only the final poll matter. That's different from getting rid of polls into we're several weeks into the season. I'm not in favor of that either, but it's far more defensible.

As for the zero sum, if we stick with polls, there are 25 spots. For someone to move up, someone else has to move down. If #24 at the beginning was underrated as they make a run to the top 10, one more more teams was overrated by varying amounts equal to however many slots #24 moved up.

But all that still says that if you remove polls, no matter how many weeks' worth, to some extent you are reducing the hype, the drama, and the worth people give to certain wins.
We've got NFL football for getting rid of subjectivity. I'll keep the pomp and circumstance of college football as is.

 

[blacklistedbully]

While this might be true, I'd even say a strong probability, it would be due, IMO, to familiarity with the system, players having been recruited for this system, and a coaching staff already versed on life in the SEC. I don't think it is because Dan is a better coach, or that he would be a better coach for us than the current staff going forward.

I think it only safe to say Dan would probably have had a better record this year. I think it's also safe to say Dan would have ****-the-bed at some point this year due to his established coaching (and job-hunting distractions, etc), or Dan being typical Dan. Based on our experience with Dan, I think an honest assessment would show most fans would expect that to continue with Dan. We wouldn't expect to go back to being bad most years, but we would probably accept we had hit our ceiling under Dan, settling for, "consistently better than we've been since McKeen", but very rarely competing for a championship.

With JoMo we don't yet know what, "typical Joe" will be at State, after he's had a chance to build his program. I've been very frustrated by the losses and the way our offense was so anemic. I still believe a lot of this is on Joe not doing as well as he should have, even in his first year. But I'm still hopeful Joe is going to prove able to learn and adjust. I still believe there is real hope for Joe's offense to prove to be much. much better than Dan's would have had he stayed.

I may be wrong on this, but I'm not wrong in saying we really can't yet know. But I do know Dan was a stubborn SOB who made the same damned crucial mistakes every year, rarely seeming to learn from mistakes that would sometimes cost us a win or two. IMO Dan is a coach who greatly enhanced our program, but peaked short of where he should have due to being stubborn, distracted, somewhat lazy in recruiting, etc. He raised our floor considerably, but may have also lowered our ceiling slightly from a potential standpoint. Yes, I know about 2014. I also believe he should have done more that year. He damn sure should have done a better job of capitalizing on our success that year.

 

[fishwater99]

Here you go.. Mullen statistics at MSU.

Career record against SEC opponents: 32-39
vs. Kentucky: 8-1, vs. Ole Miss: 5-4, vs. Arkansas: 5-4, vs. Auburn: 3-6, vs. Vanderbilt: 2-0, vs. Texas A&M: 3-3, vs. Tennessee: 1-0, vs. Missouri: 1-0, vs. Georgia: 1-2, vs. Florida: 1-1, vs. South Carolina: 1-2, vs. LSU: 2-7, vs. Alabama: 0-9

Record vs. Top 10 opponents: 4-14

Record vs. Top 25 opponents: 7-32

Biggest SEC win – 51 points: 51-0 vs. Vanderbilt Nov. 22, 2014

Worst SEC loss – 48 points: 3-51 at Alabama Nov. 12, 2016

Mississippi State record (2009 – 2017): 69-46

Bowl record: 5-2

 

[blacklistedbully]

There may be 25 slots, but there are vastly more participants. Also, the ranking itself is an end-result, and one that offers varying degrees of reward/disappointment. For a zero sum scenario, one must assume there are only 25 participants in the game, and that we don't care so much about who is ranked where. You'd be only looking at it mathematically, ignoring the impact to each team of their ranking.

If you want to make the the argument that each team gets awarded a point value based on a linear progression of where they are ranked, then you could claim zero-sum on Top 25 if there were 25 total participants, as the sum point total would be the same regardless of who is ranked where. But then you would have to completely disregard the impact on individual teams.

In other words, if we assign 25 points to #1, 24 to #2, etc., a zero sum scenario exists in that the total points of all teams combined will be the same regardless of who is ranked where. But those total points are not what we are after at all. In polls we care about exactly who is exactly where. We don't really care about, "total points of all ranked".

 

[patdog]

You can prefer the pomp and circumstance of college football all you want. I do too. But that doesn't change the fact that our win over Auburn wasn't a top 10 caliber win, no matter what they were ranked that week. Or that our losses to Kentucky and Florida weren't as bad as a loss to an unranked team should be, no matter that they weren't ranked at the time.

 

[blacklistedbully]

Exactly!

 

[MSUDawgFan86]

You can prefer the pomp and circumstance of college football all you want. I do too. But that doesn't change the fact that our win over Auburn wasn't a top 10 caliber win, no matter what they were ranked that week. Or that our losses to Kentucky and Florida weren't as bad as a loss to an unranked team should be, no matter that they weren't ranked at the time.

It still counts as a top 10 win no matter how you spin it.

 

[Shamoan]

Of course he didn't go 9 season without losing a couple.