....
- Mullen is good enough to take classes ranked in the high 30's and 40's and beat top 25 classes on the field. He's not good enough to take the 40th ranked class and go and beat top 10 classes. What is frustrating is that he could probably take a run of top 25 classes and win the division.
- The recruiting environment in Mississippi is as dirtier than it has ever been with the Rebels. Other message boards are discussing it (see the right rabbi's Ga Tech post). This is due to #1) Mullen beating Nutt's *** two years in a row #2) Mullen rubbing it in his face every chance he gets (including the billboards), and #3) Nutt's in hot water as a coach. He can look at his roster and see that it is going to be hard to put a good team on the field next year. Turn in a bad to average class, and go 6-6 or worse and he knows he's gone. He's getting 2.5/year and wants to hang onto that.
- The best thing that can happen is for them to have a crappy year and Mullen finish the job with no knees in November. They obviously have an active and established system in place and it has gotten worse for us every year that Nutt has been there.
- State and Ole Miss have roughly split the Dandy Dozen since I can remember. None of these guys have any allegiance to either program. When South Panola has a bunch of top guys, Ole Miss would normally have a slight advantage. Likewise, when State's normal recruiting areas put out good players, we usually have gotten those. This year is the indicator that something is out of kilter. 8-2. I can't remember a year like that, even when Johanningmeyer was sniffing around and Croom was fulfiling his contract with Green Bay.
- CJ Johnson is the bellcow in all this. He's been discussed ad nauseum, but it bears repeating one more time. He had no other reason to go to Ole Miss. Committed for 15 months (not to Diaz). Signed pictures "Go Dawgs." Had his lanyard ripped off in Oxford. Was recruiting for us at camps. Has a teammate on the team. We historically do well in Philadelphia (close to campus). And could come in and State on a good team as a true freshman. I understand that they are going to get some and we are going to get some, regardless of how the teams do on the field. But that is just ridiculous and totally obvious. 8-2 including Johnson. Now, they are getting players in areas that have historically been good for State. Noxubee. Philadelphia. The Delta. This is a further indicator that things are happening that haven't happened in the past. There's no doubt that they dominated us, but ****, just own up to it as to why.
- Mullen is not willing to "play the game" at a certain level. I do not think we are totally clean. I do not think we don't cheat. I think that the very rampant and flagrant cheating started back in the SEC around the time Saban came back in the league and is more or less sanctioned by Slive's "under the rug" policy. Auburn was not going to let Alabama get away with it and we saw that last year, they went all out. Any fan of any school in the conference can see this. And now we are seeing the trickle down effect. I heard from a very good source that Mullen stayed away from Pat Patterson his first year because it was "an obvious bidding war." The same stories are circulating this year. He appears to shy away when the action on a recruit gets to a certain level. I think, above all, that he understands that he is a young coach with a huge upside and he is not willing to associate his name to a program that has been on probation. Also, he has pissed the OM alumni off royally, and now we can add Auburn and Slive to our list of people who would love to see us struggle. In addition.....
- At some point, the SEC is going to get hammered. The SEC does not control the NCAA, the Cam Newton situation became a national story, and other schools/conferences have to be sick of our league winning the title every year. When that happens, the bottom 6 are the prime candidates. Slive is not going to want his national championships revoked and Heismans given up. As much as it sucks today, it is probably smart to stay out of this as much as possible. If/when we step it up to keep up with the Joneses, we are the easiest target to be made an example out of.
- All that said, we've got recruiting problems. You don't lose players to Vandy and Tech without admitting that. Mullen has got to rethink his approach.
- When you buy a player, he owns you.
