When you step back, you realize Mullen was in a no-win situation with the recruiting issue
Let me start by saying "well played" to whatever Bear came up with their plan of attack. Now let's go back through the past few months.
It all starts when we piss off Slive and the SEC by turning Auburn in for Newton. At first they probably laughed off the fact that a rookie head coach was crying about recruiting. They know what goes on and they don't care. But then it leaked to the media during AU's title run, tarnishing the league's reputation. Who leakes it was immaterial, MSU started this whole mess so Slive's anger is pointed directly at us - not Auburn.
Luckily, the SEC is now ESPN/CBS's football bellcow so Slive and manipulate them a little and thus there was very little investigative reporting on Auburn and Cam was portrayed mostly as a victim.Meanwhile MSU comes off looking the worse for wear and Mullen a bit of atattler.
No big deal though, we're having a good year and recruiting seems to be fairly solid. Our two biggest are CJ and Whitehead and we're in on a few more. OM is still working Whitehead but by all accounts they've given up on CJ (even yancy and mcready)
Then Brassell commits to us out of the blue, then rumors start flying that Tobias is a secret commit. The Bears are starting to get a little miffed now, we're now invading their pipeline areas. Feathers are rustling.
We go on to kick their *** in the Egg Bowl and get a nice NYD bowl bid and put up nice little billboards on the interstate to rub it in.
We all love it, but this is just too much for some of the big OM alums. Something has to be done. They can't get Nutt to fire Nix outright, but they can try to help Nutt get better players.
Finally OM catches a break - Hud leaves for ULL. The main clog in the pipeline is gone and that's going to help them with Tobias.And if you can flip Tobias, that only helps with Brassel. At this point I think if most OM guys had been told they could flip these two guys they would have been estatic and most MSU fans would have been disappointed but merely would have just blamed the HC's at the schools along with the loss of Hud.
To this point it's all pretty plausible - from here on out we go into speculation:
Somewhere along this timeframe the decision is made to go last effort with CJ and see if there is any way to flip him. Simple strategy is to offer him some cash..and who cares if it gets back to State.If Mullen matches then you might can find a way to get that public and tarnish the image or get an NCAA investigation based on the Cam stuff. It's doubtful he'll take that risk. If CJ is receptive, is Mullen really going to go crying the SEC two years in a row when his biggest recruit leaves him at the alter? Does he really want to piss off Slive that bad? Doubt it.
In somewhat of a surprise CJ is receptive and this word starts to spread. Then out of nowhere Diaz leaves which helps make any switch easier to sell to the public. Whether Tobias was already in the boat or not to OM is debatable, but before they all head to San Antonio, stuff is going down and final details are being worked out. Tobias does his thing in San Antonio and CJ does his decommitment.
The rest we all know and Whitehead was not about to fly solo anywhere - that much was clear from the beginning.
Bottom line, Mullen just had no recourse this year unless he had such solid evidence against OM that the SEC/NCAA would have no choice. But it's virtually impossible for that to occur. Regardless of what he says, I just can't buy that this is Mullen's final destination and he just can't afford to tarnish his image at this point in his career.
The only risk to OM was that CJ was a huge MSU fan and would string them along only to end up signing with MSU and turning over recording conversations with OM boosters/coaches that destroyed them. The odds for that were miniscule compared to revenge factor of destroying the prizes of our recruiting class.
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Let me start by saying "well played" to whatever Bear came up with their plan of attack. Now let's go back through the past few months.
It all starts when we piss off Slive and the SEC by turning Auburn in for Newton. At first they probably laughed off the fact that a rookie head coach was crying about recruiting. They know what goes on and they don't care. But then it leaked to the media during AU's title run, tarnishing the league's reputation. Who leakes it was immaterial, MSU started this whole mess so Slive's anger is pointed directly at us - not Auburn.
Luckily, the SEC is now ESPN/CBS's football bellcow so Slive and manipulate them a little and thus there was very little investigative reporting on Auburn and Cam was portrayed mostly as a victim.Meanwhile MSU comes off looking the worse for wear and Mullen a bit of atattler.
No big deal though, we're having a good year and recruiting seems to be fairly solid. Our two biggest are CJ and Whitehead and we're in on a few more. OM is still working Whitehead but by all accounts they've given up on CJ (even yancy and mcready)
Then Brassell commits to us out of the blue, then rumors start flying that Tobias is a secret commit. The Bears are starting to get a little miffed now, we're now invading their pipeline areas. Feathers are rustling.
We go on to kick their *** in the Egg Bowl and get a nice NYD bowl bid and put up nice little billboards on the interstate to rub it in.
We all love it, but this is just too much for some of the big OM alums. Something has to be done. They can't get Nutt to fire Nix outright, but they can try to help Nutt get better players.
Finally OM catches a break - Hud leaves for ULL. The main clog in the pipeline is gone and that's going to help them with Tobias.And if you can flip Tobias, that only helps with Brassel. At this point I think if most OM guys had been told they could flip these two guys they would have been estatic and most MSU fans would have been disappointed but merely would have just blamed the HC's at the schools along with the loss of Hud.
To this point it's all pretty plausible - from here on out we go into speculation:
Somewhere along this timeframe the decision is made to go last effort with CJ and see if there is any way to flip him. Simple strategy is to offer him some cash..and who cares if it gets back to State.If Mullen matches then you might can find a way to get that public and tarnish the image or get an NCAA investigation based on the Cam stuff. It's doubtful he'll take that risk. If CJ is receptive, is Mullen really going to go crying the SEC two years in a row when his biggest recruit leaves him at the alter? Does he really want to piss off Slive that bad? Doubt it.
In somewhat of a surprise CJ is receptive and this word starts to spread. Then out of nowhere Diaz leaves which helps make any switch easier to sell to the public. Whether Tobias was already in the boat or not to OM is debatable, but before they all head to San Antonio, stuff is going down and final details are being worked out. Tobias does his thing in San Antonio and CJ does his decommitment.
The rest we all know and Whitehead was not about to fly solo anywhere - that much was clear from the beginning.
Bottom line, Mullen just had no recourse this year unless he had such solid evidence against OM that the SEC/NCAA would have no choice. But it's virtually impossible for that to occur. Regardless of what he says, I just can't buy that this is Mullen's final destination and he just can't afford to tarnish his image at this point in his career.
The only risk to OM was that CJ was a huge MSU fan and would string them along only to end up signing with MSU and turning over recording conversations with OM boosters/coaches that destroyed them. The odds for that were miniscule compared to revenge factor of destroying the prizes of our recruiting class.
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