Mullen ATS myth

[WutheringDawg]

Not sure why I’m posting this now but I wanted to correct a falsehood that keeps popping up this year around our success as a favorite under Mullen. The misstatement goes something like “Moorhead has already lost more as a favorite than Dan Mullen did in his entire tenure.” It might be used as an attempt at hyperbole to describe dissatisfaction with Joe but there’s too many valid concerns to continue to misrepresent a simple fact. Let’s have a quick look at the last four years.

2019: 1 loss as a favorite, Kansas State at home
2018: 3 losses as a favorite, @Kentucky, Florida at home and bowl game vs Iowa
2017: 1 loss as a favorite, Ole Miss at hime
2016: 3 losses as a favorite: USA at home, @Kentucky, and Arkansas at home

So that’s it, it doesn’t even take more than a two year search to match the losses as a favorite. So we can quit with that narrative now. And yes Joe will probably have four more chances to be worse over a two year timespan but he certainly hasn’t lost more as a favorite than the entirety of Dan’s tenure.

For the sake of transparency 2013-2015 we were great at winning the games we were supposed 2013 and 2015 we didn’t lose as a favorite and in 14 it was just the Egg bowl. No coincidence there as the Dan/Dak combo is the high water mark for the our program, full stop. Going a little further back we lost twice as a favorite in 2012 (egg bowl again- I’m noticing a trend here) and then before that the data gets really hard to find and I’ve already spent more time than I wanted to on this post. Carry on with your evenings, and I apologize for wasting the last minute of your life.

 

[57stratdawg]

I think it’s more like “we’ve lost more games as a favorite of 7 points or more”.

 

[Drebin]

I think the difference is how much of a favorite we were in those games.

We were a touchdown favorite against Kansas State. Last year, we were at least a TD favorite in all of those games and were a double digit road favorite against Kentucky. We may have been a double digit favorite against Florida....I don't remember exactly.

The other thing I see is that you're starting the clock on Mullen in 2016 but he went seven seasons prior to that where it didn't happen much, if at all.

 

[WutheringDawg]

Well ****, I guess that makes me the lummox because I missed that detail for sure. But the reason I stopped in 2016 was because I just framed the search to myself as “how long do I have to go backwards to match Joe’s losses as a favorite” and it only took through 16 to get there. But I’m gonna say you’re at least half lummox for missing the last paragraph where I walked backwards throughout Mullen’s tenure to see what it looked like.

 

[Drebin]

Well ****, I guess that makes me the lummox because I missed that detail for sure. But the reason I stopped in 2016 was because I just framed the search to myself as “how long do I have to go backwards to match Joe’s losses as a favorite” and it only took through 16 to get there. But I’m gonna say you’re at least half lummox for missing the last paragraph where I walked backwards throughout Mullen’s tenure to see what it looked like.

If you believe what you wrote in the interest of transparency, then you wouldn't have called the ATS spread a "myth" or that "we can quit with that narrative now."

 

[kired]

That Kentucky spread was ridiculous considering how the rest of their season went. They ended up a top 15 team. Same thing with Florida.

We needed to be a top 10 team to live up to expectations last year. I wasn’t disappointed in the losses (other than Iowa) but more in the way we looked losing.

 

[WutheringDawg]

The point of the post was to look at the facts of a tidbit that I saw thrown around here pretty frequently. I missed a key part from the jump, It happens sometimes, no biggie - but I put the segment that you quoted in an attempt (unsuccessfully) to prevent someone(in this case you) from responding that I was trying to manipulate the data to fit to my argument. It was me “yeah, but actuallying” myself because I wasn’t trying to compare the two as equal. So I spend a second going backwards through the years giving Mullen’s losses as a favorite. It is what it is though, bad argument with a bad response.

 

[Drebin]

That Kentucky spread was ridiculous considering how the rest of their season went. They ended up a top 15 team. Same thing with Florida.

We needed to be a top 10 team to live up to expectations last year. I wasn’t disappointed in the losses (other than Iowa) but more in the way we looked losing.

We were better than both Kentucky and Florida last year. Where they ended up doesn't really matter. And absolutely, we had the talent to be a top 10 team last year. S+P had us up there all year.

This is the part where I remind you that we had a defense that gave up 12 touchdowns all year.

 

[Rupert Jenkins]

Look....don't be coming on here with facts trying to change the narrative. We all know Joe has destroyed this football juggernaut that Dan built during his time here. We had a well disciplined dominant football program and in less that 2 years Joe has destroyed that. We all totally out of control and sloppy. Joe must go to restore us back to the dominant position we held in the SEC west.

 

[Cap'n Geech]

In 9 years Mullen never beat an SEC team on the road with 2018 Kentucky's record (10-3, 5-3). He only beat an SEC team with a winning SEC record on the road once: 2015 Arkansas (8-5, 5-3), perhaps Dak's best game of his career.

 

[Drebin]

In 9 years Mullen never beat an SEC team on the road with 2018 Kentucky's record (10-3, 5-3). He only beat an SEC team with a winning SEC record on the road once: 2015 Arkansas (8-5, 5-3), perhaps Dak's best game of his career.

The stars aligned last year for Kentucky: flukish win over Florida, Tennessee way down, Louisville way down, and us laying an egg against them. They had a couple of really great players, but they always have some good players. But generally, last year's Kentucky team was not much better than they usually are. That's not a knock against them - they had a good team. But they also had a lot of luck fall their way.

 

[Cap'n Geech]

So in 9 years Mullen never beat an SEC team on the road as lucky as 2018 Kentucky. My point is there isn't much basis to assume that Mullen would have beaten Kentucky in Lexington last year. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't, but it's hard to hold something against Moorhead in comparison to Mullen when Mullen never did it either.

 

[patdog]

Kentucky's record last year says a lot more about their schedule than it does about their football team.

 

[Drebin]

So in 9 years Mullen never beat an SEC team on the road as lucky as 2018 Kentucky. My point is there isn't much basis to assume that Mullen would have beaten Kentucky in Lexington last year. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't, but it's hard to hold something against Moorhead in comparison to Mullen when Mullen never did it either.

Why are you bringing up Mullen?

My assessment is that we should not have lost to Kentucky last year. Vegas agreed, since they had us as a double digit road favorite. You can counter, "well, Kentucky won 10 games last year and went to the Citrus bowl." That's fine, but they won ten games because we crapped the bed against them and they got a fluke win against Florida.

We were a better football team than Kentucky last year and we lost. I don't know why interjecting Mullen into the conversation changes anything. If Mullen coached us last year and the same thing happened, it would be an equally terrible loss.

 

[Cap'n Geech]

I'm sorry for bringing up Mullen in the "Mullen ATS myth" thread.

 

[Rupert Jenkins]

If you watch the game you can see plainly their d line whipped our offensive line every play. I suppose Joe coulda tried some misdirection plays or screens that might have offset that problem. Its possible they wouldn't have sniffed those out but who knows. He might could have double teamed that DE that lived in our backfield all damn game. We should have beat Florida and Iowa both. But again Iowa beat us in the trenches also.

 

[Drebin]

I'm sorry for bringing up Mullen in the "Mullen ATS myth" thread.

My bad. I should have worded my response better. But while the OP was talking about Mullen, my comment that you responded to had nothing to do with him. You responded to my comment about Kentucky by bringing up Mullen's record against such teams.

 

[Drebin]

If you watch the game you can see plainly their d line whipped our offensive line every play. I suppose Joe coulda tried some misdirection plays or screens that might have offset that problem. Its possible they wouldn't have sniffed those out but who knows. He might could have double teamed that DE that lived in our backfield all damn game. We should have beat Florida and Iowa both. But again Iowa beat us in the trenches also.

It was an effort and lack of preparation problem, not a "they were better than us" problem.

Kansas State's d line whipped our offensive line just about every play this year and I think we can all agree (well most of us anyway) that they aren't better than us, talent-wise, either.

 

[Cap'n Geech]

I was replying to kired's post. I was agreeing with him/her that the spread before the Kentucky game didn't match the results of the season. When we were favored on the road at Kentucky, no one had Kentucky winning 10 games (or 9 games for that matter) including a win over Penn State in the Citrus Bowl.

 

[Drebin]

I was replying to kired's post. I was agreeing with him/her that the spread before the Kentucky game didn't match the results of the season. When we were favored on the road at Kentucky, no one had Kentucky winning 10 games (or 9 games for that matter) including a win over Penn State in the Citrus Bowl.

Your first reply was to kired. Your second was to me, and that was what I was responding to. Whatever.

 

[msstate7]

In 9 years Mullen never beat an SEC team on the road with 2018 Kentucky's record (10-3, 5-3). He only beat an SEC team with a winning SEC record on the road once: 2015 Arkansas (8-5, 5-3), perhaps Dak's best game of his career.

Beating a team on the road though changes their record. For instance, had these teams beat us, their records would be this...

2010 Florida = 8-4
2014 LSU = 9-3
2015 ark = 8-4
2017 aTm = 8-4

 

[Cap'n Geech]

Was their schedule that much more difficult 2009-2017 when they never won more than seven games? 2018 was the first time Kentucky won ten games since 1977. It was the first time they won nine games since 1984. It was the first time they won eight games since 2007. You can say their schedule was weak, but Mullen never played a Kentucky team as good as their 2018 team, and he never beat an SEC team on the road with their record or better. That's why I say we can't assume Mullen would have won that game.

 

[Rupert Jenkins]

If they whipped us I'm pretty sure that would proof they are better. Esp if they whipped us almost every play. If we can't win the line of scrimmage we will never be good offensively. But surely you realize that already. But hey....I'm sure that's due to poor coaching by Joe.

 

[kired]

The dissatisfaction with Joe isn't just based on the spread. The difference is how we lose under Moorhead vs. how we lost under Mullen during his early years.

We looked completely unprepared last year vs. Kentucky. We were obviously the more talented team vs. Florida and Iowa but got outplayed or outcoached. Were never competitive vs. Bama or LSU. Lose a game this year we shouldn't have vs. KSU. Get absolutely rolled by Auburn.

Then compare to Mullen's losses in his early years. In 2009 we came so close to beating LSU, played a competitive game vs. Tebow & Florida. 2010 we play a competitive game vs. Auburn & Cam. Lose a OT heartbreaker to Arkansas. Yeah, we had some losses where we weren't competitive - but we also put up a fight against some teams that were obviously more talented than us.

And there's your difference. We've been either dominated or looked like pure crap in all of Moorhead's losses. With Mullen, we at least had a few losses where we played a great game but just came up short. We haven't done that yet under Moorhead.

We built a lot of our initial opinions of Mullen based on those first years. He made us competitive with LSU and Florida using Croom's roster. He developed Chris Relf - who likely would have never been on another SEC roster. Dixon was a completely different player his senior year. He was developing young players (Banks, Bumphis, Cox, KJ Wright). Getting some good JUCO players - Chris White, Ballard, McPhee.

With Moorhead we've seen a 5th year senior QB regress, a stable of great running backs under utilized last year, brought in transfers that haven't lived up to the hype, young players aren't standing out (minus Shrader), tutorgate, terrible offensive performances last year and now our defense is terrible this year.

 

[Rupert Jenkins]

What 5th year senior regressed ? And where are our junior and sophomore defensive tackles ? We have personnel issues this year for sure. Freshmen playing all over the field

 

[kired]

Do you think Nick's senior year was better than his sophomore or junior seasons? 8 his 16 passing TDs came vs. La Tech and Arkansas. He threw TDs in 3 of 8 SEC games --- 4 vs. Arkansas, 2 vs. A&M, 1 in the egg bowl. 5 other SEC games without a TD.

His senior year he had 3 games where he didn't rush or pass for a TD. 3 games in a row where he didn't reach 100 yards passing. Those are career worst numbers - whether it was due to injury, personnel, coaching, or just Nick himself. But it happened on Moorhead's watch so he gets the blame for it regardless. Just like he'll get blamed for lack of depth on the dline even though that was something largely inherited from Mullen.

 

[Seinfeld]

This would probably be a good time to remind you that we had 16 penalties, Kylin had 4 touches, and at no point did we ever think it might be a reasonable idea to bring in a TE to help block Allen.

But then again, what could a head coach have possibly done about any of that, right?

 

[Rupert Jenkins]

He should have double teamed Allen. I wouldnt let that one guy continue to wreak havoc like he did. I would have to look at Nick's numbers but I do imagine the injury causing him to miss the spring ruined his senior year. I love Nicky Fitz but honestly there were a couple times i woulda benched him and put it in KT hands. And Joe has made some bad calls just like every coach. Mullen use to get blasted on here all the time. Jomo ain't going anywhere nor should he. We all like to cry about the coaching and how the sky is falling but it is what it is.

 

[Seinfeld]

Yeah, there was plenty of blame to spread around in Lexington last year. Above all, I was really disappointed that our upperclassmen captains allowed the team to get wrapped up in that pre-game garbage. That lack of focus seemed to set the tone for the remainder of the game

The obvious concern, though, is that we’re a year down the road, and we just witnessed a whole lot of the same garbage against Auburn. Pre-snap penalties, late hits, lack of focus.... it’s alarming

All that said, you’re right in saying that Joe isn’t going anywhere. It’s time to let the season play out and then see what we’ve got in 2020. I watched his press conference yesterday, and man do I hope he can figure it out. He really is such a good dude

 

[Go Budaw]

Was their schedule that much more difficult 2009-2017 when they never won more than seven games? 2018 was the first time Kentucky won ten games since 1977. It was the first time they won nine games since 1984. It was the first time they won eight games since 2007. You can say their schedule was weak, but Mullen never played a Kentucky team as good as their 2018 team, and he never beat an SEC team on the road with their record or better. That's why I say we can't assume Mullen would have won that game.

And he also lost to that same UK team, at home, with a team that ended up being better than any he ever had at MSU. Its laughable that anyone thinks Mullen would have won that game.

 

[pipedream]

Not sure why I’m posting this now but I wanted to correct a falsehood that keeps popping up this year around our success as a favorite under Mullen. The misstatement goes something like “Moorhead has already lost more as a favorite than Dan Mullen did in his entire tenure.” It might be used as an attempt at hyperbole to describe dissatisfaction with Joe but there’s too many valid concerns to continue to misrepresent a simple fact. Let’s have a quick look at the last four years.

2019: 1 loss as a favorite, Kansas State at home
2018: 3 losses as a favorite, @Kentucky, Florida at home and bowl game vs Iowa
2017: 1 loss as a favorite, Ole Miss at hime
2016: 3 losses as a favorite: USA at home, @Kentucky, and Arkansas at home

So that’s it, it doesn’t even take more than a two year search to match the losses as a favorite. So we can quit with that narrative now. And yes Joe will probably have four more chances to be worse over a two year timespan but he certainly hasn’t lost more as a favorite than the entirety of Dan’s tenure.

For the sake of transparency 2013-2015 we were great at winning the games we were supposed 2013 and 2015 we didn’t lose as a favorite and in 14 it was just the Egg bowl. No coincidence there as the Dan/Dak combo is the high water mark for the our program, full stop. Going a little further back we lost twice as a favorite in 2012 (egg bowl again- I’m noticing a trend here) and then before that the data gets really hard to find and I’ve already spent more time than I wanted to on this post. Carry on with your evenings, and I apologize for wasting the last minute of your life.

Went back and researched all of this using this database:[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif]https://www.sportsbookreviewsonline.com/scoresoddsarchives/ncaafootball/ncaafootballoddsarchives.htm

Here's the stats: Mullen went 58-8 (87.9%) as a favorite from 09-17. Only 4 of those losses were in games where he was 7+ point TD favorite(14-GT, 16-USA&UK, 17-OM). So he lost about .9 games/year as a favorite.
Mullen went 11-37 (22.9%) as an underdog. He won 1.2 games/year as an underdog. So that's 8 losses as a favorite and 11 wins as an underdog. +3. He also lost a pick em game vs OM in the 2012 Egg Bowl.

Moorhead has gone 9-4 as a favorite (69.2%). All 4 of those losses had a closing line where Stat was favored at least 7 points.
He is 1-3 as an underdog (25%). 4 losses as a favorite and 1 win as an underdog. -3. He also won a pick em game vs A&M last year at home.

One last thing. The original thesis was to start at the end of the Mullen era and work backwards to find the 4th game he lost as a favorite. If you wanted to do an apples to apples comparison, you should look from the beginning of his tenure like we are with Moorhead. It wasn't until the last game of the 2014 season-the Orange Bowl vs GT-that Mullen lost his 4th game as a favorite. That was the end of his 6th season-his 77th game as the head coach. It only took Moorhead 16 games to lose his 4th as a favorite. [/FONT]

 

[Rupert Jenkins]

Excellent statistical work. As we all know Mullens level of expectation and Joe's level are very different. We expect 8 wins minimum. We have been favored more often than we use to be. During the majority of my State fanhood I expected to lose. Thanks to Dan I expect to win much more than in the past. When Dan took over we were hot garbage. I hope we don't return to that and I have confidence we won't

 

[Dawgtini]

Excellent statistical work. As we all know Mullens level of expectation and Joe's level are very different. We expect 8 wins minimum. We have been favored more often than we use to be. During the majority of my State fanhood I expected to lose. Thanks to Dan I expect to win much more than in the past. When Dan took over we were hot garbage. I hope we don't return to that and I have confidence we won't

This is why I don't think it is valid to go back to the beginning. The talent level Jo has now and last year was the same talent level Dan had in his last 2-3 years. Expectations for our team and therefore the how we were perceived against our competition would be more similar. So the original premise that the OP only had to go back 2 years was pretty spot on given the same/similar level of talent and expectations.

 

[Rupert Jenkins]

I agree that last years team had a high talent level. Athlon has our roster talent rated 10th in the SEC this year. Not too good and honestly I wouldn't doubt its fairly accurate

 

[pipedream]

This is why I don't think it is valid to go back to the beginning. The talent level Jo has now and last year was the same talent level Dan had in his last 2-3 years. Expectations for our team and therefore the how we were perceived against our competition would be more similar. So the original premise that the OP only had to go back 2 years was pretty spot on given the same/similar level of talent and expectations.

Ok. I think that's a fair argument. So let's say 2014 was the year those expectations took hold. From 14-17, Mullen went 18-6 as a favorite (75%) and 7-12 (37%). He still managed to win more games as an underdog than he lost as a favorite with the elevated expectations.

 

[Dawgtini]

Ok. I think that's a fair argument. So let's say 2014 was the year those expectations took hold. From 14-17, Mullen went 18-6 as a favorite (75%) and 7-12 (37%). He still managed to win more games as an underdog than he lost as a favorite with the elevated expectations.

Nice. Which since he recruited those guys for his system would make sense. I think the variance is due to Jo having a different "system" than Dan and the players having to sharpen their skills and knowledge to operate in that system. That's not to say Jo hasn't tried to help by modifying what he wants to do, but that the players had to learn a completely new set of plays, calls, checks, etc. I think there is where this issue lies.

ETA: We will know with more certainty this time next year for sure....assuming Jo makes it to this time next year.