Some reminders about Dan Mullen

[QuaoarsKing]

see post #2 due to formatting issues

 

[QuaoarsKing]

I love Dan Mullen. If we ever need a new coach, he's absolutely my first call and we should give him whatever it takes to get him back. However, I think a lot of us are forgetting how his tenure actually went.

First off, he finished 69-46 as our coach. That includes 5-2 in bowls, so 64-44 in regular season games. Over 9 seasons, that averages out to 7.1-4.9. So when people attack Leach as a "7-5 coach" and wish for Mullen back, that doesn't make much sense.

Secondly, people saying "I want the early Mullen back, not the late Mullen back" are forgetting how much ... dissatisfaction Mullen had here in 2010 through 2013. Go back and check old threads from here and ED and see.

• 2010 - It turned out to be a really good year, 9-4, ranked #15 in the final poll, a blowout win over Michigan. But people were pretty crushed that we lost a winnable game to Cam Newton in game 2 and then were very flat in Baton Rouge the next week. A lot of people wrote the season off already after that, although beating Georgia in game 4 calmed us down. Even after we beat Florida, we had very close wins over UAB and Kentucky that made people question him again.
• 2011 - We began the season ranked, and had almost everyone back. A lot of people predicted we'd win 8, 9, or even 10 games. Instead, we limped to 6-6, and even that was just because Ole Miss and Kentucky were awful. Huge disappointment of a season.
• 2012 - Started out 7-0, to finish 8-5. People were pretty brutal on Mullen at the end of the year, especially after losing the Egg Bowl.
• 2013 - Never really got much going, and were 5-6 headed to the Egg Bowl with a huge chunk of the Internet fanbase wanting him fired. Then Dak had his miracle comeback in the Egg Bowl and that died down a bit.

So just keep all this mind that what many of us are feeling about Leach (who may very well be a "7-5 coach" like Mullen) is the same thing many of us were feeling about Mullen a decade ago. And 10 years from now when we lose a road game we thought we would win and everyone gets nostalgic about the Leach days, bump this post.

 

[thatsbaseball]

One of my favorite things about Mullen's program was player development which I think he did quite well and is super important to a program like ours. Going forward with the changes that have been made (portal, NIL etc) I worry if he could do that as well now. I'd still take him back though.