It is no secret that the Mississippi State football team is not very good this season. The team is 2-5 this season, and because of this, there are many people, including students, who are calling for Dan Mullen’s job.
That is the reason for this column, to explain that MSU cannot fire Mullen for a multitude of reasons. When I talk to other students on campus or see their tweets online, I get the impression that most students have an unrealistic and overly-optimistic view of MSU sports. One of the reasons for this is because a lot of students did not follow MSU football before becoming a student here.
This can cause the perception of MSU football to be that what has happened the last four years at MSU is the norm. 7-6, 10-3, and 9-4 are the records of MSU football the last three years. However, that is not the norm here, those are abnormities brought about by Mullen.
To put in perspective what MSU football was before Mullen, MSU went to two bowls from 2000-2008. In those eight years, MSU went 37-69. That is the norm for MSU football. It is not optimistic, but it is realistic. Mullen changed that. He is 57-40 over the last eight seasons, including this one.
Think about it this way, Mullen changed the way people thought about Mississippi State football and firing the best coach in the history of your school does nothing but make your school a place people do not want to coach at.
That brings up the next point. Not only was MSU absolutely awful before Mullen came here, but who does MSU hire if they fire Mullen? Les Miles? Why would he come here? If MSU just fires the best coach in their history, why would Miles take the MSU job, which is arguably the hardest job in the country.
Playing in the SEC West is not easy especially when you play Alabama and LSU every year. It is hard to win when you have an all-time win percentage of .490, which is lower than Vanderbilt’s. So, you combine having one of the worst football histories ever along with playing in the hardest division college football has ever seen, and you get a very hard job to win football games at.
Yet Mullen took a job as hard as this one and brought them to the ranking of No. 1 in the country for five straight weeks, and you want to fire the man who did that after one bad year? Everyone knew this team would not be good, not this bad, but not good nonetheless. Replacing the greatest player in your history is hard, and quarterbacks of Dak Prescott’s caliber are hard to come by.
Finally, Georgia went through this exact situation last year. People were upset with Mark Richt and they fired him. Now Georgia is looking at a worse season this year than what Richt gave them, as they are 4-3, 2-2 in the SEC and lost to Vanderbilt two weekends ago. With Richt, they won 10 games in four of the last five years before firing Richt. They were saying the same things about Richt, but now he is elsewhere, leading Miami, and Georgia is struggling.
On top of this is not an easy place to recruit to, yet Mullen still found a way to win games here. All-in-all, these are the golden years of MSU football, and you cannot fire the greatest coach in your history after one bad year. Furthermore, who do you hire? Finally, why take the risk of being another Georgia when Mullen has proven he can win games.
