MISS STATE
Auburn loss gives Dan Mullen the worst record vs. AP-ranked team all-time
Dan Mullen has struggled against ranked teams in his career, but Saturday’s loss to No. 13 Auburn led to a glaring stat for the Mississippi State coach.
It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster season for the Bulldogs after they beat LSU 37-7, then they lost at No. 11 Georgia, 31-3, and most recently against Auburn, 49-10.
Mississippi State went from unranked to No. 17 in the Associated Press Top 25 after handling No. 12 LSU. Mullen was off to his third 3-0 start since 2012. Of course, he built up plenty of equity from the 2014 season when, for five weeks, the Bulldogs were ranked No. 1 in the country.
Not great pic.twitter.com/1mIyXdZNPS
— ESPN CollegeFootball (@ESPNCFB) October 1, 2017
Not good. We play better, and his record is a bit better, when we are unranked playing ranked. I think DM has taken this program in the right direction by beating the teams we should beat, something State used to not do quite often. But the next step is to improve how we play against ggood teams. That has to get better. Recruiting is a part of that.
Interesting. So, when we are ranked and playing a ranked opponent…I should start betting.
Thank goodness he is the second best coach in the SEC…
That performance pissed me off. Bad defense, drop passes, both the passing and rushing games are non existent because of bad QB and OL play. If we are just gonna play this badly, we might as well bench Fitz and see what the backup QB can do because honestly, I don’t even see MSU beating UK, BYU, TAMU, or Ole Miss, not to mention, Bama will probably do the same to us what they did to Ole Miss and score 60+. If Keytaon Thompson can pass better than Fitz, then that’s good enough.
I agree. Fitz is one dimensional. However our receivers were covered up when Fitz did drop it in there. He must have hit 5 Auburn defenders in the back or head. Let’s start the freshman. It can’t be much worst.
I don’t know about that, Thompson missed all 4 of his passes also. he did run the ball well, but also fumbled. We just don’t have the QB’s nor the receiving corp to stack up against these elite Defenses. Long season ahead…
He also hit at least ten receivers in the HANDS. He’s not the only player on the team. Six false starts by the OL, blown coverage, like a dozen dropped passes. I get most of this team is young, but that was just sloppy.
Very true. Until people start catching the ball, it’s hard to criticize Fitz too much. The other 10 players have to do SOMETHING. It was almost as if the receivers had bet on the other team.
True. I hope they get it together in two weeks. MSU really needs this bye week.
I was beginning to think the same thing about the freshman last year. Fitz can go back to TE or WR. We certainly need SOMEONE who can catch a ball. When Fitz was on target the receiver dropped the ball. At times it looked deliberate. Last year we had players who stood there and didn’t even block, this year we have ‘receivers’ who act as if the ball is toxic. Fitz would look a LOT better if he had someone who caught the ball when they could.
All this really comes back to Mullen. Either he can’t coach and motivate players, or his recruiting sucks. As I watch Prescott play in the NFL I wonder why MSU wasn’t better than it was when he was there. Only answer is that the rest of the team sucked bad. Only exception is 2014 when the O-line had people like Cox and was as good as Prescott. The D sucked then too. Poor recruiting or poor coaching, you pick. Part of coaching is motivating and State hasn’t looked motivated in a while.
BYU is horrible. You will easily beat them. TAMU and Ole Miss are in similar shape as you so those games could go either way.
Hopefully. I haven’t seen much of BYU although they did somehow lose to Utah State. lol Ole Miss don’t have a defense but they have a decent offense performance minus the Bama game but I agree that TAMU would be a toss up depending on which MSU team shows up. The one who destroyed LSU or the one who laid an egg against AU and UGA. I hope it’s the former because these past two games were so painful to watch.
It’s all the same Mississippi State. LSU just isn’t good this year is why State looked so good against them, and LSU dominated BYU.