Pump the brakes on the podcast. It was those two knuckleheads at Gatorcountry. They make excuses for everything and the "he didn't realize the brand was so broken" must be their company line over there.
Mullen is not a retard and - regardless of what some on here think - is a solid coach. Sure, he could have done a little better for all of our liking at Miss State, but he also did a little better than I think most pundits thought he would do. He also stuck around there a lot longer than expected - most thought he'd bolt for the first "better" job offered, and he was offered several ACC jobs including NC State and UVA; he was also in on several B10 jobs (he's from that part of the country). He stuck around there and left Miss State in great shape.
If you think he doesn't talk to Urban or hasn't visited Saban and other schools for insight you're just hard headed. He literally just got back a month ago from touring Clemson's facilities (and he was just on USC's campus two weeks ago). He's made an offer to every 5-star recruit that will listen, unlike Butters, and unlike Muschamp (at least the offensive recruits). The brand is broken as hell. But I agree w/ everyone....it's an excuse. And so far, has he (Mullen) himself used it as an excuse? All I see is him recruiting his ass off, holding camps every weekend he's allowed, going to other schools camps, doing way more booster club events than anyone since Spurrier, etc. He's just not landing the big fish......yet.
He hasn't coached a single game. So I'm going to sit back and see what happens. If we find a QB we should see some serious improvement. We have enough blue-chip talent on the roster to compete w/ most of teams on our schedule. I'm optimistic, but - like most of you all - I'm also very, very concerned about recruiting.