Wow. Tough crowd. Must be the late hour for most of these posts and that based on the unintelligibility of the following gem, Law Donk was deep was the bag:
Great post
First, the boilerplate stipulation for these threads: I was dead-set against hiring Mullen for all the reasons that are rote on this forum. When his pending hire was leaked, I had what I'm sure was a Donk-like meltdown complete with all the stages of grief. There is no need to rehash the shortcomings we feared he possessed, many of which he has confirmed into year 3 of his tenure.
All that said, when you consider the mess he walked into thanks to his two immediate predecessors, coupled with decades-long horrid program management (facilities...), the results he's produced have been miraculous. Especially his work with Trask. Like most on this board, I prefer a more pro-style, vertical offense, but I will happily take what we saw against Ole Miss last Saturday. And I agree his recruiting must improve, especially along both lines of scrimmage and up the middle on defense. But really, who thought Mullen would be sitting at 21 wins after his first two seasons? And poised for even better things in season 3? Not me. Remember, there are two HCs that stand miles and miles above all the others and one, Dabo, came very close to getting whacked for his slow start at Clemmy. I am not comparing Mullen to Dabo - I am merely making the point that progress program building takes time.
Now, back to the main subject of this thread: I too despise Grantham. I could probably swallow that ex-Humper being on our sideline if his defenses were any good, but they're not. In fact, I literally cannot remember a worse performance by our defense than what we saw Saturday. It was horrendous both schematically and fundamentally. Complete suckitude of that magnitude is rare and unacceptable for us. I hope Mullen whacks that asshat and his $1.8M salary the minute the season ends and retools that side of the ball completely.