That's good, Mullen done a lot with less.
Agreed. Mullen has taken teams of 3* recruits and taken #1 Alabama or #1 Ole Miss down to the wire. His 0.600 winning record and 0.714 bowl record are not stellar, but we are taking about a Mississippi State program that is below 0.500 in its history and had only seen a handful of good seasons in a hundred years.
Mullen still has to prove his MSU formula in Gainesville: developing lower ranked players, minimizing off-field arrests, bringing in transfers instead of 3-stars to round out a class or fill key positions. He gets no excuses if he does not continue bringing in five or more blue chips each year or if he loses key recruiting battles to our rivals. In the class of 2018 I would argue that Mullen only lost recruiting battles to Notre Dame and Miami. He won battles with Alabama. There is a debate on whether he lost the QB to Georgia, but the counterargument is that he actually got the better fit QB by beating out Ohio State for a dish threat QB instead of a pocket passer.