Video: Mississippi State Takes Turn at 2017 SEC Football Media Days

HOOVER, Ala. (WCBI/MSU Athletics) – Mississippi State took on the afternoon session of the Southeastern Conference Football Media Day Tuesday, represented by head coach Dan Mullen, linebacker Dez Harris, wide receiver Donald Gray and offensive lineman Martinas Rankin.

Dan Mullen Transcript

Media Days – 7-11-17

THE COMMISSIONER: I do need to make a point of clarification from yesterday. I neglected to tell you the U2 song was called “Grace” from All That You Can’t Leave Behind album, the last tract on that album.

That’s notable because Dan and I were comparing U2 concert notes in Boston earlier this summer. Dan is entering his ninth season at Mississippi State, ranks third time all time total history for total wins and lead the Bulldogs to seven consecutive Bowl games and has been voted SEC Coach of the Year and Maxwell Football Club Coach of the Year. Mississippi State University head football coach, Dan Mullen.

DAN MULLEN: Thank you, Commissioner. It’s quiet when you walk up. I think next year we want to add some walk-up music like the baseball games so as they introduce us, we’ll sit in spring meetings and create our own walk-up music. I got to have the thing behind with Where the Streets Have No Name playing from the Joshua Tree Tour this year.

I want to thank Commissioner Sankey introducing us. He does a fabulous job for this league. I know one of the challenges especially for me going into year nine is it’s sometimes easier to build than maintain, and I know he constantly works to make sure that the Southeastern Conference remains the premiere conference in the nation and always trying to think outside the box and improve us and how to continue to keep us on top and does an amazing job of that.

This is my ninth year up here on stage, and I was thinking about the time has flown quickly in those nine years some ways. Other ways, it’s been quite a long time. I looked up, you know, the iPad had not even been released on my first SEC Media Days. So now everybody, I think, in the United States, there’s more iPads than people. They hadn’t been created the first time I came up here.  So it’s been a long time.

Going out to my son’s baseball games and caddying yesterday for him yesterday in a golf tournament, he was 6 months old. The time’s flown a little bit for me, but it’s been a fun ride. You know, I’m blessed to be a head coach at Mississippi State, to be there, and have the opportunity to go into year nine.  I think we’ve been able to do a lot with the program over those nine years.

We’re looking this year hopefully to make it to our eighth consecutive Bowl game, which would be a great fete.  One of the things when I came here was to build a program that wins on a consistent basis, and I think we’ve been able to build and do that, and I’m really proud of that, proud of our players, what they’ve been able to do for us, coming off a year last year and making a Bowl game in a very unique way to me. We made a Bowl game last year because of academics, not because of our wins on the field.

And we found a lot of different ways to make Bowl games throughout the year, whether it’s winning the final two games of the season. One of the years, we were number one team in the country for half a season and made a Bowl game. Last year, to win the final game of the season, the regular season, and then find out because of APR, to be able to stand in front of your team and because of the academic success that those players and the players that came before them have had allowed us the opportunity to continue our Bowl streak and keep playing.

So I’m very, very proud to be able to stand in front of the team and tell them that of how we’ve built the program that way.  Last year, you know, coming into this season for us, we have some guys coming back. One of the things, there is always comfort when you have a quarterback that’s played coming back. We have Nick Fitzgerald starting last season for us coming back, had a pretty solid year last year, lead the SEC in total offense, had a great year running the football.

You know, in quarterback development, everything is about constantly improving how you throw the football, so hopefully he’s having a great summer. We can’t be with them. There’s a huge amount of development that goes on in the summertime at the quarterback position. When you’re not around them, what they’re doing on their own is going to determine a lot of your success.

But we need him to continue to improve, continue to grow, and continue to develop. And if you get to look next to him, you get comfortable. And you have a guy, a running back and returning starter, Aeris Williams, coming back, who started several games at the end of the year last year in the backfield. So that’s a comfortable thing.

Upfront, on the offensive line, one thing, we only have 30 combined starts on all of our offensive line coming back. But we have four different offensive lineman that have started at least one game in their career.  So  even though there’s a young group with maybe not a lot of experience, guys have been in the moment. Guys have started.  Guys have played, and that’s important to us.

We have all our tight ends are back this year. You know, the position on offense, we’re going to be young at is the wide-receiver position. Donald Gray is here with us today. It’s great to have him here as a graduate, a senior, been a great leader for us. I know as you get to go see him, got a lot of personality, going to try to compete with me in the shoe-game today to see who has the best shoes. We’ll let you all vote on that maybe at the end of the day. That position overall is going to be young.

Defensively, a whole start for us on defense this year. A lot of players, we got — I don’t think — we don’t have one senior on the defensive line. And it’s going to be a young group at the linebacker position, going to be glad with some young players.

Leo Lewis played a bunch last year. Dez Harris who is here with us today, another senior from Birmingham, who is a great story. It is great having him here today. He suffered multiple knee injuries during the course of his career, never let any of adversity get to him, continued to work and fight through it and develop.

Here he is as a senior having the opportunity to have a huge year.

And then in the back end, we have some new faces, a couple junior college players coming back, but the biggest one that we — I’m sorry, junior college players that we added to some guys coming back with Jamal Peters and Mark McLaurin back there. But the big one there for us is to have Tolando Cleveland come back from having missed last year to a knee injury coming back for his fifth year, senior year for us. He was probably our top DB last year. And now to have him come back off of injury and be able to play for us this year is huge.

Defensively, a different personality with Todd Grantham on the defensive side of the ball, running our defense. It was great to get somebody of his level to come to Mississippi State and run our defense. So in the final play, I think we have here with us today Martinas Rankin, a great offensive lineman, has worked his tail off in the program, has the flexibility — one of the great things he got to do was play center all during spring ball. He started at left tackle last season. And as the season gets on, we do expect him to move back out to left tackle with Elgton Jenkins moving back into center after Elgton missed this spring due to injury.

We expect to have a really good year. I like the attitude that our team has had this offseason that they’ve brought to the table this summer, their work ethic, their demeanor of this football team I’m excited about. Even though they’re a young group.  We only have 12 seniors on the roster this year and a very young football team, but I’m excited about what the season’s going to hold, excited about year number nine and finding a way to still be here and excited to continue to build this program to be a program that competes or hopefully has the opportunity to compete for championships on a regular basis in the Southeastern Conference.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. If you have a question, please raise your hand.

Q. Dan, you’ve won more games in Mississippi State than anybody in an eight-year period. Is that as good as it gets you think or do you think you can do even more and what would it take to do more?

COACH MULLEN: Well, you know, I don’t know as good as it gets. To me, I’m — my life has no finish line. I tell the players that. There’s no finish line. So we’re always striving to get better in everything that we do, every single day, trying to improve and reach our potential to be the best that we can be.

There’s obviously a lot more ahead of us. We have not won the West yet. We have not won an SEC Championship. We have not won a National Championship yet.  So there’s an awful lot ahead on the table of goals that we want to achieve as a program, but I am proud through all of the work of our players.  One of the things I take a lot of pride in looking at our guys throughout the year to come back and work with us, come back, and they are around the program.

I know they take a lot of pride in what they’ve been able to build.  And the expectations around the program have certainly changed. And the expectation is not just from the fan base and the media, but really the expectations of the players which is the most important, the players within the program, and our former players that played for me of what their standards and expectations are that they want to see, that they’ve helped build a foundation. And they want the guys that are there now to continue to build and continue to grow on that and continue to take us to a higher level.

Q. You’ve done a great job throughout your career developing and evaluating quarterbacks, first with Alex Smith and Tim Tebow, Dak Prescott and now Nick Fitzgerald. What do you look for when you’re recruiting a quarterback and what did you see in Nick Fitzgerald that you thought was special?

COACH MULLEN: You know, there’s a lot of different things that we go and look for within the quarterbacks. You know, the biggest thing, you got to watch them on film. You got to be able to sit down and talk to them. All of them you try to get to camp if you can within a camp where you actually get to coach them and work with them one on one.

The biggest one to me is you take things that you can coach and you take things that are harder to coach, and you really want to look for guys that have the traits that are hard to coach. You know, if they have some of the skill set and things, whether it’s the leadership, the mental, physical toughness, intelligence in processing information and decision making, those are some things that are sometimes harder to coach.

You can coach someone to throw. Now, there’s all different levels of that, but you want to look at the things that are harder to coach.  And if they have certain part of those skill sets, then they have the potential for the things that are coachable. For you to really grow and develop with them and help teach them, they’re going to have a huge upside as players. And a lot of those guys, those are the things that we look for because the names that you mentioned, all different shapes and sizes, all different maybe sill sets. All of them have tremendous mental and physical toughness. All of them are great leaders in their own way.  All of them are great competitors in their own way.

You know, and I don’t get honed in on there’s only one way to do it. What you want to look for, do they have those traits of being a winner. And I know that might sound coach cliche, but one of the things Dak Prescott says when NFL teams call and ask about Dak Prescott is he won. He took Haughton High School to levels they had not been to. He took Mississippi State to be the number one team in the country. People are surprised he took the Dallas Cowboys to the playoff.

He’s a winner.

If you want to look at a quarterback, a big trait is does he win. And all of those guys that you talked about all had tremendous success at every level that they played football at.