Mississippi State coach's steak in Philly area

SO, WHAT'S harder to fathom: that Mississippi State's football team in 5 weeks went from unranked to No. 1 for the first time ever, or that its coach somehow made it to Starkville by way of beautiful, downtown Collegeville, where some two decades ago he was a tight end for Ursinus College?

"I've yet to meet anybody in Mississippi who can pronounce [Ursinus] the first time," said Dan Mullen, whose Bulldogs just became the first team in more than 30 years to beat three Top 10 opponents in succession. "That's OK. They're such great people here. They have a lot of pride. It's an historical time. It's been kind of awesome to be part of all this.

"You know, they can go for so long hearing about what we can't do here in Mississippi. Now you're on the cover of Sports Illustrated, 'College GameDay's' here covering games, you're the biggest thing that week in all of college football. It's huge.

"Last Saturday [for No. 2 Auburn] we had 63,000 in [David Wade Stadium] and there was another 40,000 outside tailgating. Then you have the people who actually live here [24,000]. It became the second-biggest city in the state."

So who cares if they're not familiar with Division III gridiron factories from north of the Mason-Dixon Line?

"Hey, from Starkville it's not easy to get to a lot of places," Mullen duly noted. "Down South, it can be kind of weird like that."

He was born in Drexel Hill. When he was 4 his father got another job so the family moved to New Hampshire, where he grew up in the same town (Manchester) as Chip Kelly. The same Kelly who was friends with his older brother. The same Kelly who made a call to Wagner College to help Mullen get his first coaching gig as a graduate assistant. Even the same Kelly who was the defensive coordinator at Johns Hopkins when Mullen "thinks" he caught two touchdown passes for the Bears as a junior in a 1993 game.

"I guess defense wasn't his specialty," Mullen acknowledged. "I'm sure he doesn't remember. But he switched over to offense right after that."

A lifeguard for two summers in Sea Isle City (at the 49th and 75th street beaches), he still maintains ties to our area. His dad's relatives live in Delaware County, and Mullen used to come back almost every year for Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays. He admits that hasn't happened nearly as much recently, although he was here in August for the funeral of an aunt. Life changes. But there's a pizzeria adjacent to the Ursinus campus, Marzella's, that still has Mullen's autographed picture hanging prominently on the wall.

"Man, they've got the best cheesesteaks," he gushed. "I could go for one right about now."

So whatever happened to the prime-rib-and-lobster buffet at the Collegeville Inn?

His Ursinus roommate/teammate, Paul Gunther, later coached the Bears and is now the defensive coordinator for the Cincinnati Bengals. As you might expect, they stay in contact. And when Mullen was at Wagner, current Ursinus coach Pete Gallagher was a GA, too. His Bears also remain unbeaten. Last week, as part of Gallagher's annual steak cookout for the seniors, Mullen took time out from his preparatons to say a few words to them via speakerphone.

The Bulldogs have a bye before going to 5-1 Kentucky. That's the way the world spins in the SEC. They still have to play at Alabama and Mississippi. Or, as Mullen calls it, "that team up north."

He worked for Urban Meyer at Bowling Green, Utah and Florida and with such quarterbacks as Donovan McNabb, Alex Smith, a young Cam Newton and Tim Tebow, with whom he remains close friends. When the MSU job became available, there were those who felt he shouldn't pursue it. Under Mullen, Mississippi State is 42-28 in six seasons.

Prior to taking the job, his first as a head coach, Mullen was the offensive coordinator at Florida.

"It was interesting," Mullen recalled. "We were going for our second [national] title. I didn't know how I'd fit in Mississippi. I could never really equate it to other [opportunities]. So I started doing some research. People were saying I should wait for something better, that you couldn't win there. So I started thinking, 'This is the SEC. You can go to a smaller school and win and maybe later go to the SEC.' Then I started digging deeper. Jerry Rice is from right here. Walter Payton's from Mississippi. So's Brett Favre. And Hugh Green. Steve McNair. None of them played here. I can't imagine what our Hall of Fame would look like. Some of them were the greatest ever at their position. Maybe I can go find a couple more.

"I'm from Ursinus College. Here I am coaching in the SEC West. I don't believe in 'I can't.' "

His second team went 9-4 in 2010. Two years ago the Bulldogs won their first seven but finished 8-5. Last season they had to win their final three to get to 7-6. This year they were picked to finish fifth in the West division in the preseason poll behind Alabama, Auburn, LSU and Ole Miss, two of which they've already beaten. And junior quarterback Dak Prescott has emerged as a leading Heisman Trophy contender. The highest a Bulldog has ever finished was 10th, in 1944 (freshman running back Thomas "Shorty" McWilliams).

"I'm a realist," Mullen said. "We've gone to four straight bowls, which had never happened. We've had some ups and downs. You have to build a consistent winner before you can have a great season. I know [Ole Miss] was getting a lot of the hype, but we're 4-1 against them. I also understand we play in the SEC West. Sometimes having a great team doesn't mean a whole lot. Four years ago we were 15th in the final poll, won at Florida and beat Michigan [52-14] in a bowl. But we finished fifth in the SEC West.

"It's probably like playing in the old NFC East."

The next 6 weeks should be, well, different.

"It's great for our fans, our student body, the alumni," Mullen said. "It's great for everyone in Mississippi. To be No. 1 for something good is so important to them. But we haven't really accomplished all that much yet. We're not even halfway through the conference schedule. Hey, enjoy it. There's nothing wrong with that. But really, there's so much more that has to be done.

"The SEC championship [which MSU has won once, in 1941], that to me is all that really matters. Everything else is cool. You take it for what it's worth."

If nothing else, he'll have some new stories to swap whenever the old Ursinus gang gets together again.

"I was an all-state quarterback who was pretty slow and made up for that with a weak arm," Mullen said. "It's not like schools were pounding down my door with offers. I could have walked on at New Hampshire, but Ursinus sent out this great mailing. It was far enough away. I was looking at Ithaca and Ursinus. I still believe to this day that it all came down to recruiting weekend.

"It happened to be one of those really mild days in December. It's sunny, I'm walking around campus, they're showing me around and I just loved it. I went to Ithaca and it was snowing. That was it for me. I just had that feeling in my gut. Sort of like with Mississippi State. In my mind, it's always sunny and pleasant at Ursinus. It's where I belonged, where I wanted to be. I'd never trade it for a second . . . You've got to be pretty fortunate."

Even if it can be a little tough on certain drawls.

"When we're winning, I'm a Yankee," said Mullen, who's developed his own accent. "When we're not winning, I'm a damned Yankee.

"But both my kids were born here. They're local. They're OK. They're part of the community. I'm still a Yankee. But they certainly embrace me."

These days more than ever.