'The best show in town': Dan Mullen wants to win in style at UNLV

IT'S A CLEAR and cool Thursday night in the middle of October in Blacksburg, Virginia, and Dan Mullen is here as a media member, a face of ESPN's college football coverage. He appears on "College Football Final" on Saturdays with host Matt Barrie and analyst Joey Galloway. He is almost three years removed from his head coaching days at Florida.

On Thursday nights, he is Barrie's color analyst and has developed a reputation for taking part in fun, football-adjacent activities -- indulging in different foods with mayo at the Duke's Mayo Bowl, playing flip cup on "SportsCenter" with Larry Fitzgerald at Pitt, and feeding students barbecue at Georgia Tech. He's learned how to put on a show. (Full disclosure: ESPN's Harry Lyles Jr. worked with Dan Mullen on Thursday night broadcasts.)

In this role, he's still involved in the game he has loved his entire life, but he can't win or lose on Thursday or Saturday. That's part of the fun. Every week, coaches are telling him how they think he's living the life. He gets to be around college football without having the worries of a coach in the transfer portal and NIL era. The game is changing, but that's not his problem.

Even someone as well-traveled as Mullen is still seeing places around the country for the first time. In 2023, he experienced his first Thursday night in Blacksburg, and one of college football's great traditions, experiencing Metallica's "Enter Sandman" before kickoff at Lane Stadium.

Inside Virginia Tech's facilities, there is a hallway tribute to the Sandman tradition. The day before the 2023 game, Mullen presses a button to play the song, and he begins to jump around as if he's part of the crowd. He seemed genuinely excited.

Fast forward to this Thursday night in 2024: Mullen is still glowing with anticipation, but it's becoming increasingly evident that something inside him is missing.

Virginia Tech sports information director Travis Wells picks up the broadcast crew from the alumni center in a cart to ride over to Lane Stadium. Barrie sits next to Wells, with Mullen stationed in the back. As the cart makes its way toward the stadium, many fans yell out for Mullen, calling him "Coach." He playfully does a royal wave.

When the crew arrives at the stadium, it makes its way up to the club level for a pregame meal. There's an assortment of barbecue and desserts available, but Mullen sticks with his usual Celsius energy drink. Even as a color analyst, Mullen sticks to a pregame routine, much like he did as a coach.

Conversation among the crew orbits around Mullen's coaching days, and gets to a place where Mullen is discussing game habits. His mood shifts. He gets a fiery look in his eyes. "It's in your mind, you sit there and you're like, I'll go do the friendly handshake before the game," he said.

"But I wouldn't mind punching this guy, knocking him out right here in the middle of the field."

For as much as Mullen has enjoyed his role outside of the game, it's abundantly clear that the game isn't quite the same unless he is immersed in it. There are things he can't get from an air-conditioned studio or stadium television booth.

It's why after a few seasons removed from an unpleasant end to his Florida tenure, he couldn't pass up an offer to become the head coach at UNLV.

IN THE SPRING of 2025, seated in his office at the Fertitta Football Complex on the UNLV campus, Mullen is whole again.

He recalled the first team meeting after being hired. "I walked in front of the team and I said, 'Boy, I feel like I feel more alive than I felt in the last three years.' Because that's who I am, to be in front of that team, talking to the team, coaching football."

Mullen's first day back coaching doesn't look a lot like his last. Las Vegas isn't Gainesville. As players warm up on this Thursday morning in March, the Las Vegas Sphere is -- quite literally -- looking on, bright and yellow, with big blinking eyes. Mullen is wearing a red UNLV visor, shades, a red lightweight hoodie with UNLV across the chest, and gray shorts that are above the knee, shorter than he prefers. He's caked in sunscreen, a good habit picked up during his time coaching Florida.

UNLV athletic director Erick Harper is out at practice in between the two practice fields, looking at what feels like a miracle.

"The number of ADs and others that called me and asked, 'How the hell did you do that?'" Harper said with a smile about hiring Mullen. "Sometimes you have to sit back and just say, 'I'm not really sure.'"

Harper's football program is coming off of the best two seasons in school history under Barry Odom in 2023 and 2024. But when Odom left to take the head coaching job at Purdue, the uncertainty around the future of the program was palpable. This is a team that was a game away from the College Football Playoff back in December. If Harper settled on the wrong coach, all of that progress could have been lost.

But he saw an opportunity with Mullen, whom he met two years prior.

Mullen flew out to Las Vegas to see Alex Smith, whom he coached at Utah, be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame at the Bellagio Resort & Casino on Dec. 10. But at that point, Mullen still didn't feel that he needed to return to coaching.

"Even late October, when people are starting to fish, November calls start coming in. I couldn't wrap my mind around it," Mullen said. "I had a hesitant feeling. And when an opportunity might present itself, I would sit there and I'd say, OK, why would this be a good idea? How I can make this exciting, without feeling no reservation?' I couldn't get there."

Harper knew Mullen would be in town and tried to meet him for dinner, but Mullen had plans. So they ultimately settled on golf the next day.

When Mullen's wife, Megan, heard of the meeting, Mullen said she asked, "Is this like you helping him hire a coach?" He replied, "Yeah, something like that."

So what was it about UNLV that got Mullen -- who has grappled with many of the newer aspects of college football -- back into the game? If Harper had not called, is this even happening?

"No, I wouldn't have even called," Mullen said. But, as Harper helped Mullen learn, the job met the needs he had at this point in his career and life.

"The facility here blows away anything that was at Florida when I left. I didn't want to have to come into a program that you had to build from the ground up. We have a great stadium in Allegiant Stadium. We were a game away from the College Football Playoff last year.

"So when you're starting to check boxes, you know? Facilities? Check. Stadium? Check. Opportunity to win a championship immediately? Check. Great place to live? Check. Really good schools for my kids, I want my family to grow up here? Check."

At his first college football practice in three years, Mullen is engaged, rolling out tackling wheels and at times having to evade tackles himself because he's right in the action.

Longtime NFL assistant Paul Guenther is on his staff, who Mullen knows from his days at Ursinus College where the two lived across the hall from each other. Guenther can see a change in his longtime friend. "I can see a difference in him where he's enjoying it," Guenther said. "I know he liked doing the TV and all that stuff, but I can tell he's happy [to be] back in it."

Mullen had practice wrapped up with a little time to spare, another good habit he developed, this one doing television.

He addresses the team as planes from Harry Reid International Airport pass overhead. He admits that this first practice was a little scattered, but he's glad everybody got some reps. They'll need them. He wants this squad to be conditioned, and to move fast.

"Get the mind right, body right, ready to go for more," he says. That's a process he's personally familiar with.

MULLEN'S EXIT FROM Florida wasn't the way he wanted his coaching career to end.

The slide began on a third-and-10 against LSU in 2020, with the Gators ranked sixth in the nation. After making a stop late in the fourth quarter to force a punt, cornerback Marco Wilson ripped off Kole Taylor's size 14 shoe and threw it down the field, drawing multiple flags.

Six plays later, Cade York hit a 57-yard game-winning field goal with 23 seconds remaining. Florida would end up losing to Alabama in the SEC championship the following week and missing the College Football Playoff.

About 11 months later, with Florida at 4-4 after back-to-back losses to unranked LSU and No. 1 Georgia, Mullen held his weekly news conference on a Monday. He was asked a recruiting question, and replied, "We're in the season now. We'll do recruiting after the season. When it gets to recruiting time, we can talk about recruiting."

Mullen was heavily criticized for his response. Lee Davis, Mullen's chief of staff who has worked with him in some capacity going back to Starkville, takes exception to the response to that quote.

"I've worked at two other places since I've left him, I know nobody works harder at recruiting than he does. ... What he was trying to say -- he wanted to talk football that day and didn't want to talk about recruiting, but people took it as he doesn't recruit."

Florida was 5-6 heading into the final week of the 2021 regular season when the university fired Mullen. He was given the option to coach against Florida State; he declined, not wanting to be a distraction to the team. Nine months later, ESPN announced the addition of Mullen to its college football coverage for the 2022 season.

Working in television provided Mullen a healthy distance from the game and allowed him to find his footing again. He was still able to be around and watch the game, but his days weren't influenced by outcomes. That was fine. He had plenty of time and energy invested in his son Canon's basketball games and his daughter Breelyn's cheer events and soccer and basketball games.

As an analyst on the road during the season, Mullen would be involved in two sets of TV production meetings with coaches. They would go over rosters, how their seasons had gone, and discuss expectations for the upcoming Thursday night contest. In many cases, Mullen already knew at least one of the coaches, and when he met young coordinators, he found that many admired him.

"You step back away and say, 'Hold on. I think maybe he did do some really good things. Was successful at places, possibly.' And that's all perception."

Mullen had a couple of moments during the 2024 season that helped remind him why he got into coaching to begin with. One was the reunion of his 2014 Mississippi State Bulldogs, who were led by Dak Prescott and were ranked No. 1 for much of the season.

"When you get around everybody at one time, you get back around the players, and you sit there and guys' wives are coming up and like, 'Hey, you made such an impact on my husband's life,'" an emotional Mullen said.

"You get there and you're like, 'OK, that's what I got into it all for.' Alex Smith does his speech, which was unbelievable at the Hall of Fame induction about the impact I made on his life? That's why I've done this. That's been your calling in life, to try to help young people succeed and improve."

So, despite how things ended at Florida, Mullen knew he had to get back into the game after he had time to heal.

"Coaching has been my life," he said. "Football and coaching have been basically my entire life since I was a freshman in high school, with the exception of three years doing TV. You knew you had a purpose and you knew why you do it. And I think hearing those things, it brings you back to the joy of why you did it, the things that were so great about it.

"I don't like how it finished at Florida. I didn't want that to be the last page of my book. However, I had to be in the right space for me to continue the story on."

ALLOWING HIMSELF TIME to reset was one thing for Mullen, accepting the new world of college football was another.

In the three years since Mullen left Florida, college football has continued to evolve after the NCAA eliminated a rule in April 2021 that required transfers to sit out a year at their new university. That same year, it became legal for players to make money through NIL deals.

Being near the game allowed Mullen to better understand what he was getting into. "I think seeing the frustration on [coaches'] faces when we sit in a lot of those meetings ... It helped me understand [players leaving your program] that's going to happen."

Mullen admitted he still didn't want anyone to leave his program after spring ball, but conceded it would likely happen.

"The initial feeling ... is, 'How can you do that?' That's a five-second feeling that I immediately swallow and say, 'You got back in understanding that's the new game.' It is what it is. Guess what? It gives you an opportunity. I guess if this guy's going to leave, let's get on the computer and go find somebody else. It's not the end of the world. It's part of the deal."

"And so it gets you instead of the, 'Boy. It's hurting the team, and it's hurting this.' It gets you back to why we're in this. I hope it's the best decision for the kids.'"

Mullen understands that players are going to consider money, especially given how much of it is involved in college athletics. "They should get a cut of it, and they should have an opportunity to profit when they are profitable."

But, he added, "Whatever you want to call them -- they are getting paid now -- student-athletes or not, they're still college-age kids. Let's still help continue to give them the guidance. ... Let's not throw out all of the guidance and structure that we're helping give young people."

When he decided to take the UNLV job, he knew he needed someone alongside him who had been in the game while he wasn't, understood him, and was someone he could trust. That's why, when he was considering the gig, he texted Davis to ask for her commitment as his chief of staff.

Mullen and Davis go back -- he gave Davis her first job out of grad school from Alabama, bringing her on as a recruiting assistant at Mississippi State. She worked in Starkville with Mullen until he was hired at Florida, where he brought her to Gainesville as the director of recruiting operations.

It wasn't long until it was clear that Mullen had found the perfect person for the job.

"He was overwhelmed," Davis said of Mullen's early days at UNLV. "And I'm like, 'Hey, listen, you have two things you got to do right now. You need to hire staff, but you need to hire the right people, because you want a good staff, a staff that fits. And then two, you got to find a quarterback, because that's the most important. You're not going to win without a great quarterback."

Mullen did both, gradually building his staff with both veteran and younger coaches, and nabbing former Virginia quarterback Anthony Colandrea out of the transfer portal, along with former Michigan quarterback Alex Orji.

For as much as the transfer portal can be a pain for coaches, it filled out his quarterback room, and then some. Despite being out of the game for a few years, Mullen was plenty familiar with the talent he could bring in.

"Either calling games, and sitting in studio with every college football game on and having to talk about it, I got to watch a lot of guys play this year. So I knew a lot of the players."

For example, Mullen called one of Colandrea's games in 2023, against Louisville.

In some cases, there are guys still playing college football whom Mullen recruited years ago. Outside linebacker Chief Borders played for Mullen at Florida, and had seasons at Nebraska and Pitt, before deciding to finish his career with Mullen in Las Vegas.

Mullen is confident he will make things work at UNLV. He doesn't need the inherent benefits afforded to coaches at the biggest programs. He coached at Utah when it was in the Mountain West and, before that, at Bowling Green.

"I haven't just been at schools with unlimited resources," he said. "So I have to go back and say, 'Hey, you know what? I was a young offensive coordinator and a quarterback coach and a young offensive mind at one point.' And Urban Meyer was a young head coach that took a chance on me and said, 'Let's get going and see what we can create, yeah?' So, think that way. We did pretty well for ourselves."

Harper likens Mullen's experience and approach to the hospitality industry in Las Vegas.

"It's constantly reinventing itself, it's constantly being innovative and creative," Harper said. "You're not going to see the same thing every day."

THE VIEW FROM Dan Mullen's office is second only to one.

"They tell me that Bill Hornbuckle, president of MGM, is the only one that might have a better office than I do in the city of Las Vegas," Mullen said.

It's a stunning view of the Strip. If you're sitting at his desk, the MGM Grand is at your far left, with the Sphere being the period at the end of the sentence on the right. For a coach who just spent the last few years learning how to put a good show on television, being in this town feels appropriate.

Mullen has happily leaned into the Las Vegas of it all. "It's a very different vibe than coaching in the SEC," he said. "It's a totally different feel."

He points to the team's leadership committee. It holds competitions where the first- and second-place team get awards, and the bottom two teams have to do community service to make up for points they missed.

"There's a lot of schools in the country like, 'OK, your reward these two weeks is pick a great restaurant in town.' Well, I mean, basically there's one or two restaurants they're going to go to," Mullen explains.

"Here, guys are at the UFC championship fight. This week, they're going to David Blaine the illusionist. They're going to Tao restaurant. They're going on helicopter tours of the city. You can't do that other places."

UNLV couldn't have their spring game at Allegiant Stadium because of WrestleMania. "The benefit is, our players get to go to WrestleMania. The negative is it's actually in our stadium," Mullen laughed, "so we can't have the spring game that day."

Mullen views Las Vegas itself as a major selling point in the transfer portal era.

"You're not going to walk on campus and get a feel that you're in a Deep South school with lined-up fraternity and sorority houses everywhere. But there's an awful lot going on in this town that guys are excited about, and there's a lot for them to do. You're at a city campus with the city with everything going on. Players think it's the coolest thing in the world that they get to [feel] like a pro athlete in a big city."

The setting also takes pressure off a coach who is used to the most pressure that college football has to offer.

"What I'm learning, if you win here, they love you. You are it. If you lose, they just don't really care, because there's a bunch of other things for them to go do."

But just because the pressure isn't as extreme doesn't mean Mullen is letting off the gas. He wants to make UNLV football a perennial contender, and he wants to establish a very specific identity that will resonate anywhere.

"I have my normal deal, play with relentless effort, passion for the game, you know, and a team that reaches its potential every day," Mullen explained.

But there's an old moniker that Mullen is trying to earn within the football program that won't just resonate with Las Vegas, but with sports fans across the country.

"If I leave and I go to the East Coast and I say 'Runnin' Rebels,' you know exactly who I'm talking about -- everybody does. That is a brand. Unfortunately, it's a brand that kind of lost its [luster after] the early '90s with Coach Tark."

"But there's no fogginess to who the Runnin' Rebels are. I want that brand back on the gridiron. You're going to turn on [the game] and it's showtime on the football field, you're going to watch a high-flying offense, a team that's letting it go, guys having a great time up and down the field, defense that is going to come after you."

"I want us, in the sports and entertainment capital of the world, to be the best show in town."