Another Power 5 coaching carousel came and went, and Dan Mullen still hasn’t gotten back into the fray. Early speculation about a possible Mississippi State reunion came and went, as did the possibility of the former Florida coach replacing Dino Babers at Syracuse.

Mullen is winding down the end of his second year as a college football analyst for ESPN. He spent much of that time alongside anchor and play-by-play announcer Matt Barrie, both doing ESPN Thursday Night Primetime games for the network, as well as the studio show “College Football Final” each fall Saturday.

Barrie has had fun with the Mullen speculation. In addition to his tongue-in-cheek #MullenTracker tweets, Barrie calls himself Mullen’s “chief of staff.”

“Anytime something comes up, we’ll be in studio and I’ll say (to Mullen), ‘Like, you know, as your chief of staff, I would encourage you not to take that job … as your chief of staff, let’s look at that job I would be you know.’ So we joke around about it, so I’m his chief of staff, and I’ll know what jobs he wants. I know what jobs he knows are good,” Barrie said on a recent episode of The Saturday Down South Podcast. “But as of right now in this cycle, I think he is fully committed to the University of ESPN for another year.”

It certainly appears that Mullen isn’t in a hurry to get back into coaching at the college level. He’s been vocal about the quality of life issues associated with the year-round recruiting calendar. But still, I asked Barrie about what could get Mullen back into coaching, not on the college side, but perhaps with a move to the NFL.

“Let’s just say that one of (Mullen’s) former players was now a pretty prominent coordinator in the NFL who would get a head coaching gig in the NFL, and then said, ‘Hey, I need ya to come with me. Let’s call some ball plays,’” Barrie said. “Let’s say that happened … maybe that would be his indoctrination in.”

The obvious person who fits that description is Eagles offensive coordinator Brian Johnson.

Not only was Mullen his quarterbacks coach during his freshman season at Utah back in 2004, but Johnson spent 6 seasons on his offensive staff both at Mississippi State and at Florida, where he became the Gators’ first Black offensive coordinator in 2020. In 2021, Johnson left Florida to become the Philadelphia Eagles quarterbacks coach and this past offseason, he was promoted to the OC position after Shane Steichan became the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts.

This year, Johnson helped the Eagles to a 10-1 start and has become a popular name to get his first NFL head coaching job. If that were to happen, could Johnson hire Mullen to be his offensive play-caller? Barrie had a tongue-in-cheek response to that question.

“So that’s what you put together? I was just giving you hypotheticals, but if that’s what you came away with that…” Barrie said.

Could Johnson and Mullen reunite in the NFL in 2024? Stay tuned.