Dan Mullen reflects on Florida tenure, UF’s struggles after firing
By Andrew Olson
Published:
Dan Mullen’s tenure as Florida head coach ended in disappointment, but he likes to remind people that it wasn’t all bad from 2018-21, especially when compared to 2022-25.
Appearing on The Paul Finebaum Show, Mullen recently looked back on his 4 seasons as the head coach of the Gators.
“We won a lot of games,” Mullen said on the Finebaum Show, per On3. “But you know what? In today’s world, when you’re when you’re at premier schools, you expect to win. At Florida, they expect championships. I was at Florida as an assistant coach who won two national titles. That’s the standard. That was the standard when I got there.
“We got to an SEC Championship Game, fell a couple points short to Alabama. But our standard from the day I got there was championships. We weren’t able to come through, even though we fell a couple points short on on winning the SEC Championship, and going to compete for national championships.”
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Mullen’s 2020 squad fell to eventual national champion Alabama 52-46. It was part of a 3-game losing skid to end the season, and that negative momentum seemingly carried over into 2021. After falling to 5-6 on the season, Mullen was dismissed.
It’s not lost on Mullen that had the 12-team College Football Playoff been around in 2018, the Gators would have enjoyed multiple CFP berths. He almost certainly would have gotten a mulligan for 2021 instead of being shown the door after going 34-15.
“And I think maybe if the Playoff era was around, I think three out of my four years, we would have made the College Football Playoff,” Mullen continued, per On3. “Maybe that would have looked a little bit different back then with the resume, of keeping me around a little bit longer to try to try to go win that national title. But hey, it is what it is. Probably hasn’t gone as well there since I left, it doesn’t seem like.”
After his Florida firing, Mullen took a job with ESPN as an analyst that often had him analyzing the Billy Napier-coached Gators. Napier was also fired in his fourth season, going 22-23 as UF’s head coach.
Mullen, 54, is entering his second season as head coach at UNLV. The Rebels went 10-4 in 2025, dropping the Mountain West Championship Game to Boise State and falling to Ohio in the Frisco Bowl.
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Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaign of Fred Taylor.
