Athlon Sports grades coaching hire of Dan Mullen at UNLV

One of the more interesting hires of the college football offseason was Dan Mullen taking over the UNLV Rebels. After spending a couple of seasons at ESPN, Steven Lassan of Athlon Sports believes the former SEC leader can be an effective tactician once again.

He graded the hire of Mullen an A while evaluating each and every coach in a new place for 2025: “After going 20-8 the past two seasons, UNLV is well-positioned to take that next step. Known for his prolific offenses, Mullen has two (mostly) successful head-coaching stints on his résumé,” Lassan wrote.

“From 2009-17, he won 69 games at Mississippi State (one of the hardest jobs in the SEC). And from 2018-21, Mullen went 34-15 at Florida, with one appearance in the SEC Championship Game.”

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While Mullen has mostly coached on the East Coast during his career, with the brief exception of a stop at Utah, he had no qualms about taking over at UNLV. Most recently, that was as the head coach at Florida and before that Mississippi State.

As Lassan alluded to, Mullen compiled a 103-61 record and six AP-Top 25 finishes over his coaching career. However, a difficult finish at Florida led to him taking the analyst job at ESPN. Along the way, those experiences also gave him the chance to see how good things are at UNLV compared to other schools.

“I was pretty fortunate. I came out here two years ago for the College Football Hall of Fame induction, and I think it was Tim [Tebow] who was getting in, and I came over to the facility and I was just blown away. When I got to Florida, so four years ago, when I was at Florida, they have nothing like this. I mean, we blow them out of the water facility-wise,” Mullen said, via CFB with DP earlier this offseason.

“So, I was like, hold on, we have facilities, we play in Allegiant Stadium with the Raiders, like this place is just set up, and Barry Odom has come in and won double-digit games the last two years and we were a game away from getting a first round bye in the College Football Playofflast year. I said I’m not walking into a place that needs a giant rebuild. I’m walking into a place that needs to take the next step, and there’s a lot in place to make that happen.”

Under Odom, UNLV had two excellent seasons, going 19-8 overall and going to two bowl games. That was a bit of an outlier among UNLV seasons overall, though.

Prior to Odom, it had been nine seasons since the Rebels went to a bowl game. That one bowl, the 2013 Heart of Dallas Bowl, was their only bowl for a 22-season stretch. Despite those benefits that Mullen praised, there hasn’t been historic success at UNLV. Still, it is possible to win there and he believes he can do just that. 

Time will tell if he’s able to. Regardless, there’s plenty of believers in Dan Mullen at UNLV. Perhaps it’s the start of something special for the Rebels.

— On3’s Dan Morrison contributed to this article.