Daily briefing: On Dan Mullen, the coaching carousel and the ACC Atlantic

Ivan Maisel’s “Daily Briefing” for On3:

Forget semantics: Dan Mullen was fired

The press release from Florida didn’t say the university was firing fourth-year coach Dan Mullen but that they were “parting ways,” which sounds like they were dating and the university got tired of him leaving his dishes in the sink. I’m pretty sure Florida fired him, and the most surprising thing is no one is surprised. We all accept a one-season freefall as grounds for spending $12 million to have the bouncer toss Mullen out of the Swamp. It is more complicated than that. The team stopped playing for him. Recruiting is down. And Georgia has set a standard in the SEC East that Florida isn’t close to matching. It’s a backhanded compliment to Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart. That Florida didn’t give Mullen a chance to fix what he broke is a sign of the times.

Coaching carousel déjà vu

USC, LSU, Florida and Washington have coaching vacancies, and it’s been 16 years since we’ve seen that many marquee jobs open in the same hiring season. In fact, the 2005 list is almost identical. All you have to do is swap out USC for Notre Dame. That’s the year Florida hired Urban Meyer, LSU hired Les Miles, Washington hired Tyrone Willingham and Notre Dame hired Charlie Weis. Two schools succeeded, if the measure of success is a national title, and two didn’t. Which sounds about right. For every game a coach wins, another coach loses.

An interesting division race

Wake Forest has lost two of its past three games; the Demon Deacons still can clinch the ACC Atlantic Division with a victory Saturday at Boston College. The Eagles are not an easy out, and the Deacs must pick themselves up and refocus after an emotionally difficult loss at Clemson on Saturday. The Tigers have only a remote chance at extending their streak of division titles to seven years. Clemson needs Wake and NC State (vs. North Carolina) to lose. But the Tigers played against the Deacs as if they needed to remind the ACC, and maybe themselves, who they are.