UNLV athletic director Erick Harper sat in his office inside the Thomas & Mack Center with his administrative team compiling a short list of coaches. Dan Mullen was atop it. Harper soon pitched the idea on a golf course in the community Mullen now lives in, and four days later, Mullen called to say he was in. Mullen signed a five-year, $17.5 million contract on Dec. 12.<\/p>\n
\u201cI watch ESPN every day,\u201d Harper said. \u201cYou could see the passion of football was still in him \u2014\u00a0it was just a matter of whether or not he wanted to do it again.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Dan Mullen has been an active ambassador for UNLV football since his arrival. (Courtesy of UNLV Athletics)<\/p>\n
Mullen toiled with that conundrum for much of the past three years.<\/p>\n
The 17 straight years working in the pressure-cooked SEC took a toll, culminating in his firing as Florida\u2019s head coach in November 2021 near the end of a 6-7 season.<\/p>\n
Mullen had returned to Florida in 2018 as head coach, aiming to continue the success of his first round with the Gators, winning two BCS national championships as offensive coordinator under Urban Meyer. He left behind the program he\u2019d built at Mississippi State, where he became a head coach for the first time in 2009 and went 69-46, taking the Bulldogs to a No. 1 ranking in 2014.<\/p>\n
He went 29-9 in his first three years at UF and 34-15 overall, but was often criticized by the fan base for not recruiting to the levels needed to be a consistent contender. Often brash and unapologetic, Mullen got the Gators to within an onside kick of beating eventual undefeated 2020 national champion Alabama in the SEC title game. No other team in the country went blow-for-blow with the Crimson Tide like the Gators that year, Mullen\u2019s team lost 52-46.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a national championship team that year,\u201d Mullen said in retrospect.<\/p>\n
But he also riled up his fan base by rueing the size of the crowds at The Swamp in the middle of the pandemic, jawed with Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz and leaned into the Halloween spirit in October 2020 by attending the postgame news conference dressed as the ultimate villain, Darth Vader. Mullen said while the 2020 season was his most talented team at Florida, playing a college football season in the middle of a pandemic was the most taxing of his life. The 41-17 win over Missouri on Halloween night that year was the program\u2019s first game in three weeks after an outbreak of COVID-19 forced the program to shutter.<\/p>\n
Vader Mullen was an attempt, he said, to remind his players that football is supposed to be and can be fun, even with once-in-a-lifetime stresses percolating. A little more than a year later, Mullen was out. Florida paid the remaining $12 million on his contract that, five months prior, was extended by Gators athletic director Scott Stricklin.<\/p>\n
Does Mullen have regrets about how his Florida tenure ended?<\/p>\n
\u201cRegret is an interesting word,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t like how it ended. I didn\u2019t know whether I was going to get back into coaching. I\u2019m in a much better headspace than where I was when I left Florida. I feel very fortunate that I get to maybe rewrite the ending. I don\u2019t like the current ending.\u201d<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t going to take a lot of money or guarantees to even consider coaching again: A familiar flame had to be ignited deep inside him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re in the SEC for as long as I was, you get to where it feels like everything is life and death,\u201d Mullen said. \u201c(Football) doesn\u2019t need to consume every second of your life. The neat thing about being in this town is people will make you feel that way. They\u2019ve said, \u2018So excited for you, good luck, we\u2019re pulling for you.\u2019 In Florida, it was like, \u2018Hey, you better win.\u2019 In the SEC, if you win, it\u2019s like, \u2018Hey, good job.\u2019 If you lose, it\u2019s like you walked into someone\u2019s house and kicked their dog.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mullen exhaled and took a few seconds to answer if the joy of coaching had vanished entirely at the end of 2021.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was becoming a job,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was hard. If I had stayed at Florida, I don\u2019t know if I would still be coaching today.\u201d<\/p>\n
The split was acrimonious, but still, his office is littered with highlights of his time at Florida, Mississippi State, Utah and other stops. Mullen does not want to erase the past. Without it, he wouldn\u2019t be in the same patented visor scheming up plays. Instead, he is thankful that his step back came when it did.<\/p>\n
During production meetings with coaches in recent years, Mullen said he saw coaches look as deflated as ever as the confluence of name, image and likeness and the transfer portal allowed for tumultuous roster turnover. Opting not to name names, Mullen said several well-known coaches told him they wished they had his job. Rather than being thrust further into the ongoing change, Mullen analyzed it all in real time in front of a camera.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t have to go through the transition on a daily basis and just get beaten down by it,\u201d Mullen said. \u201cI had a coach call me and say, \u2018Wait until you develop a kid for two years, and one day he walks into your office and demands money or says I\u2019m gone. It\u2019s hard to even function, Dan.\u2019 Now, if I accept that as a reality before I get back in, I\u2019m mentally prepared for it all. And it starts with: \u2018Why do you want to leave?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Mullen says he does not fault any player who may stroll into his office and say Team-X offered money to move. Every player\u2019s situation is unique. Mullen said one of the tenets of his UNLV Rebels is to avoid attrition. He believes the program currently has the financial backing from donors to keep it that way.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do we make this run like a big-time program on the budget we have?\u201d he said. \u201cThe benefit I\u2019ve had in my coaching career is I played D-III ball. I\u2019ve coached (FCS) football. I\u2019ve coached in the Ivy League. I\u2019ve coached at the highest level, like Florida, and I\u2019ve coached at Mississippi State, where you don\u2019t have the same budget as everybody else. So, how am I competing against people I\u2019m competing against?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mullen relies on his history of developing star talents like Alex Smith, Tim Tebow, Dak Prescott and Anthony Richardson to help sell the football side of the conversation before the NIL component comes into play.<\/p>\n
Since his hiring, UNLV has landed 36 transfers in the portal, according to 247Sports, highlighted by former Michigan quarterback Alex Orji and former Virginia quarterback Anthony Colandrea. Orji split time as Michigan\u2019s starter last season. Colandrea arrives as a more seasoned starter after two years at Virginia.<\/p>\n
One of the newcomers is a player first introduced to Mullen when he was in eighth grade: outside linebacker Chief Borders, who signed with UNLV in January. Borders went to Florida to play for Mullen, but transferred to Nebraska in 2023 and then Pitt in 2024. When he found out Mullen was taking the UNLV job, he reached out to his old coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cScratch everything else,\u201d Borders said. \u201cI\u2019m going out the same way I came in. That\u2019s with coach Mullen. He\u2019s evolved. My coach hasn\u2019t stopped growing, because he\u2019s taken it up a notch from where he was to where he is now.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of Mullen\u2019s oldest friends, longtime NFL defensive coordinator Paul Guenther, opted to join him. The two played together at Division III Ursinus College, roughly an hour north of Philadelphia, in the early 1990s and were roommates for three years in college.<\/p>\n
Originally hired to be the safeties coach, Guenther accepted the defensive coordinator position this spring after former Mississippi State coach Zach Arnett resigned for personal reasons.<\/p>\n
Guenther said Mullen\u2019s time at ESPN not only helped him recharge his coaching batteries, but also allowed him to get an outsider\u2019s perspective at how other programs are run all over the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s energized, I think he sees that this thing can be a really unique opportunity,\u201d Guenther said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s why I\u2019m here, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
It takes Mullen exactly 16 minutes to get from his new home south of the hubbub of The Strip to his personalized parking spot outside the football complex.<\/p>\n
He took his daughter, Breelyn, to see Carrie Underwood for her 13th birthday. He\u2019s seen Darius Rucker in concert. He\u2019s cranked the siren at a Las Vegas Golden Knights hockey game. And he\u2019s already been in touch with friend and country music icon Kenny Chesney, who has a 15-show residency this summer at The Sphere, about having use of the football complex gym. Chesney, Mullen deadpanned, \u201chas been fingerprinted and everything\u201d so that he has unfettered access.<\/p>\n
Only in Vegas.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a city where everything you could possibly want is at your fingertips. Not to mention it\u2019s in the middle of a professional sports boom, soon adding Major League Baseball\u2019s former Oakland Athletics to a mix including the NHL\u2019s Golden Knights, WNBA\u2019s Aces, and, of course, the NFL\u2019s Raiders. UNLV plays its home games inside Allegiant Stadium, home of the Raiders. The success Odom cultivated at UNLV in such a short time was one of the many reasons Mullen even considered leaving life in front of the camera at ESPN.<\/p>\n
If he was going to have a coaching revival, it was going to be at a school that had the structure to succeed. It starts with the facility he called better than any home base he\u2019s had, even in the SEC. The Rebels have won 19 combined games the past two years and have been on the doorstep of winning a MWC title outright in consecutive years, only to come up short against the conference\u2019s alpha, Boise State.<\/p>\n
Great energy, great attitude, & great football. pic.twitter.com\/ZAbWFLDLtK<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 UNLV Football (@unlvfootball) April 24, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n As Mullen put it, he\u2019s taking over a team that was one game away from the College Football Playoff a year ago.<\/p>\n \u201cThis city\u2019s waking up to big-time college football,\u201d Mullen said. \u201cIf you\u2019ve never experienced big-time college football, which up until recently the city of Las Vegas has not, you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re missing. The one thing we can have in this city is a lot of support.\u201d<\/p>\n Harper said UNLV football has already sold more season tickets through the first four months of 2025 than it had in all of 2024, when the school averaged 38,393 fans per home game. He credits Mullen\u2019s willingness to engage in a community filled with existing or potential deep-pocketed donors. Mullen\u2019s been out to golf tournaments, mingled with fans at concerts and hockey games and met Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, the only person to give him the \u201cyou better win\u201d speech. Lombardo has bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees from UNLV.<\/p>\n UNLV is banking on Mullen\u2019s gregarious nature and spread offense, which has ranked in the top 10 nationally, to propel the program to heights not yet reached. That would help put a dent in a hefty athletic department deficit, estimated between $26 million to $31 million. Harper drew headlines when he said UNLV could fund only the first two years of Mullen\u2019s contract, before the university walked that back<\/a>.<\/p>\n UNLV is expected to receive between $19 million and $24.8 million from the Mountain West Conference for agreeing to stay when five other schools left for the Pac-12 beginning in 2026. It will need it, as revenue sharing is expected to come to college sports<\/a> with the House v. NCAA settlement.<\/p>\n Mullen and Harper declined to get into the specifics of what UNLV\u2019s NIL budget looks like \u2014 UNLV\u2019s NIL collective, Friends of UNLV, declined to comment. Quarterback Matthew Sluka left in the middle of last season amid an NIL dispute<\/a>.<\/p>\n At a Nevada Board of Regents meeting in March, Harper and other UNLV officials were asked how the university can alleviate financial issues. Harper said it\u2019s simple: Just win.<\/p>\n \u201cWe definitely want to be in the upper echelon of the G5, but also we have to be the best we can possibly be,\u201d he said. \u201cThe same challenge with every institution in the country is always going to be financial. That\u2019s just the matter of the business. To weather the storm, the best way to generate more revenue is to win, and win at a high level consistently.\u201d<\/p>\n In a town like Vegas, all it takes is one breakthrough season to change fortunes. The definition of a breakthrough would be an MWC title and likely the automatic Group of 5 berth to the Playoff.<\/p>\n The expectations are suddenly higher than ever for UNLV football. It\u2019s precisely what Mullen needed a break from after Florida, but it\u2019s also what he knows will help the Rebels get to the promised land.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to create that kind of passion here in this city,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to create that frenzy that then puts all the pressure right back on me.\u201d<\/p>\n (Photo courtesy of UNLV Athletics)<\/p>\n