Mullen Seemingly Takes Shot at Facilities Situation While with Gators

LAS VEGAS -- There's no question that Dan Mullen's time as the Florida Gators head coach from 2018-21 came with plenty of highs and plenty of lows. Now, over three years since he was fired, Mullen, now the head coach at UNLV, took the time to compare the facilities situation he has now with the Rebels versus his four years at Florida.

"The facility here blows away anything that was at Florida when I left," Mullen told ESPN's Harry Lyles Jr. "I didn't want to have to come into a program that you had to build from the ground up. We have a great stadium in Allegiant Stadium. We were a game away from the College Football Playoff last year.

"So when you're starting to check boxes, you know? Facilities? Check. Stadium? Check. Opportunity to win a championship immediately? Check. Great place to live? Check. Really good schools for my kids, I want my family to grow up here? Check."

Mullen isn't necessarily wrong, either.

UF hadn't opened is standalone football facility, the Heavener Football Training Center, until August of 2022, almost nine months after Mullen had been fired. The facility was under construction for the back half of Mullen's tenure.

Still, Mullen's comments remind everyone of what was a sudden ending of a rollercoaster tenure.

After back-to-back 10-win seasons with a New Years Six Bowl win in each year, Mullen's time leading the program began to unravel in a now-infamous 2020 season and carried over to a disappointing 2021 season.

Although the Gators had a Heisman Trophy finalist in quarterback Kyle Trask and the nation's best tight end in Kyle Pitts in that 2020 season, a multi-year combination poor defense, refusal to make necessary staff changes, poor recruiting and, of course, a thrown cleat from Marco Wilson in 2020 eventually led to Florida going 5-9 over Mullen's last 14 games.

There were also the off-field gaffs that fans took exceptions with, which included a comment on recruiting after the Gators were blown out by Georgia during the 2021 season.

"We're in the season now. We'll do recruiting after the season. When it gets to recruiting time, we can talk about recruiting," Mullen said at the time.

The response was immediate, and fans were quick to express their displeasure with Mullen. In four recruiting classes with Florida, Mullen did have two classes ranked inside the top 10. However, those classes had failed to match the levels of other SEC schools such as Georgia and Alabama, and it didn't help that Florida had multiple high-profile recruits either transfer or fail to even make it on campus.

Mullen's Chief of Staff at UNLV, Lee Davis, disagreed with the sentiment that Mullen didn't take recruiting seriously. Davis had worked with Mullen in various roles dating back to his time as Mississippi State's head coach, including as his director of recruiting at Florida.

"I've worked at two other places since I've left him, I know nobody works harder at recruiting than he does," Davis said. "What he was trying to say -- he wanted to talk football that day and didn't want to talk about recruiting, but people took it as he doesn't recruit."

Now, both Florida and Mullen are moving on since their sudden divorce. The Gators enter year four of the Billy Napier era as a playoff dark horse after an 8-5 campaign a year ago, while Mullen enters year one at UNLV as a Group of Five playoff contender.

"I don't like how it finished at Florida. I didn't want that to be the last page of my book," Mullen said. "However, I had to be in the right space for me to continue the story on."

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