UNLV Rebels Head Coach Dan Mullen: 'I Had Nothing Like This At Florida'

Dan Mullen took over the head coaching job for the UNLV Rebels football team this past offseason. Prior to that, he had a TV gig working for ESPN. He recently spoke to Yahoo Sports' Dan Wolken about how his break from coaching gave him a fresh perspective on a very different college football landscape, and why he decided to take the job at UNLV.

UNLV Rebels Head Coach Dan Mullen On How Coming Back To Coaching With A New Perspective Helped Him Adjust To A Changing College Football Landscape

“If I was still coaching in the SEC right now, I don't know if I would have been able to adjust to the change of portal and NIL as I have now by being away from it,” Mullen said. “How you ran your program, how you're used to doing things, how I want it — like, how I did it at Mississippi State doesn't exist anymore. It just doesn’t exist..

To be like, hey, we're kind of running the program this way and then next year, we're going to change how we're running things, that's not an easy adjustment to make. You've seen some people be successful at it, right? And some struggle … [Old ESPN colleagues] laugh at me and say, ‘It's the midpoint in the season, like, most people look miserable.’ But I'm still having fun because I came into it with a new perspective of how I'm going to run the program differently, so I have a little better understanding of maybe the new world.”

Mullen On Why He Decided To Coach At UNLV

“I wanted a place where I didn't have to start from scratch. I mean, I had nothing like this at Florida. I built one of these at Florida, right? I had to. I got there, raised every penny, and built the whole facility. There is nothing like this there. And so, like, I don't want to go somewhere where I just start from scratch. When you come here and you look at Allegiant Stadium, check. You come through this facility and you're like, check, we have a premier facility, especially at our level.

You just had to come in here and win. I always wondered why UNLV hadn’t won. You can always kind of point a finger, but in today’s world, a lot of the reasons that it was harder don’t exist anymore. I wanted the opportunity to be able to win right away, and until this past weekend, we’ve been OK.”