Dan Mullen Vs. Josh Pastner: Which New UNLV Coach Will Have The Better Year 1?

The UNLV Rebels athletic director Erick Harper made two massive head coaching hires this offseason. UNLV brought in former SEC head coach Dan Mullen in to lead the Rebels football team and former ACC head coach Josh Pastner in to take over the Runnin' Rebels men's basketball team. Harper managed to lure both big-name coaches out of TV studio jobs to come back to coaching jobs. Both coaches were poached from ESPN. While we expect both coaches to have a bright future in Las Vegas, which one will have better first season as a head coach at UNLV. 

Josh Pastner

Pastner last coached for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets during the 2022 - 2023. It doesn't seem like the 38 year old needed anytime to get back in the flow of things. He immediately hit the ground running after accepting the head coaching job. After a mass exodus of key Rebels to the transfer portal after the firing of former head coach Kevin Kruger, Pastner hit the transfer portal hard and did an incredible job reloading the UNLV roster. What looked like a potentially disastrous rebuild in Vegas, Pastner quickly turned into a potentially incredible reload.

Dan Mullen

Mullen brings a National Championship culture to UNLV from his days as the offensive coordinator for the Florida Gators where we was eventually named the head coach. We haven't seen him on the sidelines since 2021. He takes over a program that former head coach Barry Odom has built up and taken to back-to-back Mountain West Conference Championship Games. While he did manage to prevent a flood to the transfer portal, he did lose a ton of all-time great Rebels like Mountain West Special Teams Player of the Year wide receiver Ricky White, Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year linebacker Jackson Woodard, quarterback Hajj-Malik Williams, and numerous other great players. Like Pastner, Mullen hit the transfer portal hard and dominated it, immediately putting the roster in a much better place than it looked like it was going to be in when he took over. 

At the end of the day, Mullen should have the better first season in 2025 - 2026. He took over the better program and has the better roster. While Pastner did as good a job as he could have possibly done, it's still going to take a few years to get the Runnin' Rebels basketball squad to where he wants it to be. The football team has a legitimate chance to take a huge next step and win the Mountain West Conference this season if they can get by the Boise State Broncos. 

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