Dec 9

Dec 9 2022 Purdue Football Coaching Search - Dan Mullen

2022

Feature image from Kim Klement/USA TODAY Sports

Who Is He?

Dan Mullen is the former head coach of the Florida Gators and Mississippi State Bulldogs - a guy from the northeast who spent most of his professional coaching career in the south.

Mullen worked his way up the coaching ranks, leaping from northeastern FCS teams to be a position and schematics coach at Syracuse, Notre Dame, and linking with Urban Meyer’s Bowling Green before hopping to Utah - where Mullen would begin his reputation as a QB wizard.

He helped Alex Smith’s Utah team go undefeated in the 2004 season, resulting in Smith being drafted #1 overall and Mullen serving as the Interim HC for Utah’s Fiesta Bowl victory. He’d follow Meyer to Florida and worked as Offensive Coordinator and QB Coach for one Tim Tebow, who put together one of the greatest college football careers of all time. Not bad.

After Florida’s 2008 National Championship, Mullen was named Head Coach for Mississippi State - a moribund SEC program that had SEC stature and fan support but needed some injection of life (sound familiar?). And Mullen responded by putting together Mississippi State’s best 9-year stretch of football in its 125-year history. Mullen averaged 7.5 wins per year at MSU, going 69-46 (33-39 in the SEC) and reaching bowl games in every year except his first. All of this while constantly leaning into his reputation as QB whisperer and pass-first offensive wizard while developing future-NFL QB Dak Prescot.

As Florida was looking to rebound from its mediocre post-Meyer era (shoutout Will Muschamp and Jim McElwain), they tapped back into their history, swallowed their pride, and plucked Mississippi State’s head coach and their former glory days OC to lead their program again.

But that’s the thing about the old days - they’re the old days.

Mullen was perfectly Mullen - high-octane offenses leading to above-average wins…but minimal recruiting infrastructure and not quite the machine that Florida was hoping for. After 10- and 11-win seasons in his first two years, and a very strange 8-4 record in a very strange 2020 year, Florida’s 5-6 record in 2021 was enough to earn Mullen the boot.

But he’s a brilliant offensive mind, and a very entertaining speaker - perfect for his current gig as ESPN college football studio analyst, where he seems to be having a ball.

Why would he be successful at Purdue?

An ornery, pass-first schematic wizard who doesn’t like recruiting but loves maximizing the skill and speed of players on roster to fuel upsets? Mullen is all the best and worst parts of Joe Tiller and Danny Hope rolled into one looking-for-employment head coach, and would lean into Purdue’s history and Spoilermaker reputation as well as any realistic target on the BS Search Firm’s list.

Purdue fans shouldn’t look to his Florida years to find a model for success - they should look to Mississippi State, which might be Purdue’s closest football analogue in the SEC. He was (relatively) wildly successful leading Starkville’s program, and assuming he still has that magic up his sleeve he could be a perfect ~2004esque Tiller fit at Purdue.

Why could he flop at Purdue?

He got fired at Florida because he was not at all an interested recruiter - he didn’t put in the required effort, and wasn’t interested in the transfer market (even as it was two years ago).

Clearly, the high school and transfer recruiting job at Purdue isn’t anywhere close to the ask at Florida - it’s closer to the ask from his previous employer, Mississippi State. But in this era, not being willing to constantly recruit and turn over your roster means instant death in the Big Ten. As Tiller’s final Purdue years showed us (even way back then), all scheme and minimal recruiting can only close the Big Ten gap but so much.

Would he come to Purdue?

He’s getting $12M from his Florida buyout (my dream job) and has a lucrative contract as an in-studio analyst at ESPN, which he seems to be enjoying quite a bit (and he’s very good!).

That being said, these coaches are mostly sick puppies that need to be seen as an active Football Coach Big Man. As I laid out on the Jim Leonhard post, Dan Mullen would fit squarely into the retread coach list - closer to the “waystation paycheck job for recently fired old coaches” category than the Grizzled Coaching Veterans Looking for One Last Job category (Dino Babers, Dave Clawson, Willie Fritz).

He likely would wear out his welcome at Purdue - but if offered a big paycheck and the chance to reclaim that Head Coach title at a Power 2 program, I think he’d jump at it, and would be the best possible option on the Wayward Coach list.

It’s not quite what I’d want, but he could be the best recycled unemployed coaching option available.