With some hindsight now, Dan Mullen’s tenure as the head coach of the Florida Gators’ football team was pretty successful on paper.
Mullen went 10-3 in his first season in 2018, 11-2 in the second, 8-4 in his third, and then was fired after sliding to 5-6 in his fourth year. From 2018 through 2020, Florida finished the season in a New Year’s Six bowl game and in the top 15 of the Associated Press Top 25 Poll
Was it fair for Florida to fire Mullen that early, after that lousy 2021 campaign where the Gators underachieved? Maybe, maybe not.
But Mullen apparently still thinks that he was done wrong by Florida and should’ve gotten more time.
During Florida’s season-opening double-digit loss at home on Saturday to rival Miami, Mullen retweeted a post from his ESPN colleague Matt Barrie that read: “The Florida coach that got fired went to three consecutive new years six games in his first three years. And was let go in his 4th season.”
To quote Shaboozey, "Oh my. Good Lord." pic.twitter.com/mjzRBfEI5s
— Connor O'Gara (@cjogara) August 31, 2024
Mullen hasn’t coached since getting fired by Florida. One could make the case that he won big in his first two seasons with players he didn’t recruit, ones left over from the Jim McElwain era, and that the 2021 season where the wheels began to fall off was a sign of Mullen’s inability to recruit talented players on his own (something Kirby Smart once not so subtly alluded to).
But results are results. And Mullen went 34-15 at Florida and won a Peach Bowl and an Orange Bowl. And it’s easy to argue that’s been the most successful coaching tenure at Florida in the past 50 years by someone not named Urban Meyer or Steve Spurrier.
In the nearly three years since Mullen’s firing, Billy Napier is off to an 11-15 start.
Oh, and Mullen never lost to Florida State or Miami.
