Former Florida HC Takes Shot at Program's Lack of Success After He was Fired

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The Florida Gators have been searching for a head coach that can lead them back to the national championship ever since Urban Meyer stepped down. 

The best coach since Meyer stepped down is arguably Dan Mullen (who was an assistant under Meyer with Florida from 2005 to 2008), who went 34-15 in his four years with the program.

During an appearance on the "Paul Finebaum Show" on Wednesday, Mullen argued that had the 12-team College Football Playoff format been around when he was at Florida, the program would have likely made an appearance a couple of times.

Mullen noted Florida hasn't been as good since he was fired after a 5-6 season in 2021.

“And I think maybe if the Playoff era was around, I think three out of my four years, we would have made the College Football Playoff," Mullen said, via a transcription from On3.

"Maybe that would have looked a little bit different back then with the resume, of keeping me around a little bit longer to try to go win that national title. But hey, it is what it is. Probably hasn’t gone as well there since I left, it doesn’t seem like."

The Gators went 10-3 in 2018, 11-2 in 2019, and 8-4 in 2020. They were ranked inside the Top 10 during all three of their bowl games for those seasons.

Mullen noted that even though Florida won a lot of games when he was there, the Gators didn't do what was necessary for him to keep his job: winning championships.

"At Florida, they expect championships," Mullen said. "I was at Florida as an assistant coach who won two national titles. That’s the standard. That was the standard when I got there. We got to an SEC championship game, fell a couple of points short to Alabama. 

"But our standard from the day I got there was championships. We weren’t able to come through, even though we fell a couple of points short on winning the SEC Championship, and going to compete for national championships."

Mullen went 10-4 in his first season with UNLV last season. He appears to have the Rebels on the rise in the Mountain West and could push for a CFP appearance with a conference championship at UNLV. 

The Gators hope their new hire Jon Sumrall can bring the program an SEC championship and CFP appearance in the near future, and erase the bad taste from the post-Mullen era.

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