Dan Mullen explains why he accepted UNLV job rather than staying at ESPN

UNLV Rebels head coach Dan Mullen had options. His name had been circulated in several coaching searches and he was working at ESPN as an analyst at the time. So, it took a special opportunity to draw him to Las Vegas for the next stage of his career.

Mullen recently appeared on CFB with DP. There, he broke down what makes UNLV a special job and why he took it instead of staying with ESPN as an analyst.

“As my wife said, when we retired with this kind of good TV job, living at Reynolds on Lake Oconee,” Dan Mullen said. “And she’s like, yeah, and now we’re packing up and moving the family to Las Vegas. She’s like you’ve turned down a lot of jobs, you’ve gotten a lot of calls, why this one? I just — again, looking at the makeup of today’s college football world, and I’ve always thought UNLV is a sleeping giant, I really have. You have a great city. There’s football talent here in the city of Las Vegas. It’s a four-hour drive to Phoenix, three-hour drive to LA. You can draw that circle where kids can get here and you have a great recruiting area to go get players. You have a city that offers everything.”

Dan Mullen has, with the brief exception of a stop at Utah, coached on the East Coast. Most recently, that was as the head coach at Florida and before that Mississippi State, both SEC schools. Along the way, he compiled a 103-61 record and six AP-Top 25 finishes. However, a difficult finish at Florida led to him taking the analyst job at ESPN. Along the way, those experiences also gave him the chance to see how good things are at UNLV compared to other schools.

“I was pretty fortunate. I came out here two years ago for the College Football Hall of Fame induction, and I think it was Tim [Tebow] who was getting in, and I came over to the facility and I was just blown away. When I got to Florida, so four years ago, when I was at Florida, they have nothing like this. I mean, we blow them out of the water facility-wise,” Mullen said.

“So, I was like, hold on, we have facilities, we play in Allegiant Stadium with the Raiders, like this place is just set up, and Barry Odom has come in and won double-digit games the last two years and we were a game away from getting a first round bye in the College Football Playoff last year. I said I’m not walking into a place that needs a giant rebuild. I’m walking into a place that needs to take the next step, and there’s a lot in place to make that happen.”

One of the keys to the UNLV job is its location in Las Vegas. That’s something that Dan Mullen plans on embracing and already has as a place to live and now recruit.

“I’m a big fan,” Mullen said. “I love the city of Las Vegas. I think it’s an awesome place. Especially, a lot of people associate Vegas with the strip, that one little area. You get outside the 2.5 million people who live in this city, it even still feels like a small town within a big city. Great people. Great place to live.”

Under Barry Odom, UNLV had two excellent seasons, going 19-8 overall and going to two bowl games. That was a bit of an outlier among UNLV seasons overall, though. Prior to Odom, it had been nine seasons since the Rebels went to a bowl game. That one bowl, the 2013 Heart of Dallas Bowl, was their only bowl for a 22-season stretch. Despite those benefits that Dan Mullen praised, there hasn’t been historic success at UNLV. Still, it is possible to win there and Mullen believes he can do just that.

“So, when you added it all up, I said we’re gonna go. I think we can compete for championships, compete for spots in the College Football Playoff. I think we’ll be able to attract really good players here in the new world of college football,” Mullen said. “And I think this is going to be a great place. My kids, just for us, for the family to live, I think this is going to be a great place.”

This is going to be an interesting season to see how Dan Mullen can build on their recent success at UNLV. Fans will get their first look at this new Rebels team on August 30th when they take on Sam Houston State.

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