When it came to gameday operations, former Florida Gators head coach Dan Mullen could hold his own with some of the best in the sport. What ultimately led to his demise in Gainesville was a lack of talent acquisition combined with a lack of program control behind the scenes.
After being on TV for the past three years, Mullen is now in Las Vegas as the head coach for UNLV and he made a social media post that left Gator fans scratching their heads.
It's always recruiting season in Gainesville
There was a bit of a pot meet-kettle moment with a possible hint of a jab aimed at Gator fans when Mullen took to social media yesterday to proclaim that "Recruiting never stops."
The post was littered with Gator fans noting that during the Mullen Era, recruiting did, in fact, come to a stop, especially for his class of 2022.
As things started to go south in 2021, Mullen made a famous quip about Florida's recruiting that year that summed up why he ultimately was let go:
"We're in the season right now, we'll do recruiting after the season. When it gets to be recruiting time, we can talk about recruiting."
Mullen's classes usually hovered around 10th, and while his classes were better than advertised than what some have tried to claim in revisionist history, his classes were never elite enough to get Florida over the hump in part because Mullen wasn't willing to put in the work to land enough elite talent.
In truth, UNLV is a good landing spot for Mullen because he can lean on the transfer portal to swoop up talent, and the prospects he does wind up recruiting won't have as much competition for them. Add in that his entire recruiting pitch just has to be a visit to the Vegas Strip, and life should be much easier for Mullen in Vegas.