Dan Mullen may have left Florida behind, but the playoff door could open for him before it does for the Gators.
That’s the strange little twist hanging over his next chapter at UNLV. Brad Crawford of CBS Sports projected the 2026 playoff field and left Florida out, while slotting the Rebels in as the G6 representative.
UNLV is coming off a 10-2 regular season, then dropped the Mountain West title game to Boise State and the Frisco Bowl to Ohio. Boise State has since moved into the new-look Pac-12, and UNLV was picked first in the Mountain West preseason media poll.
If that projection plays out and Mullen gets UNLV into the playoff, it would be tempting to frame it as some kind of vindication. It isn’t that simple.
There’s been plenty of revisionist history around Mullen’s run in Gainesville, mostly because it unraveled so fast. He went from being viewed as a national title contender to a coach out the door in a hurry, and that has a way of flattening the memory of what came before. But the record is still the record: among the 14 Florida coaches who led the program for at least four seasons, Mullen owns the third-best winning percentage in school history and the seventh-most wins all-time at Florida.
And the 2021 season? It was literally three plays away from looking like a 9-3 year instead of 6-6.
Still, the case for Florida being right to move on goes beyond the on-field mess. One of the biggest arguments is what happened after the firing.
Mullen spent three years in a TV studio, then came back to coaching at UNLV. That’s a very different path from James Franklin jumping right back into a Power Four job, Mark Stoops heading to Texas as an assistant, or Billy Napier returning to coaching immediately.
UNLV, though, fits Mullen cleanly.
He still isn’t recruiting the traditional way. His 2026 class is made up entirely of three-stars and sits No. 61 nationally, and his 2027 class is also all three-stars and ranked No.
- But at UNLV, with the transfer portal available and plenty of other programs operating in the same talent range, Mullen can lean into what he does best: offense.
And if 2026 breaks the right way, there’s even a path that could send him back to Florida - this time in Tallahassee.
For now, though, the cleaner truth is that Mullen may have found a place where the fit is better and the ceiling is higher than it would be anywhere else.
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Wuerffels support carries real weight in Gainesville, and he pointed to the way Sumrall has already made an impact beyond the practice field. Recruiting, fundraising and fan engagement all matter in this job, especially before a season even starts, and Sumrall seems to be checking boxes in each area. For a program trying to build momentum, the encouraging part is not just that he has made a good first impression, but that the people who know the job best are beginning to sound convinced. [Read more 🡒]