GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Nine years ago this past January, Dan Mullen stood on the field at Dolphin Stadium near Miami and basked in the glow of the national championship for what felt like the blink of an eye. Florida had just beaten Oklahoma, and somewhere on stage his boss and then-head coach Urban Meyer lifted the Gators' second title in three seasons. Players and coaches celebrated as confetti fell to their feet. A dynasty appeared to be in the works; only Mullen had a plane to catch.
The then-36-year-old offensive coordinator hugged his Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, Tim Tebow, one last time and left for Starkville, Mississippi, where he'd settle in for the long haul of rebuilding a floundering Mississippi State program that had averaged less than four wins in its previous eight seasons. Its facilities were widely regarded as among the worst in the SEC, and the roster was in need of a significant upgrade, having failed to sniff a top-25 finish in any of its previous three recruiting classes. And if all that wasn't daunting enough, Mullen's wife, Megan, was due to give birth to their first child in a matter of weeks.
Looking back now, Mullen sees those whirlwind first few months as a rookie head coach and first-time father clearly. He remembers sitting down in his office for the first time, taking a deep breath and thinking to himself, What do I do now? It sunk in, he said, "Wow, it's all on me now."
That concoction of pressure and inexperience wasn't always helpful, he admits. He wanted to win and win big and win big in a hurry -- all at once, right this very minute -- and anything or anybody who stood in his way was a problem he had to personally overcome. He'd receive bad news from the administration or even a bad diagnosis from the training staff and tell himself, "Everyone's against us."
"It's stressful," he explained, "and you freak out."
Truth be told, Mullen ruffled some feathers early on, butting heads within the athletic department as well as the local media. But as he put it, "You don't know what you don't know sometimes." Frustrated with a culture that had come to accept being average, he had to get things done the hard way.
And he did. He pushed through the changes he felt he needed, including new facilities and other much-needed resources, and he gradually built Mississippi State into a program that made a habit out of finding under-recruited prospects like Fletcher Cox and Dak Prescott and transforming them into superstars. The former whipping boys of the SEC became almost unrecognizable, reaching bowl games in eight consecutive seasons. The Bulldogs even reached No. 1 in the polls for the first time in school history, spending five weeks in the top spot in 2014.
After nine seasons in Starkville, Mullen had become one of the hottest coaching prospects in the country. And he'd grown up. By the time Florida came calling this past December, the now-45-year-old coach and father of two knew he had a plan to bring the Gators back to dominance.
There would be no yelling, no need for brute force this time around. Shortly after taking the job, he gathered everyone connected to the program -- hundreds of personnel, including coaches, graduate assistants, academic counselors, trainers and more -- and went line by line through a nearly 80-page binder, detailing the expectations of everyone in the organization. It was an eye-opening experience to those who sometimes felt adrift under the previous leadership of Jim McElwain and Will Muschamp before him. The meeting was long, clocking in at roughly two hours, but it had a clear sense of purpose.
Where Mississippi State was a slow build that allowed Mullen to lie in the weeds of the SEC and compete at a high level once every two or three years, Florida is the opposite. It isn't a "developmental program," as he described his previous job. With an abundance of resources, history and expectations, he had to hit the ground running in his return to Gainesville.
"It's funny that when I went to Mississippi State and said, 'Hey, we're here and we're going to try to go win an SEC and national championship,' everyone snickered at first," Mullen said. "You say that here and everyone looks at their watch and says, 'When?' I don't have to convince people that that's going to be the goal. They already want that to happen and have it happen really fast."
It's the morning before Florida's spring game, and Mullen is watching film on a large pull-down projector screen in his office inside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. It's the same office Meyer used to lord over, and Mullen jokes that not much has changed since he left.
"Same pictures," he said. "Same wallpaper."
Being back after so many years away might have felt awkward at first, had he taken time to truly ponder its meaning. Instead, after accepting the position in late December, he had to quickly assemble a coaching staff and make up ground in recruiting. After signing day was over and he'd cobbled together the No. 14 class in the country, including signing coveted dual-threat QB Emory Jones, there wasn't much time before spring practice began.
With film of practice on pause, Mullen lamented that he had to miss his daughter's sixth birthday party the previous night. With spring game preparations later on, he was sure he'd miss her birthday dinner that night as well. There was just so much to do.
"We've got some talent," he said when asked about the quality of the roster he inherited from McElwain, who was fired after going 22-12 in three seasons. But after pausing for a moment, he added, "We've got some development to do."
Physically, he said, players' measurements aren't where he expects them to be. So this offseason is as much about what happens in terms of conditioning and the weight room as anything else.
"It's hard because you don't compare it," Mullen said. "I go back to what it was like when I left here; we might not be at that level of talent, but that was teams that won two out of three national championships. You know what I mean? But we want to get it back that way of being the premier team in the country. And I don't know that we can't be there. We just have to get everyone here caught up."
If there's one thing Florida fans can feel good about, it's Mullen's ability to maximize talent. His calling card at Mississippi State was doing more with less. In his first season in Starkville, he nearly beat LSU, won the Egg Bowl against a top-25 Ole Miss team and finished with a 5-7 record. The next season, he won nine games.
So when people wonder aloud how the incumbent starting quarterback, Feleipe Franks, will fit into his system, Mullen doesn't get flustered. He's not ready to name a starter this early, but he hasn't written off Franks, who threw nine touchdowns and eight interceptions as a freshman last season. In fact, Mullen said he's stayed away from watching any old film of the team, so chances are he doesn't even know that Franks ran for only 20 yards.
"Alex Smith, when we got to Utah he wasn't a very good runner. [Former Florida quarterback] Chris Leak was not a runner, and he was the MVP of that game," Mullen said, pointing to the 2006 BCS Championship trophy behind his desk. Sure, Tim Tebow, Dak Prescott and Nick Fitzgerald could run, but they weren't the only quarterbacks he taught. "So we've had every variation. My idea with the quarterbacks -- and I shared this with [Franks] and I made this clear to them day one -- is that all they have to be is a willing runner. You don't have to be a great runner, you have to be willing. If the defense is going to give it to you, take it. That's all you have to be."
Now that doesn't mean Mullen's perspective as a coach hasn't changed from one stop to the next. Far from it. With a different set of expectations and a different level of talent, he must develop a different caliber of athlete on a different, faster timeline.
According to offensive line coach John Hevesy, who was on staff with Mullen at Florida and his entire tenure at Mississippi State, their job isn't any more or less difficult now than it was before. Instead of squeezing talent out of two- and three-star players, now they have to focus more on finding players who are the right fit for the program mentally. Hevesy said that de-recruiting players -- in other words, reminding them that the five-star designation they came in with disappears the minute they walk through the door -- is the new challenge.
"A lot of times there were guys that we got maybe that were a lot more maybe diamonds in the rough that we would shine up and help improve," Mullen said. "Hopefully recruiting here we're just going to get diamonds."
Spend any time around Mullen and you'll be struck by his confidence. It no doubt fueled him at Mississippi State, where he had to make believers out of so many skeptics. And now that he's back at a program with national championship aspirations, there's an even more noticeable swagger in his step.
You could hear it in his voice when he took a jab at Georgia earlier this year, saying that making one SEC championship game doesn't mean anything and, "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while." You can see it, too, when he tugs on the Florida logo on his polo shirt, talking about what the "Gator Standard" means to him and how to get back to that level of success.
Slowly but surely, players are starting to believe.
They admit that their confidence was shaken toward the end of last season. Franks called it "one of my lowest times." After squeaking by Vanderbilt at home, the team crumbled, losing six of its last seven games to finish 4-7. The way McElwain left, with unsubstantiated accusations of death threats against him and his family, only made matters worse.
"We were trying to keep everything together, and then it was a snowball effect," veteran wideout Freddie Swain said. "One thing went wrong and then after that everything went wrong."
A little less than a month later, Mullen was introduced as Florida's next head coach.
Now Swain looks around at the offense and sees weapons. After going back and watching film of Mullen's old offenses under Meyer, he sees opportunity as well.
"We have a mastermind behind it all," he said of Mullen. "We have a whole lot of athletes. Once he gets his hands on players like us, it's go time; there's no stopping us."
That sense of urgency was apparent among several players this spring. Having former stars like Kevin Carter and Percy Harvin come speak to the team after practice has been a not-so-subtle reminder of not just what the Gators have been, but also what they should be today.
At Mississippi State, Mullen had to push to raise the bar.
At Florida, there's no question where it stands.
Asked what the "Gator Standard" means, Mullen said it's about embracing the tradition as well as the expectations.
"They want to win now," said linebacker David Reese, who grew so frustrated last season that he called out teammates publicly at one point after a loss. "That's the thing: We're happy that they actually want to win now."