A former SEC Coach of the Year with seven Bowl game wins, he now leads UNLV's football team.

Rebel Head Coach Dan Mullen is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪ Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon, joining you from the Fertitta Football Complex at UNLV.

The state of the art football facilities here are just one reason our guest decided to move across country and return to coaching.

With Florida and Mississippi State as head coach, he won more than 100 games and now looks to have similar success at UNLV.

Rebel Head Coach Dan Mullen, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Yeah, great to be with you today.

-So you have talked about why you've come here.

It all made sense.

You were broadcasting for a while after Florida, but you didn't want to come and have to rebuild a program.

You wanted this infrastructure in place.

What I didn't realize, though, is that you had friends here?

Your wife said that in a recent interview.

-Absolutely.

So the-- We've had-- A funny story goes back a long time ago.

I get a call.

My wife was in TV, and she had worked with Scott Van Pelt, and I was an assistant coach at Florida.

And she called, and it's like, Hey, I have some Vegas guys that love sports that want to come to the Florida/Florida State game.

-Who?

-And I looked at my wife.

I said, Okay, call SVP and just say-- Because our tickets are in the family section.

I'm like, is it like-- -Who are these people?

-Who are these people?

You know, and he's like, No, they're just college football fans.

So I'm like, why don't you call them, meet them.

And it came out.

And Mike Larragueta--Used to live here.

He's now just moved up to Reno--John Saccenti, a whole group of guys came out to the game, and they started to come to a game every single year.

So I got to know a bunch of guys here in Vegas.

And then over the last three years in TV, doing college football, you have some springtime off.

I've been coming out to play in the member guests down at Southern Highlands with John Saccenti every year, really getting to see the Vegas, other side of Vegas, if you will, right?

When I've been here before, you're spending 48 or 72 hours on the Strip, and then you go home.

To get-- To really get to spend time in Las Vegas off the Strip, seeing other things, really getting to enjoy it.

And so I had a good-- I wouldn't say great knowledge, but a foundation with friends and other things outside of just coming to vacation here.

-And your wife, real quick, the roles she's held in television... big time.

-Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Well, on TV, listen, I would get my critique.

I'll get the critique for this: Where's the hand placement?

Are your hands relaxed?

She was the main anchor at the Golf Channel for several years.

And then, obviously, she was the main sports anchor in Salt Lake for Fox 13 in Salt Lake.

And we met when she was on NBC 24 in Toledo, Ohio.

I actually, I was watching the news one night, and it said, If you have any comments, you can email Megan West at NBC24.com.

And I picked up my computer, open it up.

I said, I have a comment.

I'd like to take you out sometime.

I didn't hear anything back for a week.

Could you imagine, like, why she didn't respond to me right away, as a TV personality?

[laughter] But I said, Hey, you know, you cover our games.

I'm the quarterback coach at Bowling Green, kind of go into everything.

I'm like, just have the common courtesy to respond to my email.

-You sent another one?

-I sent a second one after not hearing.

And as you would know, in TV there's a lot of security for stalkers.

-Yes.

-Right?

And I guess they background checked me, and they read it in a meeting.

The producer's like, You really should go out with him.

[laughter] And like, Just at least respond to the email.

And she did.

And so that's how we met, through television.

-You have developed some notable quarterbacks.

You mentioned Tim Tebow.

Dak Prescott, another.

I believe Dak Prescott said, you know, Before him, I really didn't know much about the X's and O's.

What kind of impact do you believe you've had on those gentlemen?

-Well, hopefully a lot.

Hopefully a lot.

I mean, that's why you coach, right?

The coaching, I love football.

I've loved football since I was a little kid.

The game makes sense to me.

There's nothing-- There's no greater high than winning a game.

I don't know if there's a bigger low than losing a game.

I mean, it is.

But that's not why you coach.

You coach-- The true reward-- As you said, I've won over 100 games.

-How many NFL players have you produced?

-Oh, probably 60, 70.

I don't know, tons.

But that's why you coach.

-That's big.

-That's big.

It's not about the wins and losses.

I couldn't even tell you my record.

I can tell you most of the, most of the wins.

I can tell you all the losses; you remember those more.

But the true reason to coach is to make a positive impact on young people's lives.

There's no bigger reward.

Take a Tim Tebow.

Does so much in the world.

I hope that I had an impact on his life to give him the platform, because he won the Heisman Trophy and two national championships.

The reward you get in coaching is looking at here's someone that's doing so much in the world, and I had a positive impact on their lives.

A Dak Prescott, whose dream when he was a young kid was to be the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.

Living his dream.

You hope that you had a positive impact on his life.

But I have a lot of players.

And one of the big things that got me back into coaching is-- two big things that go on that line.

We had the 10-year anniversary last fall at Mississippi State of the team that was Number 1 in the country.

And you see the Dak, can recognize the name; but all of the guys that came back on that team, and so many of them look and say, Coach-- Now they're in their-- You start now recruiting former players' kids and stuff, and you realize how old you are.

But you sit down and they're like, Coach-- And the wives are coming up, and they're saying, Coach, you made such an impact on my husband's life.

He talks about it all the time.

That's what coaching is about.

That's really what it is.

I went to the Alex Smith's Hall of Fame, the dinner the night before.

He's like, I wouldn't be here if you didn't make the impact on my life.

I wouldn't be a Hall of Famer.

So those are the things that hit home.

And here I am on TV not making an impact on people's lives, right?

God blesses people with talents.

And if I have a pet peeve in life, they don't use the talents they're blessed with and then want to complain about where their life is.

I mean, if you've been given a talent, work hard, utilize it, and you can be successful in life.

And here one of my talents is helping young people accomplish their goals through the game of football.

And being on TV, even though I loved my time on ESPN with everybody, I wasn't using the talents that God blessed me with to help these young people accomplish their goals.

-Do you have a specific example of a player whose life you think you really impacted?

-I won't go to names.

I had one that was really interesting.

I sat down with him.

And it was a funny recruiting story.

I won't get into the name of it, but sat down and he was a mess--trouble in school, this, finally graduated from like a secondary reform high school--and his recruiting meeting with me, he left and he said, Coach, you yelled at me for 30 minutes.

Other great coaches just told me how great I was, and I have to come play for their school and all of these things.

And I said, Well, if I didn't yell at you, you wouldn't make it.

And he goes, That's why I committed.

That's why I came to come play for you.

And we would joke about it.

And three years later, he said-- I said, Hey, if I didn't yell to you or you didn't come here, where would you be?

I was expecting him to say, I would have been in a junior college.

I would have been trying to make it.

I would have never gotten eligible, never done this.

He said, Honestly, I'd be in jail or dead because the path my life was on, now that I see the path my life's on now is very different than the path my life was on before.

Those are the things that really, you know, those things.

And that's not a singular deal.

There's so many of them, of those things that happen that you take great pride in, that you've helped people.

And the hard ones are, there's some you can't.

I've had some I can't.

And we lay out the pattern, and they just can't.

I've had to bury several players, and they just can't get there.

They just can't turn the corner in life.

-Do you mean-- -And it's really sad.

- --bury at a cemetery?

-Yes.

I mean, it's just sad.

And you help them, and the former life they were in kind of, you know, we got you a degree, we got you this, we've got a job, this whole new life, and the former life just always sucks them back in.

And, you know, and I've had several times we had to go do that.

-How do you rationalize that, get through that?

-It's one of the hardest things you have to do.

But you have to look and you have to say, I mean, we've given everything to you, every opportunity to get you out.

But one of the hardest things is, and for a lot of people, is there's a lot of these, these young guys that come from a world they have to walk away from.

And, you know, it's hard.

And a lot of them, you're the one that made it out, but you can't go back.

Once you make it out, you can't go back.

And if you go back, it's-- You can be in this circle, or you can be in this circle.

But if once I get back to this circle that keeps sucking you into that circle, and it's a circle of life you can't get out of, you know?

And we talk to our people that.

There's a circle of life of poverty a lot of in this world, and for a lot of people-- And everyone in the country; it's not just football players, it's everybody.

It's hard to get out of that circle.

But a lot of times if you do have the opportunity to get out of that circle, the problem is you can't bring everyone with you.

And a lot of times it pulls you back in.

And when it does, you go back to your other.

There's different circles in life, and which one do you want to be in?

And we share with our players a lot of times is sometimes you have to look forward, and you have to leave a lot behind if you want to go move.

And it's not easy to do.

-Helping people is the primary reason you returned to coaching.

-Yeah.

-But what about with the way things ended at Florida?

Do you have a chip on your shoulder?

-I don't know a chip on my shoulder.

I think I learned a lot from the experience.

You know, I won't get into-- I don't like how it ended.

Now being able to reflect on it after a couple of years, it ended very differently than I thought it did.

The reality of what happened is very different than the reality of what people want to say happened.

I'm not going to get into that again.

One of these days maybe I'll share that story, but I was really able to-- You know as a coach, you put everything on you.

Everything that happens in the program is my responsibility.

And so you take all of that.

And the coaching part of Florida didn't end the way I wanted to.

That wasn't my final chapter of coaching in life.

But I had to find the right scenario.

I had to get myself mentally in the right place, reflecting on what happened there.

Probably the end was very different than a lot of people would think.

And then you get to rationalize that, and you really find, okay, college football's changed.

How can I be better?

How am I going to, when I have that next opportunity, how am I going to make sure that the chapter ends the way I want it to?

The book ends, the final chapter ends how I want it to end in my coaching career.

And I was able to reflect that over the years away, and to be honest with you, that's one of the things that really excited me here is it kind of has brought a lot of joy back to the coaching part of my life, being here.

And I really enjoy it.

-Last question: As we speak, you are 4-0, and you are already being talked about for other head coaching positions.

-I've done this long enough.

You're either getting fired or getting hired somewhere else, right?

It doesn't-- Either you're not winning, so we need to fire you, or you're winning too much, so you need to go somewhere else.

-What would you say to people who think, oh, gosh, he's gonna leave?

-You know what?

I've done a lot in my career.

I came here because I want to be at UNLV.

I'm very happy here, and so I don't see myself going anywhere.

I plan on being here next year.

And because of getting-- I didn't get back into coaching to not enjoy what I loved about coaching, right, the impact on the kids' lives, being around the kids, having fun.

We have a great time.

The players in this program, we have a lot of fun.

The grass isn't always greener.

And I've been at a lot of high profile programs; I've been a lot of different places.

And you know what?

I'm an older coach now, so I don't have to-- I'm not chasing.

You know, as a younger coach, and I actually talked to a lot of the younger coaches in this league.

Again, I said, you know, I've been through this, and you're going to win and you're going to have opportunities.

I said, make sure you sit down with your family, be educated about the opportunities that you have, be really smart about the moves that you make, but most importantly, make sure you don't fall out of love coaching.

Make sure you're somewhere where you really love to coach.

And right now, I love-- I love coaching.

I love this team.

I love being here.

I love the city of Las Vegas, I love how we've been embraced, and there's nowhere for me to go.

I'm so happy here.

-UNLV Head Coach Dan Mullen, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Thank you for having me.

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