Dan Mullen Happy With UNLV Football Progress As Spring Practice Continues

The UNLV Rebels football team has now had a few spring practices and are in full swing preparing for the 2025 season. However, new head coach Dan Mullen knows that they aren't yet where they need to be and understands they don't need to be there yet.

“It’s all development,” Mullen said. “At the end of the spring, we don’t play anybody. We’re 0-0, and it’s a long time until we play a game, so we're not worried about, ‘Are we ready to play?’ We’re worried about, ‘Are we getting better?’”

While at the end of the day it's about business, Mullen is out there having fun and is happy to be back coaching after a disappointing end with Florida. “I don’t like how it ended in Florida,” he said. “I wouldn’t want that to finish off my career. If it was, it was. However, I walk out the door in the coaching world, maybe it has a little different finish to the last one.”

Now he's enjoying every moment on the practice field. “I’m having fun. I love it. There’s a lot of things you miss, and this is it. Being around the guys, coaching ball, being on the field watching guys grow, watching guys develop. You knew you missed it, but when you get back in it, you realize how much you love it.”

“It’s great to be back out here.”

- @CoachDanMullen 🎰 pic.twitter.com/ICgLrVLdL7
— UNLV Football (@unlvfootball) March 28, 2025

Mullen continued talking about the culture at UNLV: “There’s great culture, great attitude, great energy with the players,” Mullen said. “You come out in practice one, we’ve had some walk-throughs but never with the team as a whole; you kind of split it up, and there’s groups going at a time. To have everybody out here and see everybody flying around and having some fun, it’s a good time.”

He even joked about how difficult it is being the head coach because you don't get to feel like one of the guys with any of the specific position groups, “The hardest thing about being the head coach is you don’t have your one position group with just your guys that you’re around all the time. So I’ve got to kind to nudge myself in, try to be accepted by different groups. You walk into the different rooms, and they’re like this tight group; I’m like, ‘I’m part of the team, too.’”

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