Mullen continues to help former QB Johnson climb coaching ladder

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This offseason, Florida coach Dan Mullen gave Brian Johnson — his former quarterback at Utah — the same promotion he received coming to UF as an assistant 15 years ago.

Quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator.

“He knows the ability to advance in this profession,” Johnson said of Mullen. “Being a quarterbacks coach is a pipeline to that and it’s something that’s his specialty.”

For Mullen, 2005 was his first time full receiving play-calling duties from Urban Meyer after serving as his QBs coach at Utah (2003-04) and Bowling Green (2001-02). Becoming the Gators OC — and winning four championships — propelled him to his first head coaching job at Mississippi State.

Mullen hired Johnson there in 2014 after four seasons at his alma mater, including the last two as a first-time offensive coordinator. Johnson left that role to serve as Dak Prescott’s position coach for three years, which landed him another OC gig at Houston near his hometown of Baytown, Texas.

“He’s done a good job helping me throughout the course of my career and helping me develop as a coach each and every day,” Johnson said of Mullen.

After coaching D’Eriq King in 2017, Johnson once again walked away from play-calling duties to be Mullen’s QB coach in the SEC. The opportunity to reunite with Mullen and his staff, as well as advance his career at a program like UF, presented him “a really unique situation.”

“Obviously I’ve known coach a really long time,” Johnson said of Mullen, who recruited him in 2003. “Worked together a really long time — as with everybody on the offensive staff with John [Hevesy] and Billy [Gonzales] and [Greg] Knox.”

Johnson has added two more successful signal callers to résumé the past two years, resurrecting Feleipe Franks’ career and launching Kyle Trask’s. Johnson, 33, is the same age Mullen was during his first season as Florida’s OC.

His promotion to the position was something they had discussed “for a little while”, rather than a move to keep him from taking other offers.

“I talked to Coach Mullen before all this COVID stuff hit, so I guess it kind of just got lost in the sauce,” Johnson said. “I think for him it was the perfect opportunity to make everything kind of fit into place.

“We’ll continue to have a really collaborative effort. Obviously, when your head coach is very involved in the offense, it’s a little bit different.”

Mullen has called his own plays at Florida and MSU with Gonzales as passing game coordinator and Hevesy coordinating the running game. Johnson coaches in the box and has also dialed up plays for the Gators, with Mullen crediting him for calls in multiple post-game press conferences.

“In terms of game day, I’ve always been really heavily involved, myself and Coach Mullen, determining how we call the game and what we’re calling and what we’re running,” Johnson said. “From a logistical standpoint, I don’t know how much will change in terms of our day-to-day operation.

“We have a lot of continuity on our staff, so our schedule and our routine is pretty set in terms of how we operate on a daily basis. … Even when we were at Mississippi State, we had a system in place of how everything worked on game day and throughout the course of the week. It’s always been a really collaborative effort in terms of our plan.”

Johnson is the first African-American offensive coordinator in school history. He was unaware of the significance of his hiring until Monday.

“I didn’t realize that,” Johnson said. “It’s obviously something to be very, very proud of. Coaching the quarterbacks is obviously a big deal, especially here at a place like the University of Florida, where they have a very rich tradition of elite quarterback play and there’s three statues downstairs that prove that.

“It’s definitely something to be proud of, for sure. … We have great players here and a great coaching staff. I’m excited to get that opportunity and help our team go out there and perform at a really high level.”