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Dan Mullen first made a name for himself as Urban Meyer’s offensive coordinator at Florida, where he led one of the most memorable offenses in the history of college football with Tim Tebow at the helm. The spread offense fever hadn’t reach the level that it has today, so it was refreshing watching Tebow keep the ball, run over defenders, while putting up video game-like numbers.
His 2007 Heisman year was among the best seasons a collegiate quarterback has ever had. In Mullen’s offense, he rushed for 23 touchdowns and passed for 32.
In 2009, Mullen left to become the head coach of Mississippi State where he installed the same offense with his own tweaks. Dak Prescott amassed 70 passing touchdowns and 41 rushing touchdowns playing for Mullen. Prescott was much more prepared for a pro-style offense than people anticipated.
It’s been a long time since Florida has had a legit quarterback or offense. Florida fans are hoping that Mullen’s return to the school will change that. At its core, Mullen’s offense isn’t much different than when he was the offensive coordinator at Florida. He wants a big offensive line with a quarterback with some size so that he can run the ball with a numerical advantage.
Like most spread systems, his offense begins with the zone read or what he calls “14 or 15 read”. 14 means the play is going the right, while 15 means the play is going to the left.
Mullen has since added run/pass options (RPOs) to his zone read and other run concepts. He doesn’t use as many post-snap RPOs as most college teams do. This is likely because of his focus on a punishing inside run game. He’d rather have his quarterback and running back pounding the ball rather than mess around with reading second or third level defenders after the snap.
This is an example of a zone read play with a pre-snap RPO read. The offensive line and running back execute the zone read concept while the three receivers on the right run a bubble screen. Quarterback Nick Fitzgerald (no. 7) takes a pre-snap look to see if he likes his box count.
He has five blockers against an initial five man box from the defense so he “cancels” the screen and wisely goes with the run. The line executes their blocks perfectly and the back gets through the line of scrimmage unblocked and does the rest by trucking a free safety on his way to pay dirt.
Mullen does have some unique twists to his run game though.
