Nick Elksnis was 16 when he first heard from Dan Mullen. When the latter was recruiting Elksnis to play football for him at Florida. When the young tight end was being sought by some of the nation’s premier programs.
Elksnis first committed to Penn State but had a change of heart. Three days later, he would pledge his future to the Gators.
Now, years later, the senior is back with Mullen at UNLV.
And has noticed a change of sorts in his coach.
“He’s a little more laid back,” said Elksnis, who also spent two years at South Carolina before becoming a Rebel once Mullen took the UNLV job. “He’s definitely calmer. But if he needs to bring out that old school coach in Dan Mullen, he can.
“It’s a good thing because when he does, everybody is like, ‘O.K., it’s time to get back to work. He means business.’”
Championship thoughts
The coach who will lead UNLV into the Mountain West championship game at Boise State on Friday night has changed with the times along with college football.
In a transfer portal world, teams are now built for one season. Long gone are the days when a young man envisioned his career as a five-year plan, a redshirt season followed by playing special teams and then as a role player and then as a starter and then, hopefully, an all-conference selection.
Nobody thinks that way any more. Coaches, more than anyone, have had to adjust.
“I’ve changed a lot,” Mullen said. “Kids are different. It’s a different time. But you want to make sure they understand the most important thing is still their development. But we make sure it’s done within one-year cycles.
“You’re still running a program for the big picture, but you’re focused on a one-year team.”
He has in one season taken a side with a few returning starters and nearly 70 new faces to a 10-2 record and within a victory of a league championship.
That’s a lot of development in a short amount of time.
Maybe those years as an ESPN analyst following his time at Florida altered Mullen’s way of thinking.
He saw the game he loved become a drastically different animal with the introduction of name, image and likeness dollars and kids transferring from one place to the next more commonplace with each passing season.
“I would think (players) would say I’m probably a little more relaxed now than I used to be,” Mullen said. “It’s the approach of how I handle everything on a daily basis for our players.
“How I handle them, how I coach them, how I talk to them, because times are different. We’re a little more into the NFL mentality of how you run an NFL program rather than running an old school college football program.”
His players have noticed a change over the years, no matter where he might have been coaching. On the back end of his time at Mississippi State, the older ones said Mullen was far different than when he began his time in Starkville. The newer ones then noticed something else when he was at Florida.
Man and coach
But so much is focused on the here-and-now of these times. Chief Borders is an outside linebacker/defensive end for the Rebels who also was a Gator under Mullen.
Borders actually sees the man as much the same.
“Definitely just a real man who has always been solid about who he is,” Borders said. “He will always have your back. He’s a players’ coach who talks about excellence and diligence from Florida until now.
“These years have shown his resiliency. Now he has us competing for a Mountain West championship. It shows a lot about the person, as both a man and a coach. The real Dan Mullen is who he is every day.”
The real Dan Mullen has definitely changed over time. Maybe a little calmer, much different in his approach in a new era of college football.
One thing hasn’t, though: His chase and desire for championships. UNLV gets a shot at one Friday night.
Contact Ed Graney at egraney@reviewjournal.com. Follow @edgraney on X.
Up next
Who: UNLV at Boise State
What: Mountain West championship game
When: 5 p.m. Friday
Where: Albertsons Stadium, Boise, Idaho
TV: Fox
Radio: KWWN (100 AM, 100.9 FM)
Line: Boise State -4½; total 58½
