Dan Mullen is one of the hot coaching names in the business right now, and according to ESPN's Joe Schad, and this here report from the Mothership, Mississippi State football coach Dan Mullen seems to be at the top of Penn State's list of head coaching candidates.
When you take in the full scope of everything that's going on at PSU right now, this would be a coup, in many ways, on par with Urban Meyer going to Ohio State.
It's going to be a long time before things get back to normal in Happy Valley, and a guy like Mullen would help the football program get past this and move on. I'm NOT saying that the University needs to move past it, I'm saying the football program that represents the University.
The players on the team are not responsible for what Jerry Sandusky allegedly did, and once the coaching staff is shown the door, none of the coaches on staff will be responsible or culpable, either. The football program needs to move on from that era, at least in terms of having anyone on the current coaching staff associated with the timeframe of all the allegations surrounding Sandusky.
And this would be one heck of a move.
Mullen is one of the hottest young coaching names in the country, serving as Meyer's offensive coordinator at Florida and Utah's QB coach at Utah during the time frame when Utah QB Alex Smith was the #1 overall draft pick. When Mullen left to take the head coaching job at Mississippi State, Florida's offense suffered, and he has guided MSU to a 20-17 record in just under three seasons there, to include a Gator Bowl thumping of Michigan last year.
Why would Mullen consider Penn State? Well, he's from Pennsylvania, and you would think he'd have to be intrigued to be able to coach against his former head coach every year.
And at the end of the day, Penn State is still one of the premier jobs in the country. It's going to be a rough road ahead in the short term, but if he can guide them through and bring them out stronger on the other side, he's going to be loved in his home state forever. How can that NOT be tempting?
For Mullen's part, he hasn't reciprocated the interest, but he hasn't denied it, either. So stay tuned, because this could get very interesting pretty quick.