re: Rumor: Mullen to NFL

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“The public nature of what happened can’t be ignored,” one source told me.
That “public nature” is Florida – the university that holds itself above the fray by winning the right way – was last week placed on 1 year of probation by the NCAA for its head football coach not following NCAA rules.

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Mullen had impermissible contact with a recruit, setting up the planned meeting via a text to tell the recruit when he would be at his high school in Seattle. The NCAA didn’t give the name of the recruit, but it’s not difficult to figure out that it was likely 5-star linebacker Sav’ell Smalls, who eventually signed with Washington.

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While this may seem ticky-tack on the outside, it’s far from that within the Florida administration. Florida was a rogue school in the late 1980s, breaking NCAA rules with the rest of the SEC’s outlaws at the time.
From the moment former athletic director Bill Arnsparger hired Steve Spurrier in 1990, everything changed. Spurrier declared Florida didn’t have to cheat to win the SEC, and then went out and proved it.

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Arnsparger, a tough disciplinarian as an NFL and college coach, was hired to clean up the mess at Florida. Jeremy Foley then took over in 1992 and took winning with character to another level. The Gators, along with Stanford, had been the NCAA’s model sports program since, never receiving NCAA probation and becoming an annual fixture at the top of the Director’s Cup all-sports standings.
All that ended with Mullen’s NCAA case. And now it appears Mullen is looking at the NFL.

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