2016 Oregon: Fucked up hiring of Dan Mullen. Everything was ready and job accepted, and a certain fired someone in the AD had to go and start leaking before Mullen’s very specific conditions were met.
whats the backstory here?
Short version: Dan Mullen agreed to be Oregon’s coach, but the deal fell through for several reasons.
Long version: Oregon’s first choice was Chip Kelly and Phil Knight and Pat Kilkenny started making overtures to him before Helf was fired. Kelly was in his first year with the 49ers where he was sure he was getting one or two more years to turn them around and couldn’t decide if he wanted to go back.
Kelly suggested Dan Mullen, who knew each other since the 90s. Kelly helped get Mullen an assistant job at Columbia, where Chip had worked before. Mullen then managed to become a GA at Notre Dame while Urban was an assistant there and then those two became connected. Easy to sell to Phil Knight since he knew Mullen before Chip, and loved Urban Meyer.
Oregon still needed to go through the motions. It would look bad if the coaching search process was done without the AD, who happened to be the chair of the playoff committee that year. Because Oregon law is that a qualified minority candidate has to be interviewed. Previously Pep Hamilton has been a good sport and took those interviews for Oregon.
Mullen wanted the fuck out of Starkville for years at that point, common knowledge. He was making $4 something million, and with Oregon’s income tax he wasn’t going to be getting a huge raise. Details were being hammered out. The whole thing was on pause while everything was getting worked out.
Ugh this is getting too long I’ll wrap it up: since AD Rob Mullens was doing his committee shit an assistant AD was more involved than what he would usually be in this situation. He got giddy or some other stupid shit and on purpose or accident let the Dan Mullen shit leak. Problem 1: Dan Mullen never let anyone at Miss State know. His AD had left for Florida that month. He’s now pissed because part of the deal is he gets to do shit on his own terms. Problem 2: Token interview not conducted.
Conclusion: pissed off Dan Mullen, Willie is actually liked because he can sell a monthly shipment of condoms to a nunnery, assistant AD becomes persona non grata and for his years of burying bodies gets to leave in a gracious way 12 months later with a non-renewal instead of a firing.
