Florida Gators head coach Dan Mullen joined former Gators coaches Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer on ESPN’s top 100 college football head coaches of the last 50 years.
Mullen cracked the top 100 with a 98-54 head coaching record and a 7-2 bowl record with Mississippi State and Florida. If Mullen can sustain the successful program he’s built in Gainesville, he can easily move up from the No. 91 spot.
Urban Meyer earned the highest placement of the three coaches with the fifth spot on the list. The current Jacksonville Jaguars coach helped schools reach new heights starting with Bowling Green, but his two national championships at Florida with Tim Tebow made him know nationally as an elite coach. The Gators went 65-15 with a 5-1 bowl record over Meyer’s six years.
After Meyer left Florida, he led the Ohio State Buckeyes to an 83-9 record over seven years, including a national championship.
Mullen and Meyer perhaps owe much of their success to the No. 13 entry on the list, former Gators coach Steve Spurrier. Coach Spurrier helped turn Florida into one of the country’s top football schools with six SEC titles and a decade worth of top-10 finishes.
Spurrier followed his 12 seasons at Florida with 11 at South Carolina and finished his career with 228 wins—good for fourteenth best all time. He briefly coached the Orlando Apollos of the Alliance of American Football before the league folded. The Apollos led the standings with a 7-1 record and Spurrier claimed an unofficial championship with the team.
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