It’s natural to react with a certain skepticism when a school hires an assistant from the glory days to be its head coach. I can think of a few examples: Florida with Ron Zook, Nebraska with Frank Solich, USC with Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian. It’s rare that it ever works out.
There may be an element of that with the Gators hiring Dan Mullen, but it’s a vastly different situation than the ones I mentioned above. The reason is because, unlike those others I mentioned, Mullen has gone elsewhere and established himself as a tremendous head football coach.