Florida offensive coordinator Dan Mullen's acceptance of the head coaching job at Mississippi State injects a sidebar into next month's BCS national championship game against Oklahoma, and Gators coach Urban Meyer said he had not yet formulated a new game plan while talking to reporters on Wednesday.
''Dan complicates things a little bit,'' Meyer admitted.``I know you have questions about [how it affects] the bowl and about this and about that -- I don't know. The immediacy of it is to make sure our team's ready to play on January 8th.''
Meyer and Mullen have been together for almost a decade. They were assistants under Bob Davie at Notre Dame and Mullen has been with Meyer at stops along the way--Bowling Green, Utah and Florida. Meyer said he did not know at the moment whether or not Mullen would be on the sidelines against the Sooners.
''The thing about Dan is he's very professional. The other thing is we have a very veteran quarterback,'' Meyer said. ``We have a very functional and very talented offensive staff. And I'm very involved.''
This is not an unusual situation in college football. Sooner fans need only recall the Mike Stoops-to-Arizona situation when OU played LSU for the championship in 2003. Successor Brent Venables handled the defense, but Mike was on the sideline and had some input into the game plan. Defense played well enough in the 21-14 loss. The problem was the offense and the undisclosed mysterious foot injury to quarterback Jason White.
Given Meyer's expertise, I don't see Mullen's situation as being a big deal.--Mike Jones.
--Mike Jones.
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