On Dec. 10, 2008, Dan Mullen completed a Southeastern Conference shuffle.Mullen moved from offensive coordinator at Florida, — ranked No. 15 in the country and No. 1 in the SEC in total offense last season — to head coach at Mississippi State, nearly 100 spots lower at No. 113 and No. 10 in the conference.The defensive side told a similar story — the Gators were No. 3 in the nation and the conference, and the Bulldogs were No. 35 and No. 10, respectively.Mullen left a 13-1 defending national champion to coach a Bulldogs team coming off a 4-8 season at the bottom of the SEC.But now, three games into Mullen’s first season, Mississippi State is 2-1, and his goal remains to teach his team how to win, something he grew accustomed during four seasons at Florida. The Gators were 44-9 with two national championships during his tenure in Gainesville, Fla. Mississippi State has no national championships to its credit and has not won an SEC title since 1941.”Our guys are learning how to win and learning how to build a program,” Mullen said in a teleconference. “We did a lot of competitive drills in the offseason to get them to learn how to win and learn what that’s all about.”Junior linebacker K.J. Wright said not only is Mullen a “good people person,” but he also has what it takes to vault the Bulldogs into championship contention.”Coach Mullen is an up-tempo guy with a huge personality,” Wright said. “He has won national championships, which is something we don’t have. Coach is a winner, and we are going to learn from him and duplicate what he did at Florida.”Mullen, an alumnus of Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pa., has a connection with LSU offensive coordinator Gary Crowton dating back to Mullen’s high school days in Manchester, N.H. Crowton was offensive coordinator at New Hampshire from 1988-1990.Mullen said he and Crowton crossed paths again when Mullen was quarterbacks coach at Utah from 2003-2004 and Crowton was the head coach at BYU. Mullen’s wife, Megan, was a TV anchor for FOX in Utah whose station covered BYU football.”It was kind of funny. [BYU] was our biggest rival, and she had to cover them,” Mullen said. “She was always a huge fan of Gary, and I always had a lot of respect because I’d watch him from afar with his different spread offenses and the way he would attack.”Crowton also visited Mullen in Florida shortly after Mullen got the job as the Gators offensive coordinator, and Mullen said they had a great time together during the visit.”We spent about three days together just talking football,” Mullen said. “Unfortunately, we’re always on opposing ends of things, so we don’t spend as much time sharing information as we might like.”With 15 years of experience at the collegiate coaching level, Mullen brought a new energized feeling to Mississippi State when he arrived, as the Bulldogs set a new record for attendance at its annual spring game with more than 31,000 fans. Junior offensive tackle Derek Sherrod said Mullen is one of the keys for Mississippi State to become a winning team.”Coach Mullen knows what to do to help us reach the next level, and he’s going to work us until we get to that point,” Wright said. “He is the new face of Mississippi State football. A lot of people are expecting big things from us.”The Mississippi State offense centers on a two-quarterback system with sophomore Chris Relf and senior Tyson Lee both taking snaps. Lee has completed 23-of-38 passes for 216 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions. Lee also ran for a 22-yard touchdown against Vanderbilt in an eventual 15-3 victory.Relf completed just 2-of-9 passes for 13 yards as a redshirt freshman, and the Montgomery native has thrown 25 passes for Mississippi State this season, completing 14 with two interceptions.Mullen said both players have the ability to shoulder the load at quarterback.”It’s like mixing in two different running backs if you have a fast back and a power back,” Mullen said. “We do the same thing with the quarterback position. Even though we don’t have packages for each one, they both run our system. We’re going to continue to use both of them throughout the season.”–Contact Rachel Whittaker at [email protected]