Mentor vs. mentor

Tim Tebow and Urban Meyer on one sideline.

Dan Mullen on the other.

It's going to look and feel kind of weird, kind of surreal, Saturday night in Starkville, Miss. Maybe even a little awkward.

"It's going to be strange to see him on the other sideline," Tebow said Monday.

Tebow, Meyer and Mullen have shared quite a history together, including winning two national championships at Florida. And Meyer and Mullen go back much further than their Florida days. The two started working together at Notre Dame in 1999, and Meyer gave Mullen his first full-time coaching job when Meyer became the head coach at Bowling Green in 2001.

The Mullen-Meyer team was a huge success. It stayed together for 10 years at four different schools (Notre Dame, Bowling Green, Utah and Florida).

But the team broke up last December, when Mullen, Meyer's offensive coordinator, took the head coaching job at Mississippi State.

Now, it's Mullen vs. his mentor.

And Tebow vs. his mentor.

"The thing that makes (Mullen) unique is he is very, very smart. Like, really smart," Meyer said. "He has great awareness of football."

Meyer first met Mullen in 1999 when Meyer was the wide receivers coach at Notre Dame and Mullen was hired as a graduate assistant to work under Meyer. When Meyer was offered the Bowling Green job, he asked Mullen to come along with him to be his quarterbacks coach.

"He came from Syracuse to be with me (as a graduate assistant at Notre Dame). We hit it off pretty good, pretty early," Meyer said. "Five coaches on my staffs (at Bowling Green, Utah and UF) have gone on to be head college coaches. This is the first one where we've gone against each other.

"Just watching from the punt block, to this, to this, to this, it's real good stuff. We better be ready. He's doing a great job."

As close as Meyer and Mullen became over the years, Mullen and Tebow may have been closer. The two developed a special bond as Tebow went from freshman contributor, to Heisman Trophy winner, to national championship quarterback in three seasons working with Mullen at UF.

"My relationship with Coach Mullen grew throughout the three years," Tebow said. "It's a great relationship that took three years to grow. We were really close. We still talk. I talk to his wife. I talked to him quite a bit this summer. He called to make sure I was doing OK after the concussion (in the Kentucky game).

"He still cares about me. We have a close relationship. I'm happy for him and the opportunity he has as a head coach. I'm happy he was able to get that job and is having some success."

Earlier this week, Mullen said he considers Tebow to be one of his best friends.

But Saturday night, they will be opponents.

"Tim and I are really close," Mullen said. "It's not going to be great having to find a way to beat a team with one of the greatest players in college football history.

"It will be great to see Tim. Hopefully, I'll say hello to Tim before or after the game. That would be fantastic. But I don't know anyone jumping up and down and saying, 'I can't wait to see Tim Tebow on the other sideline.' "

Mullen said it's also going to be tough seeing Meyer on the opposite sideline, and it's not because of their history together.

"It's going to be tough because there will be an awful lot of talented football players standing on his left and his right," Mullen said. "It's a great challenge for our guys, a great opportunity to play the No. 1 team in the country.

"I've learned an awful lot from Urban. I have a great deal of respect for the program he runs. He has the top program in the country right now."

Meyer has shown he knows how to build winning programs. He's done it everywhere he's been, and Mullen was right there with him all the way.

It's no surprise (or secret) that Mullen is trying to pattern the MSU program after Florida's.

"In his first job (at Bowling Green), you could see something special developing there," Mullen said. "Urban had a distinct plan and you could see it taking shape at each place as he went along.

"The neat thing is I had multiple stops (with Meyer). I could see the plan taking place and forming as you went through each program."

Mullen knows Meyer. He knows the Meyer way. His familiarity with Meyer and the UF players (and the offense), is a concern for the Gators.

"We'll change our signals," Meyer said. "We're a little more multiple in the run game than we were with (Mullen).

"So much of it is they're doing everything on defense that bothered us as a staff on offense. Tim and I were just talking about it. You name it, if it bothered us, they're doing it. He's a smart guy. We'll be ready for it."

Mullen knows from experience what works against Meyer's spread offense.

"I'm sure Coach Mullen will do a lot of the things me and him didn't like seeing," Tebow said. "He's going to do the things we don't like. At the end of the day, it's still out there playing football and having to catch and tackle, and we like doing that."

At the end of this game, regardless of the outcome, the friendship between Tebow and Mullen — and Mullen and Meyer — will endure, because there is so much history there.

Contact Robbie Andreu at 352-374-5022 or at andreur@gvillesun.com.