I'm not exactly overwhelmed with this turn of events. But I can hear my dear departed Grandma's voice in my head, saying what she would always say when something didn't quite work out as expected..."It could be worse!" And I guess that's where I am right now, wait and see. I kinda had a feeling when Nebraska fired their HBC that Frost was most likely out of reach and this process would become more of a crap shoot than a lock.
For me personally, I think the key to making this thing work is that the first two details Mullen has to work out is assembling a good staff that can not only coach at a higher level than what we've experienced for at least these past three seasons, but who can also contribute to the second detail and that is salvaging a decent recruiting class. We'll see what shakes out pretty soon, I'm sure.
I think Mullen obviously comes in with some repair work as far as the fan base is concerned, given comments attributed to him and his missus, but he's got 7 million reasons to get it cleaned up (and I still can't conceive that figure in this situation BTW). I don't expect him to fall prostrate at a press conference confessing his sins (nor would I expect him to do so), but I think the onus is clearly on him to come in and start winning and what he can do with the recruits is again a first big test. He's not lauded as a great recruiter, but a good staff can help to offset that if it is so. A little bird told me that he is already planning in-home visits with many of the commits, so I have to take that as a positive.
A poll in one of the recent threads had me answer, concerning this hire, that "anything was better than 'Butters and Nuss!'" so that's all I've got for now. Come in and win. That's what I want. I'll be watching carefully (and maybe dreaming about what might have been!).