HOOVER, Ala. - Dan Mullen can coach Heisman Trophy quarterbacks, help lead teams to championships and even tweet under pressure.

“I am on stage,” the Mississippi State coach hastily punched into his Twitter account before addressing a few hundred reporters at Southeastern Conference media days Wednesday.

It was the first time taking center stage for Mississippi State’s 37-year-old new leader since his hiring away from defending national champion Florida and famous pupil Tim Tebow.

This might not be a bad thing. Mullen hasn’t made incendiary public comments, like Tennessee’s Lane Kiffin. His hiring was praised instead of panned, unlike Gene Chizik at Auburn.

On the contrary, he said Wednesday Mississippi State fans have “welcomed us with open arms. Everywhere we’ve been in the state, people have come up to us and embraced us and made us feel welcome.”

“There is a lot of excitement around Mississippi,” offensive tackle Derek Sherrod said. “I can’t say how many fans have spoken to us about how they can’t wait for the first game. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

That was evident when nearly 32,000 fans showed up at the Bulldogs’ spring game, up from 6,000 the year before.

Being on Urban Meyer’s staff for two national championship teams at Florida and a perfect season at Utah has certainly helped for a first-time head coach taking over a program that went 4-8 and won just two SEC games last season.

Mullen’s own enthusiasm probably doesn’t hurt, either. He sprinkled his rapid-fire 14-minute opening statement with 15 variations of “excited” and used the word “passion” 10 times.

Nor does the multiple spread offense he brings to a program noted mostly for running between the tackles under Sylvester Croom and his predecessors. The prospect even has Bulldog defenders excited.

“At Mississippi State, we’ve always been pounding the ball,” linebacker K.J. Wright said. “But now we’ve got this new young coach to try to spread things out and put some points on the board.

“We all feed off his energy.”

And even off his Tebow references. “He always brags on Tim Tebow, because we all know he’s the man,” Wright said.

Mullen has been preparing for this job since he was a graduate assistant under Paul Pasqualoini at Syracuse, filling up a notebook with things he wanted to do or not do as a head coach.

There was plenty of fodder in 10 seasons with Meyer.

No. 1 on that list: The offseason work players put in, when the coaches can’t watch their every move.

“You win a lot of football games at 5:45 in the morning on a Wednesday in February,” Mullen said.

You also win a lot of games with Tebow, the Heisman winner two years ago and a finalist last season. Or with Alex Smith at Utah, among others.

Special feature Tebow time Take a look at Florida's star quarterback on and off the field. NBCSports.com

Now, Mullen is trying to choose a No. 1 quarterback from returning starter Tyson Lee, freshman Tyler Russell and sophomore Chris Relf.

“Our quarterback battle will go on until I find that we have one true leader and a guy that’s going to win football games for us,” Mullen said. “That might be in two-a-day camp, that might be right before the first kickoff. That’s the most important part of that position.”

Lee and Russell, the state’s Mr. Football last year, both have experience in the spread offense.

Mullen did seem to give a hint to which way he was leaning while describing the quarterback competition as “pretty stiff.”

“We really need Tyson Lee to step up for us, to give that leadership,” he said. “We might rotate the other guys and play more than one quarterback, but we do need him as a steady leader and a winner for us out there on the field, to get our program going in the right direction.”

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