Michigan Panthers linebacker Donavan Mutin (45) hops back onto the field during the second half of a UFL game, Saturday, May 17, 2025, in Houston, Texas. | Raphael Fernandez/The Cougar
Donavan Mutin has taken the field at TDECU Stadium many times before.
In a college career spanning five seasons and 50 appearances, he debuted as a freshman on Sept. 8, 2018, in a win over Arizona and continued until his 40th and final career start in Houston’s Independence Bowl victory against Louisiana in 2022.
He had never been on the visiting team until he returned on May 17 as a member of the UFL’s Michigan Panthers, who are heading to the UFL championship game against the DC Defenders on June 14.
It was Mutin’s first time on the opposing sideline, in the visitors’ locker room, putting on shoulder pads and a helmet that didn’t display “UH” on both sides.
And while the uniforms have changed, what’s remained the same for Mutin is his leadership.
Mutin spent all five of his collegiate years with Houston, being named a team captain unanimously by his teammates for his final three seasons.
In 2018, he was elected leader of the team’s freshman leadership council.
“Coach (Dana) Holgorsen said he never had a player that was voted by every person on the team for three years in a row,” Mutin said.
Though there are no officially designated captains in the UFL, Mutin prides himself on being exemplary and honing those same leadership skills at the professional level alongside his peers.
“It’s not anything to hold or take for granted, and it’s not something to look past,” Mutin said. “The fact that another human can see you as somebody worthy of them taking a note from, or listening to… the fact that somebody sees you like that, you hold it to the highest regard.”
Being vocal to inspire those around him was not something that always came second-nature to the once “super shy” Mutin, however.
Growing up in New Orleans, Mutin wasn’t a big ‘people person’, and rarely spoke around others. He’d do just about everything by himself, from eating to going to movie theatres.
The game of football sparked that change.
When Mutin first began playing football in middle school, he recalled a coach challenging the team to communicate more effectively with one another, which inspired him to speak up.
“I notice things when they’re going well and they’re not going well, and it would eat at me to watch them and don’t say anything,” Mutin said.
Getting past the mental hurdles that come with assuming that kind of role, such as what others would think and say, wasn’t easy, but he was well on his way to being a leader of men.
As he entered high school, Mutin continued to be a more vocal and well-rounded extension of the person he had always been, offering criticism when necessary and praise when it was due, while earning the respect of his teammates and coaches along the way.
Both his play and continued guidance earned him team captain honors in high school.
“I started to see that the kid that was shy, that I had to go to speech classes because I couldn’t pronounce my words when I was young. The kid that went through all of those things, now God has given me a voice,” Mutin said. “And he’s given me the ability to put action behind the things that I tell people so that my words mean more when I do talk.”
Mutin always keeps God at the forefront of his life, crediting him for taking him down the right path, and all the blessings he’s dealt him in his journey.
“If Christ was not who he was from the beginning of the world, when he spoke the Earth into formation, if he wasn’t these things, I would not have any ground to stand on. I wouldn’t have any hope for my future,” Mutin said.
As a child, he wasn’t much of a believer despite praying at the dinner table every night with his parents.
Mutin and his family didn’t regularly attend church or read together, either.
“Then the lord kind of just snatched me from the life that I was living in the opposite direction when I was in high school, and it’s so beautiful,” Mutin said.
Church has allowed Mutin to meet numerous mentors and coaches along the journey, dating back to his middle school days.
Those people from church who first met Mutin as a teenager still growing into his own, finding his calling, his voice, were the same ones in attendance at TDECU when he suited up as a 24-year-old professional.
A professional career that has been anything but easy.
Mutin went through pre-draft workouts and auditioned for scouts at Houston Pro Football Day, but went undrafted. However, he found an opportunity with the Indianapolis Colts after the 2023 NFL draft as an undrafted free agent. He was later released and subsequently signed with the Atlanta Falcons until he was cut at the end of last year’s preseason.
Plenty of lessons can be learned from the NFL experience, but one of the biggest that Mutin took with him was the importance of maintaining a routine and sticking to it, regardless of the circumstances.
During the 2024 offseason, Mutin worked out every day, trying to find a way to secure a spot on the roster alongside former Falcon and current Michigan Panthers teammate, safety Arnold Tarpley.
Every day, they’d do all the drills, go the extra mile in practice, finish meetings and continue to work out indoors.
The routine, with no guarantee of a spot on the active roster, began to weigh on Mutin to the point that he started losing his drive, and he questioned the purpose of doing it every day.
That was when Tarpley, or “Trey” as Mutin calls him, said, “The kind of men that we want to be, we have to be men that do what we know we need to, rather than what we want to do.”
Through the advice of Tarpley, Mutin continued to build confidence as he worked towards a spot on the Falcons’ 53-man roster, recording 18 tackles in his final preseason game with Atlanta.
Mutin led the NFL in preseason tackles with 28 and had the kind of preseason he believed would be enough to survive the multiple rounds of roster cuts.
Yet, on August 25 of last year, he, alongside 12 other Falcons, was officially released from the team.
The seven months that ensued for Mutin were filled with uncertainty, struggle and doubt over the future of his football career.
“I’m driving packages for Amazon every now and then. I’m trying to make money the best I can,” Mutin said. “I’m seeing everything around me go to nothing. Financially, I have nothing. I don’t know if I’m ever going to play football again.”
Several UFL teams that Mutin reached out to expressed interest, but ultimately would pull their contract offers, leading him to believe his playing days may be nearing an end.
That was until linebacker Frank Ginda, a teammate of his on the Panthers and previously the Falcons, informed the Panthers’ coaching staff about him, prompting the organization to sign Mutin to a deal.
“It brings you to tears when you think that these people see something in me that sometimes I don’t see in myself,” Mutin said. “That the lord is still seeing purpose in me.”
Mutin has made the most of this opportunity to continue playing football, and in his return to Houston, he did what he was accustomed to as a Cougar: win.
He recorded six total tackles in the Panthers’ 30-18 victory over the Houston Roughnecks to help seal Michigan’s third consecutive victory.
Mutin appeared in all 10 of the Panthers’ regular-season games this season, accumulating 32 tackles and three tackles for loss.
Even though the UFL experience differs from that of the NFL, with players not being paid as much and the facilities not being as grand, Mutin appreciates the beauty in the differences and believes he is exactly where he’s supposed to be.
Mutin says he doesn’t take for granted the fact that he plays a children’s game for a king’s wage, as opposed to having a desk job and sitting in an office with a suit and tie.
“I get to go play a game, and I get to still live my dream no matter what capacity it looks like. You can’t get to do something like that and not walk around without gratitude.”
Though the chapter in which Mutin carried Houston across his chest has closed, his return was proof that the faith he carries with him now is just as meaningful for what’s left to be written.
sports@thedailycougar.com
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“Donavan Mutin’s faith-driven journey back to Houston” was originally posted on The Cougar