Avery Helm Found His Way Back to Dan Mullen and Says He Has His “Flame” Back at UNLV

LAS VEGAS — Avery Helm was not sure another chance with Dan Mullen was coming.

Helm had already played for Mullen at Florida, transferred to TCU and gone through another torn ACL along with a lingering injury that eventually required surgery. When another season of college football became possible, it was Helm’s mother who kept asking whether he had talked to his former coach.

He had not, so Helm opened Instagram and sent Mullen a message.

“My mom was actually like, ‘Man, you talk to Coach?’” Helm said. “I’m like, ‘No.’ So I texted him on Instagram. He texted me right back. I said, ‘Coach, I got another year.’ He got me on the flight three days later.”

That message brought Helm to UNLV for another season of college football and reunited him with the coach who gave him his first opportunity at Florida.

Helm’s path started in Missouri City, Texas, where he played at Fort Bend Marshall and helped the program reach back-to-back Class 5A Division II state championship games in 2018 and 2019. He was one of the better cornerback prospects in Texas and received more than 20 Division I offers, including Alabama, Auburn, Georgia and LSU.

Speed had been part of Helm’s game long before college. He also competed in track and field and was a Junior Olympics qualifier before eventually focusing on football.

Florida became the choice, and Mullen was the coach who brought him to Gainesville.

Helm played immediately as a freshman in 2020 and gradually took on a larger role in Florida’s secondary. By his second season, he had become a regular starter at cornerback and appeared to be establishing himself in the SEC.

Mullen was fired late in the 2021 season, but Helm remained at Florida for another year before entering the transfer portal. His next stop was TCU, where he joined a program coming off a national championship appearance.

Helm played extensively during his first season with the Horned Frogs and again showed he could handle a significant role in a Power Four secondary. Then the injuries began changing the direction of his career.

He tore his ACL for the second time while at TCU. Another lingering injury followed and eventually required another surgery.

Football became something Helm had to fight to get back rather than something he could assume would be there.

That history is part of why Mullen bringing him to UNLV means more to Helm than simply reuniting with a familiar coach.

“Realistically, and this is why I appreciate Coach so much, this is the second time he took me coming off of a torn ACL,” Helm said. “So he know I’m not gonna quit. I’m gonna show up every day and be the best I can be.”

The trust goes both ways.

“So he trusts me like I trust him,” Helm said.

Helm said there was a point during the process when the emotions of everything he had gone through finally caught up with him. The injuries, surgeries and uncertainty had changed his relationship with football. Getting another opportunity changed it again.

“I was crying in the car and I was just like, ‘I got my flame back,’” Helm said.

For Helm, getting his flame back was about more than being medically cleared to play. He had spent enough time unable to do what had been part of his life since he was young to understand how quickly it could disappear.

“It’s like being born again,” Helm said.

The time away also changed how Helm sees his role around teammates. He said dealing with injuries forced him to open up more and think about what he could give to other players even when he could not help on the field.

“It taught me to open up and pour into others more,” Helm said.

That gives UNLV more than another experienced cornerback.

Defensive backs coach Akeem Davis has a secondary with several players who have already played significant college football, and Helm adds another veteran who has started games in both the SEC and Big 12.

“Avery has played a lot of big-time football,” Davis said.

Helm does not lack confidence in what he can still do when healthy.

“Everything,” Helm said when asked what he brings at cornerback. “Everything you want in a corner, I got it.”

The confidence has been there since before Florida, TCU or UNLV. What has changed is what sits underneath it.

Helm enters a UNLV secondary that does not need him to build everything from the beginning. Davis has veterans throughout the room, which has allowed the staff to spend more time developing the details of Paul Guenther’s defense instead of trying to establish how the group is supposed to operate.

“I think you don’t have to reset the culture,” Davis said.

Helm fits into that because of how much football he has already seen. He can compete for a role while also giving younger defensive backs another player to learn from.

His approach to leadership is not complicated.

“If you get around me, you know what my energy is,” Helm said.

That energy has a different source now.

Helm said his mother remained one of the constants while injuries complicated his career. The two still talk every morning and every night, and she was the person he could call when football was not going the way he wanted.

“She’s the only person I can call and just lay it all out,” Helm said. “She’d be like, ‘You know what, son? Just gotta keep going.’”

Eventually, she was also the person asking whether he had called Mullen.

Davis has told Helm and the rest of UNLV’s veteran defensive backs to approach each practice as if it could be their last opportunity. Helm does not need much explanation for why.

He has already spent enough time away from football to understand what having it back means.

“I got my flame back,” Helm said. “I feel like I love ball. It’s like being born again.”