The college football coaching carousel is humming and everyone wants to know who will take a spin with the Florida Gators following their dismissal of Jim McElwain on Sunday.
McElwain failed to make it through three full seasons after arriving from Colorado State in December 2014. He did go 19-8 in his first two seasons and won two SEC East titles but couldn't make it past a tough start to 2017.
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If Florida doesn't replace McElwain with Scott Frost, Dan Mullen or Mike Norvell or another coach whose name is widely circulating, who might they target?
Here are five outside-the-box possibilities that may be of interest to the Gators if everything else fails.
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Mike Bobo
Current Position: Head Coach – Colorado State
Would Florida dare hire Mike Bobo, another former SEC offensive coordinator-turned-Colorado State head coach?
That's the only reason Bobo is listed here. He'd be a good, respectable hire with enough experience to warrant consideration for a big-time job. He won't be mentioned in most coaching rumors because his résumé is almost identical to McElwain's.
A Georgia native who played in Athens and spent 15 years as a Bulldogs' assistant, the revered offensive mind went to Colorado State in 2015 and is 20-15. Bobo knows how to run an offense and has strong recruiting relationships in the southeast.
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Scott Satterfield
Current Position: Head Coach – Appalachian State
App State's Week 9 loss to UMass slowed the Scott Satterfield's hype train a little but the 44-year-old fifth-year head coach is still a hot Group of Five candidate.
Satterfield is from North Carolina, played for the Mountaineers and was on their staff for 12 of the first 15 years of his career. He led App State's FBS transition, went 21-5 between 2015-16 and knows how to lead a balanced offense.
The Sun Belt-to-SEC jump is a big one, and though he's recruited well in Florida, would the Gators be willing to take a shot on Satterfield?
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Chip Long
Current Position: Offensive Coordinator – Notre Dame
Chip Long is Brian Kelly's first-year offensive coordinator who has transformed the Irish offense into a well-oiled machine.
He's 34 years old and is in just his second season as a coordinator. However, Long, who started his career just 11 years ago as a grad assistant at Louisville, has rocketed up the ranks thanks to offensive brilliance. He learned under Todd Graham as tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator at Arizona State and helped Memphis lead a powerful offense last year despite major personnel losses.
The next logical step for Long is a Group of Five head coach job. The aggressive step — and one that could be made by a program willing to try something new after years of offensive struggles — would be an upper-tier Power Five job.
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Dino Babers
Current Position: Head Coach – Syracuse
The most well-known and likely candidate that may interest Florida, Dino Babers' stock soared after Syracuse's win over Clemson in mid-October.
The 56-year-old has been almost everywhere (seriously, he's changed programs 15 times in the last 33 years), except the southeast. His three years as a Baylor assistant (2008-11) jump-started his head coaching career. After stops at Eastern Illinois and Bowling Green, Babers is just 8-12 at Syracuse since arriving in 2016.
He may be another year away from a promotion, though his high-flying offensive system could warrant an opportunity a year early.
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Tony Sanchez
Current Position: Head Coach – UNLV
This is a big, big reach.
Chip Long might be the most unlikely possibility but Tony Sanchez is the biggest wild card. From high school football to the SEC in less than four years? Don't bet on it.
Nonetheless, he's a rising star who has returned UNLV to respectability in just three seasons. The former Bishop Gorman head coach is still chasing his first bowl appearance, though that may come this season after a huge upset of Fresno State in Week 9
He's never lived anywhere near Florida and has almost zero recruiting experience in the southeast.
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