Florida coaching candidates: 7 most likely replacements for Dan Mullen

Todd Monken is a career coordinator, but this would be a big opportunity for him

It would be something if Florida replaces Mullen with a top coordinator from one of its biggest rivals. Given how throughly dominant the Georgia Bulldogs have been this season, both of their coordinators could be up for head-coaching gigs. The first guy to touch on is offensive coordinator Todd Monken. He might be a career coordinator, but he did lead Southern Miss for three seasons.

Monken has deep NFL ties and runs an offense that does a great job of putting its players in positions to succeed. He may not be all that dynamic in front of a microphone, but Florida would welcome that over the utter clown show the Mullen era turned into. Odds are, Georgia will give Monken a big raise after this season to prevent him from being poached by their biggest rival.

Dan Lanning is ready to be a head coach, but is Florida the right first job for him?

If any coach on Kirby Smart’s Georgia staff is leaving to lead his own team, it would have to be defensive coordinator Dan Lanning. He is an outstanding recruiter, specializing in coaching up linebackers. Lanning not only stems from the Smart coaching tree, but he also has roots with the likes of Mike Norvell and Todd Graham prior to joining the Georgia staff in Athens a few years ago.

In his mid-30s, Lanning is the right age to lead a program of his own. While he needs to go to a mid-tier, Group of Five school first, he is deserving to get the offer from Florida. Ultimately, he is an on-the-rise candidate that will make the Florida fanbase proud when it comes to recruiting. Two questions are how strong of a staff can he assemble and how will his program be run?

Jamey Chadwell is a proven head coach, but is he ready to join the Power Five?

Though he was certainly a much hotter candidate last year than now, 2020 was no fluke for Jamey Chadwell at Coastal Carolina. He went from being a Sun Belt head coach who could maybe lead SEC schools like South Carolina, Tennessee and Vanderbilt to potentially being a guy who could take over a bigger job like Florida and LSU. He can build a winning program and coach players up.

The issue with Chadwell is nobody on his Coastal Carolina staff has Power Five experience. While the Sun Belt has many excellent teams playing in it, Florida plays in the SEC. Mullen had tremendous success at Mississippi State prior to leaving for the Florida job four years ago, and look how that turned out. Chadwell could have success, but this is a major step up from Coastal.

While Chadwell, Lanning and Monken could all conceivably end up with the Florida job, these next three candidates should be the finalists for the gig to replace Mullen going forward.