The 2025 coaching carousel has quickly become one of the most dramatic and unpredictable cycles in recent memory, with multiple blue-blood programs making seismic moves in search of stability, identity, and a path back to national relevance.
LSU, Florida, Penn State, and Auburn all enter the market with differing agendas but a shared reality: each believes its vacancy is the kind of job that can — and should — attract top-tier candidates capable of winning immediately. But the truth is that even the sport’s biggest brands need legitimate contingency plans. With competition heating up, political forces shaping searches, and several schools targeting the same top names, identifying the right “Plan B” may ultimately determine which programs regain their footing and which ones fall further behind.
Below is a breakdown of the most logical secondary options for each major opening, a closer look at which names offer the best fit if a program’s top target doesn’t come through.
Presumed Top Target: Lane Kiffin | Ole Miss
Plan B: Jon Sumrall | Tulane
The Bayou Bengals and their circle of decision-makers wasted little time cutting ties with Brian Kelly after an embarrassing loss to Mike Elko and Texas A&M in Death Valley. But nearly a month later, LSU’s coaching search has been anything but conventional. The college football world has been given a front-row seat to just how intertwined Louisiana politics and LSU athletics can be when it comes to hiring and firing a head coach.
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With a new University president and athletics director in place since Kelly’s dismissal in October, the Tigers have shifted their attention toward Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin, hoping the once-embattled coach will be the one to lead their program into its next era. But with Kiffin steering a talented Ole Miss roster toward what could be the program’s first College Football Playoff appearance — and with Florida positioned as a legitimate contender for his services — LSU must begin exploring alternatives.
One of those intriguing alternatives resides just 80 miles down the road, where Tulane head coach Jon Sumrall has posted a 17–7 record in his two seasons leading the Green Wave. At age 43, the former Kentucky linebacker is no stranger to the SEC, cutting his teeth with the Wildcats as both a player and graduate assistant before later spending time as a position coach in both Lexington and Oxford.
Now four years into his head-coaching career, which includes a brief but highly successful stint at Troy, where he led the Trojans to back-to-back double-digit win seasons for the first time since 2018, Sumrall embodies the type of youth and upside LSU hasn’t tapped into since hiring a 48-year-old head coach from Michigan State named Nick Saban.
While there’s a sensible case for Sumrall to make the short jump from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, his limited Power Four head-coaching experience means he’d need significant support — a strong player-personnel infrastructure, aggressive NIL backing, and full administrative alignment — to build a roster and staff capable of competing for national titles while continuing to grow on the job.
All areas where LSU is more than capable of delivering. And if the Tigers swing and miss on Lane Kiffin, Sumrall becomes a far more compelling alternative so long as the school can swallow “hiring the Tulane coach.” Sumrall understands the internal dynamics of Louisiana, the realities of the SEC footprint, and brings the kind of long-term stability and upward trajectory LSU’s decision-makers and fanbase have been chasing through a revolving door of head coaches. For a program searching for a sustainable answer rather than another short-term patch, Sumrall presents a credible, forward-facing vision for the future in Baton Rouge.
Florida
Presumed Top Target: Lane Kiffin | Ole Miss
Plan B: Brent Key | Georgia Tech
After hiring Billy Napier out of the Group of Five just a few years ago, it now appears increasingly likely that Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin will shift his attention toward a more experienced and established presence to lead the Gators back to national prominence. And much like LSU, Florida is expected to be a major player in the rapidly developing sweepstakes for Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin.
With Kiffin weighing multiple opportunities — including the possibility of continuing to build his legacy in Oxford — Stricklin needs to thoroughly evaluate alternatives outside of this cycle’s most coveted coaching candidate. Florida’s short list will almost certainly feature names like Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz, Washington’s Jedd Fisch and Georgia Tech’s Brent Key.
Unlike the play-calling pedigrees of Drinkwitz and Fisch, Key has built his reputation in the trenches, dating back to his playing days as an offensive lineman at Georgia Tech and his early coaching tenure under George O’Leary at UCF. After assuming interim leadership following Geoff Collins’s dismissal during the 2022 season, Key steadied a spiraling Yellow Jackets program, guiding them to a 4–4 finish and earning the removal of his interim tag.
Since then, Key has delivered back-to-back 7–6 seasons while methodically reshaping Georgia Tech’s roster, culture, and expectations — progress that helped lay the foundation for the Yellow Jackets’ current 8–1 start and legitimate push toward the College Football Playoff.
For Florida, Key represents the type of no-nonsense presence and cultural stabilizer Stricklin thought he landed with Napier but could ultimately find in the Georgia Tech head coach. In short order, Key has shown he understands how to build in the modern era of roster turnover, squeeze more out of less, and create a trench-first identity that aligns with what’s required to compete at the highest level of the sport. And although he may not be the flashiest name in this coaching carousel, Key — not unlike Texas A&M’s hire of Mike Elko — has shown a clear understanding of what winning looks like and how to elevate a program that traditionally operates with fewer built-in advantages. That blueprint translates cleanly to Gainesville.
Penn State
Preferred Top Target: TBD
Plan B: Clark Lea | Vanderbilt
The Nittany Lions elected to part ways with James Franklin after three consecutive losses — all in games where Penn State entered as the betting favorite against Oregon, UCLA, and Northwestern. Only a year removed from a College Football Playoff semifinal appearance, athletic director Pat Kraft now faces the difficult task of moving on from a longtime program anchor and identifying a leader capable of delivering the national championship Penn State has spent decades chasing.
With Penn State alumnus and Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule signing an extension to remain in Lincoln for the foreseeable future, Kraft’s search for Franklin’s successor has grown more ambiguous, leaving the direction of the Nittany Lions’ coaching hunt increasingly difficult to predict.
Can we again interest Penn State in hiring the Vanderbilt head coach? Enter Clark Lea.
Now in his fifth season at the helm of the Commodores, the 44-year-old Nashville native has guided Vanderbilt to an 8–2 record this year, just a season removed from delivering the program’s first bowl victory in more than a decade. After enduring two 2–10 campaigns in his first three years, Lea has elevated Vanderbilt from SEC bottom-dweller to one of the league’s most respectable and well-run programs.
Re-energized by the additions of veteran quarterback Diego Pavia, offensive coordinator Tim Beck and chief consultant Jerry Kill, Lea has shown a rare ability to diagnose shortcomings within his program and address them head-on. His willingness to adapt and evolve — in an era defined by roster turnover, portal volatility, and razor-thin margins — represents exactly the traits required to build and sustain success in modern college football. Lea has the conviction and steadiness of a coach uniquely equipped to meet Penn State’s expectations and build a sustainable championship contender in Happy Valley.
Auburn
Preferred Top Target: Jon Sumrall | Tulane
Plan B: Eli Drinkwitz | Missouri
After assembling a highly talented roster that continued to fall short of expectations year after year, Auburn athletic director John Cohen made the swift decision to move on from Hugh Freeze midway through his third season. Once again, the Tigers find themselves searching for a head coach capable of restoring a storied program to national relevance.
Much like Florida, Auburn offers one of the most attractive “win-now” opportunities in this cycle, highlighted by a talented core of young defenders who have logged invaluable reps over the past two seasons under the direction and development of defensive coordinator — and now interim head coach — D.J. Durkin.
And when surveying the field beyond Tulane’s Jon Sumrall and in-house candidate Durkin, Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz presents Cohen with the rare comfort of a strong offensive résumé and established SEC experience. Over the last three seasons in Columbia, Drinkwitz has guided the Tigers to a 27–8 record, highlighted by an 11-win campaign and a Cotton Bowl victory over Ohio State in 2023.
Although skeptics will point to Missouri’s inability to beat a Top 25 SEC opponent over the past two years, Drinkwitz has undeniably elevated the Tigers’ overall talent profile since taking over in 2020. Missouri is now positioned for a potential third consecutive nine-win season for the first time since joining the SEC and could have been in the CFP mix if not for injuries to its first- and second-string quarterbacks.
Of the current head-coaching vacancies, none may be more primed for immediate success than Auburn — and the possibility of retaining a coordinator like Durkin only strengthens the job’s appeal for an opportunistic Drinkwitz. The Tigers offer a familiar recruiting footprint, a competitive NIL infrastructure, and a roster far closer to contention than recent results suggest. For a coach who has already shown he can elevate a program without the geographical advantages he’d inherit on the Plains, the opportunity to establish instant credibility — both with the fanbase and inside one of the country’s most fertile recruiting regions — could be a powerful pull.
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