Florida Next Coach Odds: Kiffin, Franklin, Meyer Among Favorites to Replace Napier as Gators HC

After three and a half seasons as Florida's head coach, the Gators fired Billy Napier following a Week 8 win over Mississippi State. We're breaking down the Florida next coach odds and parsing the flurry of rumors around the favorites that athletic director Scott Stricklin may be targeting.

The oddsboard doesn't lack for major names with Ole Miss' Lane Kiffin leading the Florida next coach odds and the likes of former Penn State head coach James Franklin, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman, former Florida and Ohio State coach Urban Meyer, and even Jon Gruden all having odds shorter than +2000.

🐊 Florida next coach odds & betting favorites

Florida next coach odds based on the best college football odds; subject to change.

🔮 Who will be Florida head coach?

🦈 Lane Kiffin, HC, Ole Miss (+200)

It seems like Kiffin's name will forever pop up when a blue blood SEC job opens, especially after Auburn tried to lure him away in 2023 before hiring Hugh Freeze, who's now on the hot seat. But would Kiffin really leave the Rebels after they gave him the opportunity to coach major college football again?

The former Tennessee, USC, and FAU head coach has gone 50-19 since taking over Ole Miss in 2020, which includes three double-digit win seasons and a 6-1 start this year. He's certainly a strong candidate for the job and has enough similarities to Steve Spurrier to get Gator nation excited.

However, these odds are a bad bet with how wide open this coaching search is and it feeling more likely that Ole Miss gives Kiffin an extension than it is for him to head to Gainesville - much like how he opted to sign an extension rather than go to Auburn two years ago. And are we even sure Florida is a better job than Ole Miss?

Kiffin's current contract runs through 2030, and we just saw him walk into Sanford Stadium on Saturday alongside his agent, Jimmy Sexton. I'd bet Kiffin gets an extension sooner rather than later to put this all to rest, like Curt Cignetti did at Indiana following the Penn State rumors.

🔴 Jeff Brohm, HC, Louisville (+300)

Would Jeff Brohm's odds be this short if he hadn't just taken down No. 2 Miami in Hard Rock Stadium on Friday night? Surely that's playing a role in Brohm being just +300, despite his only connection to the state of Florida being the year he was QB coach at FAU in 2009.

Brohm's also never coached in the SEC, which isn't a prerequisite, but this feels like recency bias. The former Louisville QB is at his alma mater and has it pretty good there with a 24-9 record since taking over in 2023. And while he's won everywhere he's been (30-10 at Western Kentucky, 36-34 at Purdue), I can't imagine this hire getting the Florida faithful overly excited.

Sure, conference and regional ties don't matter nearly as much as they once did, but Brohm feels like too safe a play for a Florida fan base likely hoping Stricklin makes a splashy hire.

🦁 James Franklin, former Penn State HC (+600)

It would be splashy to hire a head coach who just got fired by a program that has gone far longer than Florida without winning a national title - I'm just not sure it's the good kind of splash. Franklin resurrected Penn State after program-altering sanctions and went 104-45 leading the Nittany Lions from 2014-2025.

He's without a doubt one of the 25 best college football coaches on the planet, but the optics of it all might be a tough sell for Stricklin to boosters that will likely help foot Napier's buyout bill ($21 million, including $10.5 million in the first 30 days). Franklin wants to coach again, and he's had success in the SEC as Vanderbilt's bench boss with a 24-15 record and two nine-win seasons in three years, but this seems unlikely. Franklin seems destined for a job like Virginia Tech or UCLA, not Florida.

🔁 Could Urban Meyer return to Florida?

🎲 Urban Meyer next Florida coach odds (+900)

Pause for laughter. There's just no way this is happening ... right?

Urban Meyer is the best college football coach not named Nick Saban this century and went 65-15 in six years leading the Gators, including three 13-1 seasons and two national titles. He's the only coach other than Spurrier to win more than 80% of his games at Florida. But he also left abruptly due to health reasons before resurfacing at Ohio State and going 83-9 with a national title ... before again retiring abruptly due to health reasons. And the last time we saw him coaching in the state of Florida, he only had one more win than he had controversies involving a woman that was not his wife.

There's a ton of baggage with Meyer, who has a 2-11 record as a head coach (Jacksonville Jaguars) in the last seven years. The sport has changed so much since he last coached college football in 2018, and even with this being the era of retreads (Rich Rodriguez at West Virginia, Scott Frost at UCF, etc.), this doesn't even seem remotely possible unless Stricklin is just searching for short-term gratification at the risk of a long-term headache. I'd suspect Meyer isn't overly interested in leaving his cushy job at FOX, either.

🎯 Best bet to be next Florida coach

🐯 Eliah Drinkwitz, HC, Missouri (+700)

The Florida next coach odds are full of major names that are both jaw-dropping and head-scratching, but one name sticks out to me as the best-case scenario for Florida. Not only does Eliah Drinkwitz have a proven track record in the SEC at Missouri, but the Tigers have built a strong front office that's among the best when it comes to talent evaluation, both in recruiting and the transfer portal.

Drinkwitz has proof of concept in the SEC, taking over a Missouri program that got stale under Barry Odom (25-25 in his four seasons at the helm) and building it into a potential College Football Playoff contender this season. Drinkwitz, who went 12-1 in his lone season as Appalachian State before taking the Missouri job, is coming off back-to-back double-digit win seasons with the Tigers and has them boasting a 6-1 record heading into Week 9.

Like Kiffin, Drinkwitz also fits that Spurrier swagger archetype to some extent, and not just because he wears a visor. The former Auburn, Arkansas State, Boise State, and NC State assistant has an abrasive attitude that could be mistaken for cockiness rather than confidence if he hadn't turned Missouri into a real threat in the SEC.

With a $10 winning bet on Drinkwitz paying a $70 profit if he's hired as Florida's next head coach, he's the perfect mix of value and logic when it comes to the odds at our best college football betting sites.

📜 Florida coaching history

Here's a look at the last 10 head coaches at Florida following Billy Napier's dismissal on Sunday.