Florida is beginning its coaching search this week having fired Dan Mullen on Sunday, and the Gators are out to find a coach who can get them back to national championship contention.

Bruce Feldman of The Athletic has produced a list of coaches who figure to get strong consideration from Athletics Director Scott Stricklin, and the group includes Kentucky coach Mark Stoops, and Georgia offensive coordinator Todd Monken.

Feldman points out that Stoops beat Florida when the Gators were No. 10 in the country.

The 54-year-old Ohio native won SEC Coach of the Year honors in 2018. He knows the state well from time coaching on the USF, Miami and Florida State staffs. He’s done an outstanding job building the Kentucky program and is 31-17 in the past four years. He has proven he has a sharp eye for talent and can develop NFL-caliber players. His teams are physical and focused — issues that Mullen’s teams struggled with consistently. Stoops is expected to be a target of other searches this fall and winter.

As for Monken, Feldman wrote that an industry source said he checks all the boxes, and has previous head coaching experience at Southern Miss, and was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ OC. At Southern Miss, Monken took the Golden Eagles from 1-11 his first year to 9-5 in his third season despite a lot of administrative challenges.

“Monken’s in an interesting situation,” an industry source told The Athletic this week. “He checks a lot of boxes. (He) has prior head coaching experience where he did a really good job; he has a really good reputation; (he) has experience in the NFL; and now what he’s doing offensively at Georgia with pretty average quarterback talent is impressive. Does he want to go back to the NFL at some point if he can get some potential OC opportunities in the NFL? He also now knows that Nick Saban/Kirby (Smart) model about how to put it all together.”