The Florida State Seminoles are looking for their new head coach to replace Willie Taggart. As you might expect, the search is now taking on a life of its own.

After rumors of Bob Stoops taking the job seemed to fizzle out, and after rumblings of Deion Sanders being involved went nowhere, it now seems another big-name coach — Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly — has been connected to the job.

According to Bud Elliott and Ingram Smith of The NoleCast, FSU has shown interest in the Notre Dame coach (via 247Sports):

“If Brian Kelly wanted to leave Notre Dame, I think Florida State should jump at that chance,” Elliot said. “He’s an excellent coach, he’s won at multiple jobs at a high level. He’s dealt with some pretty serious academic restraints and restrictions as far as who [recruits] he can sign at Notre Dame…If he did want to leave Notre Dame, perhaps, maybe somebody says ‘Hey, you’re not going to win a National Title at Notre Dame because of the kids you can’t recruit.’ Some of these kids who academically really don’t belong in any college and are really, really good on the football field. The kind of kids you can get at Florida State, but you can’t get at Notre Dame — at least not in the quanity you need to win a title. Maybe that could be a reason he’d want to leave. If so, you need to talk to him pretty seriously. My guess is that he proabably wants to stay at Notre Dame…

“Two people have told us they [FSU] has interest in Brian Kelly…I’d think he’d be an excellent candidate. There’s a little bit of questions about the fit, but the proven track record of hiring assistant coaches and having them get promoted to other jobs and hiring new ones who are as good or better is really impressive. He’s a really good recruiter with his staff. I think he knows what goes on in the south east, because we know he’s recruited some of these guys, and not always gotten them, but we know that’s due to some of the academic stuff…”

That’s certainly an interesting rumor, and Kelly might find success at FSU in a few years by being able to recruit without Notre Dame’s academic requirements.

However, Kelly is 58 years old and may not be as interested in a rebuilding project as, say, 38-year-old Mike Norvell of Memphis might be.