With Urban Meyer stepping down as Florida Gators head coach, the usual suspects have been stepped up in the discussion as his potential replacement. The Florida re-treads have been mentioned, like Dan Mullen (former quarterbacks coach/offensive coordinator for Meyer) at Mississippi State and Charlie Strong (former defensive coordinator for Meyer) at Louisville. The big names have been floated around, like Bob Stoops at Oklahoma and Chip Kelly at Oregon--Kelly was rumored to be the number one candidate a year ago when Meyer supposedly stepped down last year. And of course, the hot names, like Chris Petersen at Boise State, Gary Patterson at TCU, and...wait for it...Jim Harbaugh of the Stanford Cardinal.
Is Harbaugh likely to leave Stanford? Unless the school is Michigan, it's not likely. Harbaugh is already in the process of negotiating a new contract that should keep him in Palo Alto at least through next year. Right now, he's at the peak of his powers and has no real incentive to leave, so why would he? Of course, there was that whole Kansas brouhaha last offseason, so you never know whether Harbaugh will look elsewhere...or even more cunningly, do what he can to raise his market price to make the Cardinal pay through the nose through him.
Expect this to be the first of a hundred rumors this winter and spring of Harbaugh-to-Attractive-Destination-X. This might be the second; he's probably already turned down the Miami Hurricanes job.