HOW MANY HEAD COACHES DOES IT TAKE TO COACH A FOOTBALL GAME?

Throughout the history of college football bowl games, there cannot be another scenario that matches the strangeness surrounding the Sugar Bowl between Florida and Cincinnati when it comes to the coaching arrangement.

You have to sharpen your pencil and be ready to connect the dots. Ready? On New Year’s Day there will be no less than six, yes six, head coaches connected to just these two teams.

Most of you are aware that head Gator Urban Meyer resigned on Saturday, Dec. 26th only to change that decision to making that a leave of absence for health reasons. To quote Urban, “it’s full speed ahead” for him to coach through the Sugar Bowl. Once the game ends Florida’s offensive coordinator, Steve Addazio, takes over for Meyer as interim head coach for an undetermined amount of time. Gator defensive coordinator Charlie Strong accepted the head coaching job at Louisville the week after the SEC title game but the agreement included Srong prepping and coaching the defense in the Sugar Bowl. So, that's three for the Gators.

Flipping over to Cincinnati, Brian Kelly led the Bearcats to unprecedented success over the last three years and parlayed that into becoming the new head coach at Notre Dame. Because Kelly accepted the job at the Golden Dome in the second week of December and he needed to move on to assemble a staff, get a handle on recruiting, and further organize his new program the Bearcats placed Cincy’s offensive coordinator, Jeff Quinn, in charge as interim head coach for the bowl game. Now we are up to five head coaches.

Lastly, as Kelly departed the Queen City for South Bend the Bearcats carried out their search for a permanent head coach. Enter Butch Jones, who coincidentally succeeded Kelly three years ago as head coach at Central Michigan upon Kelly’s leaving for Cincy. Jones will be watching his new team with a keen eye as they go about tangling with the Gators while being coached by other people than his own.

I am not sure if this has any effect on the game itself, but it certainly is unusual. So, there you have it. Connect the dots. Six versions of head coaches all tied to two teams in just one bowl game.