There is some split in thinking surrounding the situation with Oregon’s Mark Helfrich, but influential industry sources maintain that they expect a move in the next few days. Helfrich’s team just finished a 4-8 season with a thud, falling to middling rival Oregon State on Saturday. The Ducks allowed 49.2 points a game in seven Pac-12 losses.

Candidates such as Boise State’s Bryan Harsin and Western Michigan’s P.J. Fleck have been mentioned repeatedly to 247Sports, but those close to the Oregon search do not think the school’s administration — and big donors — are overly enthused by the idea of bringing in a Group of 5 coach.

“If they’re hiring from the outside, which they haven’t done, they want to swing for the fences,” one of those industry sources told us in the past week or so.

“They do not want to pay (Helfrich’s) buyout if they don’t have someone to make a splash,” another said.

Whether it’s a homerun or a cannonball can be debated, but the name that suddenly everyone — industry sources and media members, alike — seems to be talking about is Florida coach Jim McElwain.

A general rule this time of year: If everyone’s talking about the same person, it’s either imminent - or it’s B.S., likely an attempt to leverage an extension and raise.

Lean toward the latter, but the possibility remains that McElwain and UF are not a snug fit, a relationship perhaps made more complicated by the arrival of a new athletic director.

McElwain is 18-7 with two SEC East titles in his first two seasons in Gainesville. Florida plays No. 1 Alabama this week in Atlanta. Florida’s defenses have been outstanding, and the team’s offenses have proven so far to be as stagnant as Will Muschamp’s were — despite that McElwain, formerly Nick Saban’s OC at Alabama, has had offensive success wherever he’s been. Forecasting toward 2017, a perceived talent drain on the defensive side could theoretically make this a good time for a move.

Plus, those industry sources remind us that McElwain is a West Coast guy. The 54-year-old grew up in Montana and played quarterback at Eastern Washington. He won 22 games in three seasons at Colorado State before being lured away by then-Florida AD Jeremy Foley. Foley retired and was replaced earlier in the month by Scott Stricklin, formerly at Mississippi State.

The real crushing blow if he left for Oregon would be the demise of his SEC-associated Belk ads.

Other possibilities we’ve written for Oregon include West Virginia’s Dana Holgorsen and Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen. Both of those coaches, perceived by peers and administrators as overachievers in their current jobs, have balanced tempo and spread offensive principles with quality defenses. They also would return some edge to Oregon’s program, something missing since Chip Kelly left for the NFL.

Some other notes from the carousel ...

TENNESSEE

Butch Jones will obviously enter 2017 feeling a great deal of pressure, and staff changes are expected in the coming weeks. That said, 247Sports has been told that neither of the team’s coordinators, neither OC Mike DeBord nor DC Bob Shoop, will be dismissed.

We have been told, however, that the 60-year-old DeBord is at least contemplating retirement. We’ve also been told to expect an overhaul of the team’s strength and conditioning department in the coming months.

Tennessee is also in the midst of an athletic director search, though many sources close to the school say Chattanooga’s David Blackburn — a former deputy AD at UT — should be the shoo-in to begin a sort of healing process for the beleaguered department.

OLE MISS

Before DC Dave Wommack retired, we were told to watch for Indiana’s Tom Allen to take over the defense. Allen was previously on Hugh Freeze’s staffs at Ole Miss, Arkansas State and Lambuth.

It would be a huge loss for Kevin Wilson at Indiana: Allen took a defense that was No. 112 in yards per play in 2015 and vaulted it to No. 25 in 2016, an improvement of 1.38 yards per play.

The Rebels struggled in Wommack’s final season, finishing last in the SEC in scoring defense (34 points per game).

HOUSTON

We’ve been told for a month that interim Todd Orlando, as well as offensive coordinator Major Applewhite, will get a long look from AD Hunter Yurachek. But the school’s leadership, including board chair Tilman Fertitta, want to aim as high as possible to leverage Tom Herman’s success.

Cal coach Sonny Dykes has long been interested in returning to his home state; he interviewed for this job when Herman took the position. Holgorsen’s name has always been popular in our conversations, and it adds up due to Holgorsen’s up-in-the-air contract status at WVU, as well as his deep roots in Houston. Many of the former UH assistants good friends still live in the area.

FLORIDA ATLANTIC

One industry source told us Sunday that FAU was getting a lot of early attention from Power 5 coordinators, flattering considering the program hasn’t had a winning season since 2008.

“It always does (get attention) when it opens,” he said. “Who wouldn’t want to move with their wives and kids to Boca Raton?”

The AD, Patrick Chun, was at Ohio State for 15 seasons before he arrived at FAU. That leads many in the sport to believe Ohio State assistants Luke Fickell and Greg Schiano would among those highly considered.

How about the idea of veteran coaches Schiano and Butch Davis landing at Group of 5 schools in South Florida? Davis took the FIU job earlier this month.

JUST AN FYI ...

If Charlie Strong were retained at Texas, we were told by industry sources that his DC search would have included Washington State’s Alex Grinch and Wake Forest’s Mike Elko.

So if Strong lands another head job somewhere, expect their names to come up. Or, as one source told us, “they’ll come up a lot of places.”

The three seasons prior to Grinch’s arrival, the Cougars were No. 10 in the Pac-12 in scoring defense. They improved to seventh in 2015 and they were sixth (27.2 points per game) this season.

At Wake Forest, the Deacons were sixth in the league in scoring defense in 2015 and they were fourth (21.8 points per game) this season.