Ed Orgeron, who won a national championship at Louisiana State, and Chris Petersen, who won a Mountain West title at Boise State, might be in the running to replace Marcus Arroyo as UNLV football coach, sources tell the Review-Journal.

They join former Arizona coaches Mike Stoops and Kevin Sumlin as the names most mentioned for the opening, which was created a week ago when UNLV athletic director Erick Harper announced the firing of Marcus Arroyo following a 5-7 season and a 7-23 record in his three seasons as coach.

Orgeron is the most intriguing and recently successful coach on the list. He was hired as the interim coach at LSU after Les Miles was fired in 2016. He then led the Tigers to a 15-0 season in 2019, defeating Clemson 42-25 in the College Football Playoff championship game.

However, his success at LSU didn’t last long. Orgeron finished the shortened COVID-19 season 5-5 and followed it with a 6-6 campaign in 2021, when he announced he was leaving the program.

Orgeron finished his time at LSU with a 51-20 record and five bowl appearances, not including the national championship game.

Petersen hasn’t coached since the end of the 2019 season, when he led Washington to a Las Vegas Bowl win against his former team, Boise State. Along with leading the Huskies to the CFP in 2016, Petersen coached the Broncos during their most successful stint, including a 2009 Fiesta Bowl win against Oklahoma.

He won seven conference championships during his coaching career, including one in the Mountain West with Boise State during the 2012 season.

Sumlin is the coach and general manager of the Houston Gamblers in the United States Football League. He’s held three coaching positions at the college level, first at Houston, then a six-year stint at Texas A&M, where he coached Heisman winner Johnny Manziel, followed by a difficult three-year tenure at Arizona.

It’s Sumlin’s success with Houston in Conference USA that will interest UNLV. During his four seasons with the Cougars, he went 35-17 and took them to three bowl games. Sumlin’s final campaign with Houston saw the team go 12-1 and finish 8-0 in the conference.

Stoops is the inside linebackers coach at Kentucky, where he serves on the staff of his brother Mark. He also was the head coach at Arizona, where he went 41-50 during his eight-year tenure. He went to three bowl games, including a win in the 2008 Las Vegas Bowl. Most notably, Harper served as Stoops’ director for football operations at Arizona.

During his search, Harper said Monday he would “lean on that experience as a former player and being on the staff at the University of Arizona, as well.”

Harper said his search could include “someone who’s currently coaching in a bowl game or someone preparing for some other championships as well. It could be someone that’s not preparing for a bowl game but has a championship pedigree. We’ll just move along as fast as we can.”

Whoever Harper selects to take over the Rebels will have his hands full recruiting assistants and support staff and preparing for the early signing period, which begins Dec. 21.

Harper, a former college football player at Kansas State, said he wants a coach with previous head-coaching experience.

Contact reporter Andy Yamashita at ayamashita@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ANYamashita on Twitter.