20 college football coaches who are on the hot seat

Allen helped breathe life into a hapless program in his third and fourth full season at the helm of Indiana, going 8-5 and 6-2 in 2019 and 2020, respectively. In '20, the Hoosiers took the nation by storm and were a Big Ten ruling away from playing for a conference championship, but that seems so far away now. Since then, Indiana has gone 6-18 and has watched former quarterback Michael Penix Jr. go to Washington and lead the nation in passing. Hoosier fans got a taste of the good life and another poor showing by Allen's team could lead to his dismissal. 

Babers has been a yearly member of this list and 2023 is no different. To his credit, he has been building the Orange back up after a dismal pandemic season when Syracuse went 1-10. They went 5-7 in 2021 and began 2022 with a 7-0 record ... then lost the final six games of the season. That kind of crash is quite stunning and kind of emblematic of Babers' eight years in upstate New York. If the Orange continue to hang around mediocrity or have another poor season, it's unlikely Babers will stay on for a 10th season. 

To say that Mike Bloomgren's tenure at Rice has been a slow build would be an understatement. After going 2-11 in his first year with the Owls, he has gone 3-9, 2-3, 4-8 and 5-8 the following four seasons. Rice, who was 5-7 at the end of the regular season, did "earn" a bowl trip last year (which they lost to Southern Miss) but that was by no means a successful season. With the Owls moving from Conference USA to the AAC, it will be much more difficult for Bloomgren to find wins in a tougher conference. 

Terry Bowden has certainly had quite a career in college football. After being an assistant for his father Bobby at Florida State, he took the head job at Salem College. He would go on to be the head coach at his dad's alma mater, Samford, before moving on to Auburn ... where he would go 11-0 in his first season. Since then, he's been an analyst and made coaching stops at North Alabama, Akron and now Louisiana-Monroe. At ULM, his Warhawks have put together 4-8 records in each of his first two seasons. Bowden lost a lot of players through the transfer portal or graduation, making the 2023 team a major roster overhaul.  

West Virginia loves their football, but they don't love what's been happening under head coach Neal Brown. Four years and three losing seasons for Brown, who was 31-8 in his last three seasons at Troy before taking over in Morgantown. He hasn't won more than six games in any year and the Mountaineers are picked by many to finish at the bottom of the revamped Big 12 this season. If that happens, he won't make it to 2024. 

Hot seat can be a relative term in sports. While it may be doubtful that Cristobal would be fired with another bad season, there will be a ton of heat on him if the Hurricanes limp to another 5-7 season. Cristobal's hiring -- a 10-year deal for $80M -- is a bit of a double-edged sword. The length of the deal makes it unlikely that Cristobal would be fired after two years, but the financial commitment made to him and from others around the program to upgrade facilities and build a new on-campus stadium raised expectations. Another losing season doesn't cut it and a program that was feeling confident that it could quickly build itself into a national power once again will be letdown and demanding answers. 

Compared to others on this list, the likelihood of Drinkwitz getting fired this season is small. After a 12-1 season at Appalachian State (his lone season there), he's coached Mizzou to a 5-5 mark during 2020 and consecutive 6-7 records. Not great, but the Tigers were in rough shape when he got there. Having said that, Drinkwitz was hired to fix their offense, which he really hasn't. He also hasn't had to build a program before now, so the jury is out on if he can bring in the talent to make Missouri respectable in the SEC. With his comments about how NIL allows players to make more money than his pediatrician brother, it will be interesting to see if he is able to lure SEC talent to Columbia going forward. Drinkwitz's job may be safe, but the seat is already warming up. Check out the Tigers schedule after September: LSU, at Kentucky, South Carolina, at Georgia, Tennessee, Florida and at Arkansas. Yikes!

Elliott quickly shot up the coaching ranks and landed the Virginia job after just two seasons of being a coordinator. The Cavaliers offense was stagnant in his first year in Charlottesville, just one season after being one of the most prolific in the ACC. Of course, Virginia's 3-7 season dealt with a horrific campus shooting that left three Cavalier players dead and another wounded and Elliott's leadership during that time was key to helping the team deal with the trauma. Having said that, if UVa struggles that mightily again in 2023 then Elliott may be out of a job. 

When Texas A&M lured Jimbo Fisher away from Florida State, fans expected the Aggies to compete for SEC titles and get into the College Football Playoff. Not only has neither of those things happened, but A&M has regressed to the point that they finished 5-7 last season ... the worst season under Fisher. Meanwhile, former rival Texas and Oklahoma are set to enter the SEC in 2024, making an already stellar conference even tougher and taking the luster off of A&M's claim of being the SEC's Texas team. Fisher's buyout (in the $80M range) will likely be his savior for the time being, but rest assured that the Aggies need to turn it around or the voices demanding his removal will grow louder. 

Gonzales is a long-time member of the Lobos family. He was a punter and safety for New Mexico in the 1990s. He became a graduate assistant in 1999 and spent the next decade in various roles for the program. After nine years at San Diego State and Arizona State, Gonzales returned to Albuquerque to take over the Lobos program. It really hasn't gone well as the Lobos have gone just 3-20 in Mountain West play over his three seasons and were a dreadful 2-10 overall last season. Gonzales is certainly invested in a program that was already in tough times. He's done well building the roster through the transfer portal and hopes that New Mexico shows improvement. If not, patience likely runs out. 

After winning six games in each of his first two seasons at Boston College, Jeff Hafley's Eagles sunk to a 3-9 season that featured several games they were blown out. Once a proud program, Boston College looked horrible last season and had one of the weakest recruiting classes among Power 5 schools. If Hafley can get his guys to turn it around in 2023, he likely stays on. If they win just three or four games and looked outclassed in half their losses, he will probably lose his job. 

Hammock is entering his fifth season at NIU and it hasn't gone well. What was once a major player in the MAC has turned into an also-ran. The Huskies went 9-5 in 2021, but has lost 22 of the other 30 games under Hammock, including a woeful 3-9 last year. Quarterback Rocky Lombardi is back which gives Northern Illinois could make a run in the always chaotic MAC. Another 3 or 4 win showing and it may be time to move on. 

One of the more interesting names on this list, Holgorsen has had a decent amount of success of late -- a 12-2 season in 2021 followed up by an 8-5 mark last year -- but now he brings his Cougars into the Big 12. Holgorsen was fired at West Virginia even though he had seven winning seasons in eight years, and Houston fired Major Applewhite after an 8-5 seasons, so it isn't impossible to see the school move on from Holgorsen if Houston has a bad season. On the bright side, he signed an extension that keeps him under contract through 2027 and their fresh new Big 12 schedule lacks a date with Oklahoma and sees the Cougars play 10 games in the state of Texas and 8 games in the city of Houston. 

Butch Jones has been successful at Central Michigan, Cincinnati and Tennessee but has not yet been able to get Arkansas State going. The Red Wolves have gone 5-19 under Jones, which is in stark contrast to the success they had in the decade before his arrival. Hugh Freeze, Gus Malzahn, Brian Harsin and Blake Anderson combined for nine winning seasons, including two 10-win seasons, and nine bowl games. Jones has lost 14 of 16 conference games in two years -- for comparison, the Red Wolves lost 15 conference games total from 2011 to 2019. 

Both Rutgers and Greg Schiano were hoping that getting back together would rekindle their success and revamp their football reputations. Schiano was head coach at Rutgers from 2001 to 2011 and led the Scarlet Knights to six bowl games, highlighted by an 11-2 season in 2006. Since his return in 2020, the Scarlet Knights have gone 12-22 and their only bowl appearance was controversial -- the 5-7 team was a replacement for Texas A&M, due to COVID-19 issues, in the Gator Bowl. His history with the program may give him a bigger leeway than it would at other schools but he also needs to show some kind of improvement or there will be whispers about needing to move on. 

There are so many components to this situation. First off, Silverfield has gone just 21-16 in his three-plus years at Memphis, but they've reached a bowl game in each season. While not awful, it pales in comparison to what Justin Fuente and Mike Norvell built at Memphis in the six years before hiring Silverfield. The Tigers have had two straight losing seasons in AAC play coming into this season ... and there lies another issue. Memphis fancies itself as the most attractive Group of 5 program for a Power 5 league to go after, but that just hasn't happened. Meanwhile, former AAC rivals Cincinnati, Houston and UCF (along with independent BYU) move up to join the Big 12 and Memphis is stuck with a much weaker American Athletic Conference. So Memphis should start to run the league, right? If not, there will be a hard look at Silverfield's performance (his buyout is just $2M after the season) and if the program needs to make a change to boost their stock in the ever-changing college athletic landscape.  

Tucker's situation is similar to Mario Cristobal's as he is early on in a long-term contract that would be very costly to move on from. Having said that, Tucker has had an interesting run as Michigan State's head coach. After going 5-7 in one season at Colorado, Tucker was tapped to be the new Spartans head coach in 2020 when Mark Dantonio stepped down. He was 2-5 during the pandemic season, but vaulted to a stunning 11-2 mark in 2021. After being rewarded with a jaw-dropping 10-year extension worth $95M, Tucker's Spartans went just 5-7 last season despite being a preseason dark horse to win the Big Ten. No one understood why Michigan State offered that kind of contract to Tucker, but they did and that may keep him around East Lansing for the foreseeable future no matter how bad it gets for Sparty. 

Yet another high-profile coaching hire entering his second season at his program on this list, but that shows you the nature of college athletics right now. When Lincoln Riley left Oklahoma for USC after the 2021 season, the university made an interesting decision to hire the defensive-minded Venables to succeed him. Doing so, you would think, means there should be some patience as the program switches from Riley's offensive attack (and lack of attention to the defense) to Venables rebuilding that defense up to his standards. Much of what Venables walked into isn't his fault, but he will be tasked to improve on the 6-7 record and Cheez-It Bowl appearance of 2022. Under normal circumstances, I'd think that he'd be given more time to mold the Sooners into what he wanted, but this is Oklahoma's final season in the Big 12 and they will take a huge leap in competition in the SEC. As OU's former rival Nebraska has shown us, it is possible for one of the elite programs in college football history to get forgotten when they change leagues. 

In six years at Berkeley, Wilcox has gone 30-36 and has yet to have a winning record in Pac-12 play. He has beaten Stanford three of the last four years, but hasn't been able to gobble up more wins outside the Bay Area of late. The Bears haven't reached a bowl since 2019 and fired offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave during the 2022 season. When coordinators and assistants are fired mid-season, that means the head coach's seat is boiling hot moving forward. 

Wilson was a curious choice for the head coaching job when he got it (even I wasn't a fan of it) and Nevada's awful 2-10 season was proof of that. The Wolf Pack went winless in Mountain West play and fans stayed away from watching them play. That second part is cause for alarm as it directly shows the disconnect between the fan base and the program. If Wilson has another flat season, expect Nevada to quickly make a change.