Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football, where a Sunday cannot go by without someone getting fired. First Quarter: How Is Your Second-Year Head Coach Doing?
The next time you hear someone declare that NIL and player revenue sharing is ruining college football, do two things: First, laugh at that person; then, point them to the current coaching carousel. You want to see panic-induced, irresponsible spending? There it is.
Schools are euthanizing seasons as they go, firing coaches at a breathless pace, shrugging off the buyout millions and sometimes giving up on painstaking plans the first time they lose two in a row. It’s almost like they can’t wait to quit on their current teams the minute disappointment sets in.
When it starts to crumble, there seems to be no stopping it from the inside. It’s impossible to recall another season when one loss begets two then begets three in so many places, as programs buckle under the pressure. All the offseason talk about brotherhood, holding the rope and persevering through adversity sounds cheap when teams unravel the way they are this season.
In that context, it sometimes can seem like a firing is the only way out—and like it has to happen right now. So 10 FBS schools have terminated coaches before we’ve reached November, seven at the Power 4 conference level (that’s 10.5%).
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Brian Kelly (11) is the latest highly successful coach to very quickly, very suddenly lose the plot and lose his job. After three defeats in four games—all to teams that are College Football Playoff contenders and ranked in the Top 10—LSU (12) on Sunday night got rid of Kelly. Fewer than four years ago, the Tigers paid a sultan’s salary to swipe him from Notre Dame in hopes of chasing a national championship.
(The level of schadenfreude in South Bend is currently off the charts, by the way. The Fighting Irish hit a home run with Kelly’s successor, Marcus Freeman, while LSU is potentially on the hook for $54 million. That would be the second-largest buyout in history, to Jimbo Fisher’s $76 million at Texas A&M.)
Kelly was never the smoothest fit on the bayou, from the fake accent to the lack of hardware. But it’s not like he was terrible.
His record was 34–14, a winning percentage of .708. He took the Tigers to the SEC championship in 2022 and beat Alabama that season; coached Jayden Daniels to the Heisman Trophy in ’23; helped knock rival Mississippi out of the playoff last year; and opened this season with a win at Clemson that had LSU ranked No. 3 in the nation.
Not good enough.
Kelly’s fireable offense was losing to Mississippi (7–1), Vanderbilt (7–1) and Texas A&M (8–0). Those are not bad losses, but they are numerous enough to essentially evict LSU from playoff contention. That is the breaking point, as the upper echelon of the sport careens toward a playoff-or-bust mentality.
(This kind of coaching cannibalism will also drive an even stronger push to expand the playoff to 16 teams. Bank on it.)
At least Penn State (13) pulled the plug on James Franklin (14) after losses to one good team (Oregon) and two mediocre opponents, UCLA (3–5) and Northwestern (5–3). Florida (15) gave Billy Napier (16) 3½ seasons before making a move, with Napier owning the worst record at the school since the 1940s.
LSU believes it should always be in contention in a 12-team playoff era, and actually make the tournament as often as not. Three national championships this century under three different coaches—two of which are Les Miles and Ed Orgeron, not exactly geniuses—can convince a school that it can live at the top of the food chain.
That has made LSU a premier job. And also an incredibly pressurized job. They will turn on a coach in Baton Rouge as fast as anywhere in the nation.
While schools raise ticket prices and donation levels in the name of NIL fundraising, remember the buyouts. While they chafe at their media-rights deals, remember the facility spending. While they consider an injection of private capital as a panacea, remember what they’re going to pay the next savior coach.
Especially this year. Because despite all the handwringing about money, we are entering a massively expensive hiring market. Demand is high, supply is iffy.
This is a great time to be Lane Kiffin (17). The Ole Miss coach is doing his best work, and is believed to be front and center in the Florida coaching search—but now here comes LSU. If a bidding war ensues, Kiffin could easily command Curt Cignetti money (he just agreed to an eight-year, $93 million deal at Indiana). At least.
It’s a great time to be Jon Sumrall (18), the Tulane coach with a 38–10 record in just four seasons as a head coach. At one point last year, he looked like he might be ticketed to Kentucky, his alma mater. Now he will be in play for much better jobs. LSU could at least save on moving expenses if it just has to ship him down I-10 from New Orleans to Baton Rouge.
It’s a great time to be Eli Drinkwitz (19), who figures to either get paid more at Missouri or get paid more somewhere else. Even with a loss at Vanderbilt on Saturday that drops the Tigers to 6–2 and pushes them to the periphery of playoff contention, they could still make school history with a third straight 10-win season.
And it’s a great time to be the alma mater boys (20). Brent Key is undefeated at Georgia Tech, where he played offensive line; Clark Lea is 7–1 at Vandy, where he was a fullback; Jeff Brohm is 6–1 at Louisville, where he was a star quarterback; and Kenny Dillingham is 5–3 with an injury-challenged team at Arizona State, where he was a regular student who became a coach.
It might cost those schools a bigger chunk of change to keep them off the market. Because some of the programs with openings will come calling.
It might not even be a bad time to be one of the fired winners (21). Kelly, age 64, and Franklin, 53, can sit back and make a fortune in severance pay if they want, but they could also be coveted at any of several schools with openings. Could B.K. reboot at Penn State?
We’ll see what LSU’s candidate list turns out to be, as it moves past Florida and Penn State as the top job on the market. It will pay the next guy a fortune, even if it owes Kelly and his staff a fortune. Cost is no object when a season of high hopes goes bad and playoff aspirations are in the air.
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