College Football: Top 6 Group of Five coaches facing 2017 hot seat
By Zach Bigalke
CBS put Paul Haynes among the half-dozen coaches who need to start improving now if they are to keep their jobs. Yet that assumes an awful lot of the Kent State job. Haynes had the misfortune of taking the Golden Flashes job right after Darrell Hazell had taken them higher than they had ever been in history. Kent State was due for a fall back to earth, and Haynes is in many ways the victim of the regression than the cause of that stumble.
In 2012, Kent State played for the MAC title. For the first time since 1972 under Don James, the Golden Flashes went bowling. Then Hazell left for the Purdue job, and Haynes was hired away from Arkansas to take over the program. Fans hoped that Haynes could maintain the momentum, but Hazell benefitted from a rare group of recruits as he vaulted to a Big Ten job. Kent State regressed immediately once players like T.Y. Hilton were gone.
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Recruiting since then is definitely on Hayne. But landing game-changing talent is always going to be difficult for a Group of Five program. Like most of the other coaches on this list, the hot seat seems a bit drastic for Haynes. While they return some decent talent from last season, they also have to play on the road against defending College Football Playoff champion Clemson and defending Heisman winner Lamar Jackson and Louisville.