Let the rumor and innuendo of the coaching carousel begin. Which 10 college football coaches have the hottest seats heading into 2019?
They say there are two types of college football coaches: one who is getting fired and one who is about to get fired — unless your name is Nick Saban or Dabo Swinney. Such is the hot seat of college football coaching.
This year is a little different. The last two coaching cycles have been so tumultuous there aren’t many tenured head coaches to have a lot of “hot seats”. The Pac-12 has only five coaches — Chris Petersen (Washington), Mike Leach (Washington State), David Shaw (Stanford) and Kyle Whittingham (Utah) — with more than five years at their current schools.
The Big 12 has only two (that’s not a typo folks) coaches — Mike Gundy (Oklahoma State University) and Gary Patterson (TCU) –with more than five years of experience.
Suffice it to say there’s been plenty of turnover the last three years.
Although any coach is an 0-12 season and a scandal away from a pink slip, most coaches’ seats aren’t hot this year. They might find themselves being future endeavored if they have a disaster of a season, but another mediocre season and next year that seat is hot.
So, this list has two categories: coaches from 10-6 aren’t necessarily at high risk for getting fired unless this season is a complete disaster, but that seat might be warmer with a repeat of their last season and the top five on this list might want to dust off their résumé if they have another bad year. Oh, and there’s one honorable mention.
With that said, here are 10 coaches that might sweat a bit this year.