Which college football coaches are on hot seat in COVID-19 campaign?

Will Muschamp has been fired as the head coach of the South Carolina Gamecocks. How will this affect the college football coaching hot seat?

This truncated season seems like an odd year to fire a coach. Most schools are playing conference-only schedules and many programs started camp late. Many programs have had to suspend team activities during this season, not to mention canceling or postponing games. Every Power Five and Group of Five program is playing right now, but schools have restrictions on working out and practice.

The optics on firing a coach during a national pandemic look bad. Universities have permanently cut many Olympic, non-revenue sports from their fall and winter rosters. In addition to cutting sports, many universities have asked staff to pay cuts, furloughed some and terminated others. It is hard to justify paying a buyout, paying a new salary after taking so many cost-cutting measures.

One school is willing to take the public relations hit and fire their coaches. South Carolina fired Will Muschamp yesterday and will pay a $13.2 million buyout. Muschamp made $4.2 million annually, so if they pay a coach the same salary — odds are the might have to pay more — the Gamecocks will pay $17.4 million in head coaching salaries next season.

That does not count what South Carolina would have to pay in buyout and salaries for coordinators next season. Those numbers could run the pay up to $25-30 million potentially. It stands to reason that there is someone or a group of people in the Gamecocks family who have no problem paying that sum of money for South Carolina to have a good football team.

Still, it’s a bitter pill to swallow if there are people the university let go. It only takes one university to take the initial PR hit and fire their coach before more dominoes fall. South Carolina was that first domino.

How are universities evaluating progress this season?

The ACC, SEC and Big 12 were the first conferences to announce fall schedules. All three conferences began to play in September. The SEC allowed programs to practice on Aug. 17. The Big Ten and Pac-12 did not start practicing until September. The Big Ten could not even put on pads until Sept. 30. An important factor to keep in mind as it concerns practice is that every school must abide by state and county distancing guidelines.

One example was when students were allowed back on campus at Stanford; players could not share a football for practice. If your school is a state or county with gathering restrictions, how do you run a practice if you can’t have more than ten people in one space?

Many programs suspended activities — some schools more than once — before the season started. Specifically, how would you evaluate Rice this season? The Owls have suspended activities and postponed five games this season. As a result, the Owls have played just two games so far.

Both Virginia and Virginia Tech have battled COVID-19-related issues all season. Clemson defensive lineman Xavier Bennett tested positive during the initial lockdown. He has stated that his breathing did not get back to normal until mid-October.

Here are some coaches on the hot seat and the issues they’ve had this year.