East Carolina fires head coach, and he won't be the last this college football season

The college football season has seen its first major coaching change as East Carolina fired head coach Mike Houston.

According to CBS Sports, Houston's dismissal comes after a challenging stretch in the last two seasons, where the Pirates posted a 5-14 record. The decision follows East Carolina’s 45-28 loss to Army, dropping their season record to 3-4 overall and 1-2 in American Athletic Conference play.

Houston had been with East Carolina since 2019, after a successful tenure at James Madison, where he won an FCS national championship in 2016. Despite initial promise, Houston's time at ECU saw inconsistent results. While he led the Pirates to back-to-back bowl eligibility in 2021 and 2022, the program struggled to maintain momentum, culminating in a 2-10 season in 2023.

ECU athletic director Jon Gilbert commented on the decision, saying it was a difficult but necessary move to meet the high expectations of the program. Defensive coordinator Blake Harrell has been named interim head coach for the remainder of the season, as the school begins its search for a new leader.

With this firing, Mike Houston becomes the first head coach to lose his job during the 2024 college football season

Other college football coaches who could be fired

There's a large contingent of coaches across the college football landscape who could be fired at some point in 2024. We're getting around the time of the season when it becomes inevitable that a school wants to move on from a coach and they promote an interim to take over the position for the remainder of the year.

Right now, Arkansas' Sam Pittman, Florida State's Mike Norvell, Auburn's Hugh Freeze, and UNC's Mack Brown remain interesting candidates for major jobs that could soon be open.

Out of that group, Mack Brown would seem the most likely. Brown has seen a steep decline at UNC since taking over the program and he reportedly was very close to retiring earlier this season. It would make sense he might stick around through the end of this season, but if things continue to go south, UNC may already be formulating a succession plan.

Who do you think is most likely to be fired next?