College Football Coaches on the Hot Seat Post-Week 10
Some head coaches have played their way off of the hot seat this season. Others have not been so fortunate.
The not-so-fortunate class consists of two major types: those who began the year on the hot seat and haven't done enough to get off of it, and those who have played their way onto the hot seat after not starting the season in peril.
Either way, though, they have all ended up in similar places. The hot seat burns the same for all types.
The criteria for this list were hard to specify. Every potential hot seat is different, depending on the context of the situation. For the most part, we were looking for sustained failure to meet expectations.
That's the quickest way to warm one's seat up.
Starting to Get Warm
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The following coaches are not on a burning hot seat, but they are slowly starting to get there. If they don't end the season better than they have started it, they could become surprise firings.
- Bill Blankenship, Tulsa
- Bob Davie, New Mexico
- Larry Fedora, North Carolina
- Pat Fitzgerald, Northwestern
- Paul Haynes, Kent State
- Mike London, Virginia
- Todd Monken, Southern Miss
- Kevin Wilson, Indiana
Frank Beamer, Virginia Tech
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There was a time not so long ago when saying Frank Beamer was on the hot seat would be blasphemy. There was a time not so long ago when playing in Lane Stadium was worth dreading.
When the latter stopped being true, so did the former.
And that is not a coincidence.
Virginia Tech has lost its last six home games against power-conference or American Athletic teams. This year alone, it has lost to Boston College, Miami, Georgia Tech and East Carolina. Last year, it lost to Maryland and Duke. The last real game it won in Blacksburg came on Oct. 5, 2013, roughly 13 months before this article.
Beamer has done enough for the Hokies to never be fired. But there are other ways for a program to remove a legend. It happened last season with Mack Brown at Texas, although Beamer's lot, in the words of Bill Bradley of The Sporting News, "is starting to take on an all-too familiar feel to the end of the Bobby Bowden era (at Florida State)."
Virginia Tech is 4-5 with road games at Duke and Wake Forest and a home game against Virginia left to play. If it drops two of those games, it will miss a bowl for the first time since 1992.
Tim Beckman, Illinois
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Illinois followed an anomalous win over a bowl team (Minnesota) with a predictable blowout loss against Ohio State.
The latter felt a lot more like Tim Beckman-era football.
Beckman took over in 2012 and has led the Illini to a 10-23 record in two-plus season. He is 2-19 in Big Ten play. Ron Zook was fired on the heels of two straight 6-6 regular seasons. Beckman will have to win two of his final three games (vs. Iowa, vs. Penn State, at Northwestern) to reach that mark for even the first time in 2014.
The refs flagged Beckman for a 15-yard unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty in the second quarter against Ohio State last weekend. He was arguing for a roughing-the-punter call with his team already down 24-0.
Shannon Ryan of the Chicago Tribune responded aptly, tweeting, "Ugh, not what he needs."
The same could be said of the entire weekend.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Norm Chow, Hawaii
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Norm Chow's homecoming has not gone according to plan.
The Hawaii native is 6-27 since taking control of the Rainbow Warriors and is finding new ways to lose each week.
In some respects, Chow has done a great job by keeping this team competitive, even against bigger-name schools such as Washington and Oregon State. Before last week's 21-point loss to Utah State, 13 of Hawaii's previous 14 losses had come by 14 points or fewer. (The only one that didn't, funny enough, was against Utah State last year.)
However, losing so many close games in a short period of time with so few wins indicts Chow as much as (if not more than) it vindicates him. This team has been better than its 6-27 record reflects.
But it still has a 6-27 record.
Brady Hoke, Michigan
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Michigan played its best game of the season against Indiana, beating the Hoosiers 34-10. Still, the best thing one could say about Brady Hoke's job status is that he didn't actively hurt it in Week 10.
He is still, for all intents and purposes, gone.
Here is what Bleacher Report's Ben Kercheval wrote after athletic director Dave Brandon resigned from his post last week:
"If Hoke's days weren't numbered before, they probably are now. Whomever Michigan hires to replace Brandon—[university president Mark] Schlissel didn't make it sound like having Michigan ties is a prerequisite—Hoke will have to prove he's capable of getting things turned around. Michigan needs a house cleaning, and Hoke's job performance will be under review.
"
There is not much (and probably not anything) Hoke can do to save his job after starting the year 3-5 with a close loss at Rutgers and a blowout loss at Michigan State. If Michigan wins two of its next three games (at Northwestern, vs. Maryland, at Ohio State), it can make a bowl and finish the year with at least a semblance of pride.
Even so, that will not—and should not—be enough.
Paul Rhoads, Iowa State
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Paul Rhoads took over at Iowa State in 2009 after Gene Chizik ran the team into the ground (5-19 in two seasons). He won seven games, including the Insight Bowl in his first year with the team.
But progress stalled with three consecutive seven-loss seasons from 2010-12 and flat-out cratered in 2013 and 2014. Iowa State has followed last year's 3-9 disaster with a 2-6 start to this season. It has stayed competitive against teams such as Kansas State and Texas, but at some point, staying competitive is not enough.
At some point, one actually has to win.
The Cyclones did not stay competitive on their home field against Oklahoma last weekend, allowing the Sooners to rush for 510 yards in a 59-14 defeat. According to ESPN Stats & Info, it was the most rushing yards a power-conference team has allowed all season.
"We’ve got to regroup as a team and we’ve got to do that immediately tomorrow," Rhoads told reporters after the game.
If they don't, his time in Ames could be cooked.
Ron Turner, Florida International
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It has not been a great year for Ron Turner—past, present or future.
That first front is probably the least important but the funniest: Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said he wanted to attend Illinois coming out of high school, but that Turner, then the Illini head coach, declined to offer him a scholarship, per the Chicago Tribune.
Worse than that, though, Turner's current team, Florida International, lost its season-opener to FCS Bethune-Cookman. On the heels of a 1-11 debut season, that is not what Turner needed to keep his job. At the time, Pat Forde of Yahoo! Sports said the loss kept Turner "solidly in the running for Worst Hire Ever."
FIU has righted the ship since Week 1, currently checking in at 3-6 with wins over UAB and Florida Atlantic. Turner has made a case with that improvement to potentially keep his job.
But he'd better finish the season strong instead of petering out from FIU's current three-game skid.
It is not like he has earned a lot of slack.
Will Muschamp, Florida
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Florida managed a shocking win over Georgia on Saturday, beating the 'Dawgs 38-20 despite throwing just six passes all game.
"I know how frustrating it is for our fans," said head coach Will Muschamp after the game, per The Associated Press (via ESPN.com). "I hear it. I get their emails. I'm just really happy for everyone in the organization to know we won in dominating fashion."
Unfortunately, one good game does not a saved job make. Muschamp all but sealed his fate with a 42-13 home loss against Missouri before the bye. The "Fire Muschamp" chants were so loud one could hear them on TV. It is hard (if not impossible) to come back from that.
Florida plays winnable games at Vanderbilt and versus South Carolina and Eastern Kentucky the next three weeks. Winning even two of those would get it eligible for a bowl game. But it's the game at the end of the schedule, at No. 2 Florida State, that looms as the only potential savior for Muschamp's job.
Beating the Seminoles (and/or knocking them out of the College Football Playoff) would be like catching a Hail Mary in the final week of the season. All things considered, finishing an 11-game season 8-3 with wins over Georgia and FSU would be pretty darn good.
Anything short of that, however, would not be.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
