7-Step Drop: Highly Paid College Football Coaches Feeling the Heat

As I was settling into the press box at Arizona Stadium prior to UCLA’s 56-30 dismantling of the Wildcats on Saturday, I couldn’t help but pull up the Florida-Tennessee game on my laptop to see what was happening.

Like many around the country, I saw the Volunteers score a touchdown to go up 26-14 with just over 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter and assumed the game was over. Congrats to the Vols on finally turning the corner and ending their 10-year losing streak against the Gators.

Of course, that didn’t happen. 

Curiously, although there was certainly a lot of time left, I was a little confused as to why Butch Jones opted to kick the extra point to make it 27-14 instead of going for two in this scenario. Yes, there was a lot of time on the clock, but that’s precisely why there was little downside in pushing the lead to a full two touchdowns instead of keeping things at a 13-point margin.

Naturally, the decision came back to bite the Vols in the rear end. They allowed Florida to march down the field on the next possession, proceeded to go three-and-out and then gave up the game winner on a wild 4th-and-14 pass from Will Grier to Antonio Callaway.

Based on his comments after the game, even Florida coach head Jim McElwain was somewhat incredulous that his team had won. Tennessee fans, no doubt, were in the same state of shock.

John Raoux/Associated Press

When you include the missed opportunity to go for two and the atrocious clock management and organization on the final drive, you can understand how Jones moved from hero to goat for the Vols fanbase in about half an hour. The Florida game represented the second blown fourth-quarter lead of the year after a big missed opportunity against Oklahoma, which certainly turns up the heat on the supposed turnaround in Knoxville. 

Both losses sit squarely on the shoulders of Jones and call into question all of the momentum he had created by turning into an orange-clad bricklayer on signing day. Nobody wins games in February; you have to get things done in the fall. 

For all the positive rhetoric around the Vols program recently, it appears they still can’t escape floating around .500 like they have dating back to the end of the Phillip Fulmer era. It’s on Jones to get things done when the bullets start flying. Instead, it’s looking increasingly likely that this simply isn’t the team that was expected to make a big jump and contend in the SEC East.

While the pressure on Jones has been cranked up about a hundredfold following Saturday’s loss, he’s not the only high-priced head coach in college football feeling the heat from fans and the media. Heck, one doesn’t have to leave the league to find a collection of supposedly top-notch coaches who are struggling so far in 2015, despite their lofty salaries.

Just a few miles to the west of Knoxville lies Bret Bielema, the biggest talker in college football. His Arkansas Razorbacks haven't matched his rhetoric, however, getting off to a very disappointing 1-3 start following an overtime loss to No. 14-ranked Texas A&M that also included blowing a fourth-quarter lead. They're now facing an uphill climb to bowl eligibility with road games against Alabama, Ole Miss and LSU still on the horizon.

Gerald Herbert/Associated Press

Correspondingly, one preseason storyline that came up a quite a bit around the time of SEC media days was the fact that some SEC West school would be paying its head coach $4 million-plus to finish last in the division. As we enter Week 5, few would be surprised if it winds up being the coach who was also picked to win the league: Auburn’s Gus Malzahn. 

The Tigers fell to 0-2 in the SEC after a 17-9 loss to Mississippi State on Saturday that further cemented their status as the country’s most disappointing team. Despite limiting the Bulldogs to 56 yards rushing—a vast improvement over the LSU game—and holding onto the ball for over 36 minutes, the quarterback change to Sean White produced just three field goals in another anemic offensive outing. 

Malzahn has proved himself to be a good head coach by engineering a remarkable turnaround that ended just short of a national title, but it seems we were all sold a bill of goods about the Tigers' College Football Playoff chances in 2015. And, let’s face it: It’s hard to pin the blame on anybody but the head coach when so many things go wrong early in the season.

The good news, if there is any, is that Malzahn is not alone. In the SEC alone, six head coaches are making over $3 million a year and are currently sitting at 0-1 or 0-2 in the league. Expand that further to include the likes of Arizona State’s Todd Graham, Cincinnati’s Tommy Tuberville, Louisville’s Bobby Petrino and Oregon’s Mark Helfrich, and one gets the picture that there are more than a host of highly paid coaches who are very much under fire from their respective fanbases.

Considering we’ve just wrapped up Week 4, that’s not exactly an encouraging sign for a number of teams.

Stats of the Week 

— A crazy note from TCU: Since 1980, Gary Patterson leads all college football coaches with the most 12-game winning streaks (six), breaking a tie with Bobby Bowden.

— TCU wide receiver Josh Doctson set or tied school records against Texas Tech with 18 receptions for 267 yards and three touchdowns. Doctson became the first Horned Frog with at least 10 receptions in a game since…his quarterback on Saturday, Trevone Boykin, had 11 catches against West Virginia in 2013.

— Leonard Fournette is the first player in LSU history to run for 200-plus yards in two consecutive games. 

— Oregon’s 42-point loss to Utah is the worst for the Ducks since 2003 and the most points (62) they’ve given up since 1985.

— Penn State played San Diego State for the first time on Saturday, which according to the school was the 155th different program the Nittany Lions have ever played. They have an 11-game win streak going against teams they’ve faced for the first time.

— USC has scored a touchdown in the first quarter 18 straight times, the longest streak in the nation. 

— Cincinnati quarterback Hayden Moore threw for an American Athletic Conference-record 557 yards against Memphis…despite not starting but coming into the game to replace the injured Gunner Kiel.

— East Carolina has won five straight against ACC teams. 

— After four weeks of the 2015 season, SMU has scored more points than it did all of last season.

— Tennessee’s lone win against conference rivals Florida, Georgia and Alabama since Phillip Fulmer left? It came courtesy of Lane Kiffin in his single season in Knoxville against the Bulldogs in 2009.

"

Per @ESPNStatsInfo, Kansas now owns the longest road losing streak since the FBS/FCS split in 1978 with 31 straight defeats

— Jake Trotter (@Jake_Trotter) September 27, 2015"

"

Painful #Vols fact. This season, teams are 188-3 when leading by at least 13 points in 4th Qtr. 2 of those 3 losses belong to Tennessee.

— Dari Nowkhah (@ESPNDari) September 26, 2015"

Quote of the Week

"Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong." — Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich after Utah dismantled the Ducks, 62-20, at Autzen Stadium.

Tweet of the Week

"

Steve Sarkisian's insight was spot on at Salute to Troy: Arizona State sucks #USC

— InsideUSC (@InsideUSC) September 27, 2015"

Play of the Week

"

It's a stunner for @GatorsFB! Florida pulls off a shocker in the @BestBuy highlight. http://t.co/hwLfhLUaSG

— SEConCBS (@SEConCBS) September 26, 2015"

Sound from Saturday

Pre-Snap Reads 

Notre Dame at Clemson

Is this the game the injuries finally catch up to the Irish? On the road against a tough defense and a quality quarterback, it just might be. Tigers signal-caller Deshaun Watson hasn’t looked the sharpest so far this year, but he could help out those who picked him to finish high in the Heisman voting with a breakout performance against a tough Notre Dame defense.

Alabama at Georgia 

We’ve seen flashes from Georgia this season, but they won't truly work their way into the national title race until they can come through with a win against one of the big boys in the SEC. Alabama will be looking to avoid an 0-2 start to league play and will be plenty motivated. Between the hedges, anything can happen, including a Crimson Tide win.

West Virginia at Oklahoma

An easy candidate for most surprising unit of the year? It might be West Virginia’s defense, which suddenly looks like the best in the Big 12 even when you factor in their nonconference opponents. They’ll have their hands full with Baker Mayfield and the Sooners on the road, but the offense should help out and move the ball against a suspect unit on the home sideline. Since this is in Norman, though, expect Bob Stoops to squeak out a nice conference victory.

All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. You can follow Bryan Fischer on Twitter at @BryanDFischer.