College Football's Worst Hires of the Last 10 Years

The college football carousel is always moving. Season after season, athletic departments make decisions about when to fire coaches and who to hire to replace them. 

Unfortunately for college football fans of their respective schools, a lot of these hires don't work out. A lot of times, coaches' on-field results fall well below the expectations for them when they took the job. Wins and losses aren't everything in college football, but it's often what makes a coach keep or lose a job. 

My colleague Brad Shepard broke down the most disappointing hires of the last five years last year. While there are a couple of the same names on this list, we broadened our list since we have five more years to work with. 

Let's run through some of those hires over the last decade that fell way short of the high hopes they arrived with. 

Author's note: Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss and D.J. Durkin at Maryland were not included in this list, even though they loom large in the history of disastrous coaching tenures during the past decade. While they should be considered bad hires given the scandals that brought their respective tenures to an end, we limited this list to coaches who faced higher expectations when they were hired. 

USC's Clay Helton

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USC was one of the biggest head coaching vacancies during last season's carousel. After the second week of the season, the Trojans cut ties with Helton, who compiled a 46-24 record as USC's head coach.  

It seemed like Helton was the right guy for USC in the beginning of his tenure. Helton was named USC's interim head coach in 2015. He took over for Steve Sarkisian after Sarkisian took a leave of absence (then was fired a day later) early in the season. 

After going 5-4 as USC's interim coach, he was named the permanent head coach at the end of the season. Things looked good for the Helton era in Southern California early on. In 2016, Helton led USC to a 10-3 season, capped off with a Rose Bowl victory over Penn State. The next season, USC went 11-3 and won the Pac-12 championship. 

But things went downhill from there. USC finished 5-7 in 2018, and the Trojans went 8-5 the next season. In 2020, the Trojans had their lowest-ranked recruiting class in school history, checking in at 63rd nationally. USC went 5-1 in a shortened COVID-19 season, and Helton was fired last season after losing 42-28 to Stanford in Week 2.

Cincinnati's Tommy Tuberville

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Tommy Tuberville made a name for himself during his career at Auburn in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But Tuberville's time with the Bearcats got off to a rocky start thanks to how he left Texas Tech. Tuberville reportedly ditched Tech recruits at dinner to take the Cincy job.

Although Tuberville went a combined 18-8 in his first two seasons at Cincinnati, the Bearcats finished 7-6 in 2015. Cincy lost three out of its last five games that year, including a 42-7 loss to San Diego State in the Hawaii Bowl. 

In 2016, Cincinnati finished 4-8, the Bearcats' first losing season since Butch Jones' 2010 4-8 year. The Bearcats also finished just 1-7 in American Athletic Conference play and lost their last five games. Following a 20-3 loss to BYU, Tuberville told a heckling Bearcats fan to "go to hell" and added "get a job" as he entered the tunnel. 

Before Cincy's last game of the season, Tuberville spoke at length about wanting to stay the Bearcats' head coach. A week after Cincy's 40-37 loss to Tulsa, Tuberville resigned.

Butch Jones, Tennessee

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Tennessee has struggled to achieve national relevancy for several years now. Butch Jones arrived at Tennessee in 2014 after compiling a 50-27 record at Central Michigan and Cincinnati. During his five years in Knoxville, Jones' tenure was mediocre at best. The Vols won three straight middle-tier bowls from 2014 to '16 and had nine-win seasons in 2015 and '16. 

But the Vols never seriously competed for the SEC East, and Jones beat division rivals Florida once and Georgia twice. 

There were also some strange quotes Jones had while at Tennessee. During the 2016 season, the Vols were predicted by the media to win the SEC East. Instead, the Vols finished 4-4 in SEC play. Jones was widely mocked that season when he said his players were "champions of life" despite missing out on a conference title. 

A few months later when discussing recruiting star ratings, Jones said he was looking to recruit players with "five-star hearts."

Following Tennessee's 4-6 start to the 2017 season, Jones was fired. 

Kliff Kingsbury, Texas Tech

Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press

Kliff Kingsbury replaced Tommy Tuberville, who left Tech after three seasons in 2012. Kingsbury started his career at Houston as an offensive assistant and then was an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Houston and Texas A&M with Kevin Sumlin. 

Tech fans had high hopes for Kingsbury. He coached the likes of Case Keenum and Heisman winner Johnny Manziel at Houston and A&M. He even played quarterback at Tech from 1998 to 2002. 

But Kingsbury's tenure at Tech didn't exactly pan out. In six years in Lubbock, he had just two winning seasons. Neither of those produced a Big 12 championship, and just his first season in 2013 finished with a bowl victory. 

Kingsbury's teams consistently struggled to win games in November. In his last three seasons, the Red Raiders went a combined 3-9 in the last month of the regular season. 

Kingsbury was fired at the end of the season in 2018 after compiling a 35-40 overall record at Tech.

Les Miles, Kansas

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When Kansas hired Les Miles in November 2018, the expectations for the Jayhawks were pretty high. The Jayhawks' football program has notoriously struggled for most of its history. Miles, who won a national title with LSU in 2007 and went 114-34 in Baton Rouge, was expected to turn things around. 

But Miles' tenure in Kansas fell flat. The Jayhawks finished 3-9 in 2019 and failed to win a single game in 2020, finishing 0-9. Kansas doesn't win a lot, but it has won zero games just three times in school history. Kansas never really made a jump in recruiting as it was expected to under Miles, either. 

In March 2021, Miles and Kansas parted ways after the release of a 2013 investigation into allegations of inappropriate conduct by him toward female students while he was at LSU.  

Kansas AD Jeff Long was fired days later. 

What was expected to be a long tenure from a big-name head coach overhauling a historically bad football program ended after just two seasons. 

Scott Frost, Nebraska

Rebecca S. Gratz/Associated Press

Nebraska head coach Scott Frost is the lone current head coach I'm including on this list. That's because Frost's tenure at Nebraska has been, well, pretty bad. Frost, a Nebraska alumnus, was hired by the Huskers after leading UCF to an undefeated regular season in 2017 (Frost went on to coach the bowl game, which UCF won to go 13-0).  

With Frost, the Huskers have yet to have a season at .500 or better. Nebraska has gone 15-29, with its worst season in 2021 at 3-9. Nebraska's recruiting classes have also ranked dead last in the Power Five, per The Athletic. 

While Frost's tenure so far would be enough to fire most head coaches nowadays, Nebraska would've owed him a big buyout at the end of 2021. The school would have been on the hook for Frost's $20 million buyout if it moved on after last season. That's likely a big reason Nebraska restructured Frost's contract starting in 2022. Under the new agreement, Frost's salary drops from $5 million to $4 million, and his buyout drops to $7.5 million on Oct. 1.

During the end of Nebraska's 3-9 season last year, Frost completely overhauled his staff. He fired four assistants, including offensive coordinator Matt Lubick.

Even if Frost puts together a winning season in 2022, that might not be enough to keep him in 2023. 

Charlie Strong, Texas

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Charlie Strong arrived in Austin after compiling a 37-15 record over four seasons at Louisville. Strong was tasked with replacing longtime Longhorns head coach Mack Brown, who won a national championship at Texas in 2005. 

But Texas was unable to find much success over Strong's three seasons in Austin. During his first season in 2014, the Longhorns finished 6-7 with a Texas Bowl loss to Arkansas. 

Texas had a big 24-17 victory over rival Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry in 2015. Two weeks later, the Longhorns lost 24-0 on the road to Iowa State. The Longhorns dropped three out of their last five games to finish the year 5-7 and seventh in the Big 12. 

Strong's third season at Texas in 2016 started with a huge 50-47 OT win over Notre Dame in Week 1. After beating UTEP in Week 2, Texas lost three straight to Cal, Oklahoma State and Texas. On Nov. 19, Texas lost 24-21 on the road to Kansas, which marked the first Jayhawks victory over the Longhorns since 1938. The loss ultimately caused Texas to fire Strong before the season even ended. Texas let him coach the Longhorns' last game of the season, a 31-9 loss to TCU.  

Strong finished his tenure in Austin with a 16-21 record. He had a couple of big wins with Texas in 2015 and 2016, but he wasn't able to get much momentum going over three seasons.

Honorable Mentions

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We couldn't include every bad hire over the last decade. Here's a list of coaches who also didn't exactly pan out:

• Steve Sarkisian, USC: Sarkisian's tenure at USC didn't last too long. He coached just 18 games for the Trojans, going 9-4 in 2014. As we mentioned in the Clay Helton slide, Sarkisian was fired in 2015 after coaching just five games for USC. 

• Jim McElwain: McElwain led the Gators to a 10-4 mark in his first season in 2015, including a trip to the SEC Championship Game. In 2016, Florida lost to Tennessee for the first time since 2004 and finished 9-4. McElwain and Florida parted ways midway through the 2017 season. The decision came not long after he told reporters that he and his family had received death threats for the Gators' on-field performance.

• Mike Riley, Nebraska: Riley arrived at Nebraska in 2015 after compiling a 93-80 record over 14 seasons at Oregon State. During his first season in Lincoln, he led the Huskers to a 6-7 record with a bowl win vs. UCLA. Nebraska finished 9-4 in 2016, but following a 4-8 finish in 2017, he was fired. At the time, Riley's 19-19 record in Lincoln was the worst for any Nebraska coach since 1961. 

• Willie Taggart, Florida State: Taggart's time at Florida State lasted just two seasons. Tasked with replacing longtime FSU head coach Jimbo Fisher, Taggart was 5-7 in his first season in Tallahassee. Following a 4-5 start to the 2018 season, FSU moved on from Taggart. There were reportedly huge problems preceding Taggart's arrival in Tallahassee, but he couldn't quite get the 'Noles back on track.

• Jeremy Pruitt, Tennessee: Pruitt was hired by Tennessee in 2018. He was a longtime assistant at Alabama, but things didn't exactly pan out for the Nick Saban protege. Pruitt went 16-19 over three seasons in Knoxville. The Vols had just one winning season under Pruitt, an 8-5 mark in 2019.