2011 College Football Predictions: 10 Coaches On The Hot Seat Next Year
With the BCS National Championship well in the rear view mirror, now begins the winter of every college football fan's discontent.
And now that Brady Hoke is in for Rich Rodriguez at Michigan, Stanford has found its replacement for Jim Harbaugh and Maryland has picked Randy Edsall to fill the void left behind by the unceremonious bouncing of Ralph Friedgen, the coaching carousel has just about come to a halt.
Sure, National Signing Day is right around the corner, to be followed shortly by spring practice, but none of that can hold a candle to the true action and excitement of on-field competition.
Which doesn't begin for another seven-and-a-half months!
In the meantime, there's plenty of room for prognostication and pontification about anything and everything in the college football world.
As such, with one foot in the past and another creeping toward the future, let's take a gander at the coaches whose rear ends could go from toasty to burnt by this time in 2012.
Paul Wulff, Washington State
1 of 10
We begin our spin around the coaching carousel in the Pacific Northwest, where the Washington State football program is still mired in a long period of perpetual losing.
In three years in the Paloose, Cougars coach Paul Wulff has amassed a staggeringly sickening 5-32 record, including a 2-25 mark in Pac-10 play. Wulff's team showed some signs of improvement this year, particularly with quarterback Jeff Tuel progressing under center and freshman wideout Marquess Wilson making his presence felt from the get-go.
However, losing at such a prodigiously poor clip never reflects well on a coach. As such, Wulff will have to work some magic this offseason to get Wazzu back on track to save his job.
Otherwise, it could be another long, frigid winter in eastern Washington for the Cougs in 2012.
Rick Neuheisel, UCLA
2 of 10
Luckily for Wulff, he at least has the luxury of anonymity up in Pullman. His Pac-10 (and soon-to-be Pac-12) counterpart at UCLA isn't quite so lucky.
Then again, Rick Neuheisel came into the head coaching gig at his alma mater full of hope and promise, making optimistic proclamations left and right amongst the Los Angeles media, even going so far as to take out a full-page ad in the LA Times directly challenging USC's football dominance.
To this point, Neuheisel has done little to live up to the lofty expectations that he set for himself and his program. In three years under Slick Rick and Norm Chow, the Bruins have twice gone 4-8 and only barely made the EagleBank Bowl in 2010, and each year with an offense that seems to be even more inept than the year before.
Neuheisel's tenure in Westwood has been characterized by turmoil and turnover both on the field and among the coaching staff, leaving many Bruins fans to pine for the good ol' days of Karl Dorrell.
If Rick and his staff can't somehow guide the Bruins back into contention in the newly expanded Pac-12, they'll all likely be looking for new employers come next January.
Jeff Tedford, Cal
3 of 10
Not to harp too much on the Pac-10, but there's no shortage of coaches in the conference who will be on short leashes in 2011.
The thought of Jeff Tedford being ousted from his post at Cal, where he is the school's all-time winningest coach and has a 7-2 record against archrival Stanford, may seem ridiculous on the surface, but it certainly holds water when you dig just a bit deeper.
Tedford has long been considered a savior in Berkeley, having transformed the Golden Bears to a 1-10 doormat the year before he arrived to a respectable 7-5 squad in his first season, which earned him the first of his two Pac-10 Coach of the Year awards.
And while the Bears have been more or less successful in recent years, they have failed to live up to the expectations of fans and boosters, with Cal seemingly plummeting from Pac-10 title favorites to the muddled middle year after year.
The 2010 season marked Tedford's first losing season as a head coach, and by the looks of Cal's roster for 2011, it may not be his last.
Should that be the case, can the administration at Berkeley really justify keeping Tedford around as the highest-paid employee of the state if his football team, amidst renovations to Memorial Stadium, can't hang toward the top of the Pac-12?
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Mack Brown, Texas
4 of 10
And you thought the inclusion of Jeff Tedford on a hot seat list was perplexing...how about Mack Brown?
Okay, okay, so the head coach at Texas isn't likely to be outright fired from his post next season unless the perfect storm of catastrophic events strikes the Austin campus. That being said, there is reason for concern in Burnt Orange country.
For one, the team tumbled from BCS National Championship runner-up in 2010 to home for the holidays in 2011 thanks to a 5-7 record–-Mack Brown's first losing mark since his second season at North Carolina back in 1989! Longhorns fans are not used to losing, nor should they be, as proponents of one of the most successful and widely recognized programs in college football history.
Additionally, Brown's hand-picked successor, Will Muschamp, bolted for the Florida job after the regular season, leaving many to wonder if UT's football program isn't in some disarray.
As such, if the 'Horns don't hook some more opponents in 2011 than they did in 2010, more folks in Texas will likely be crying for the school's administration to push Ol' Mack into an early retirement, a la Joe Paterno at Penn State and Bobby Bowden at Florida State.
Butch Davis, North Carolina
5 of 10
Butch Davis has done plenty to restore North Carolina to the level of play it attained under Mack Brown, though not all of it has been particularly good.
The Tar Heels were all over the sports pages at the start of the 2010 college football season amidst a huge scandal involving assistant coach John Blake and alleged improper benefits given to 13 football players, including star defensive tackle Marvin Austin, by sports agents.
The suspensions and distractions turned what was supposed to be an ACC title season into another 8-5 finish, including a 4-4 record in conference, for Davis' squad.
Fan support for Davis is still strong in Chapel Hill, though another sub-par season, coupled with an ongoing NCAA investigation, could result in the coach's head on a Carolina blue platter.
Jim Grobe, Wake Forest
6 of 10
While Butch Davis may be skating on thin ice in the Coastal Division of the ACC, Wake Forest's Jim Grobe must already feel the ice cracking beneath his feet in Winston-Salem.
The Demon Deacons football team has regressed every year since 2006, when Grobe led his team to an 11-win season, which included an ACC championship and a berth in the Orange Bowl.
Wake has been particularly bad the last two seasons, going 5-7 in 2009 and a dismal 3-9 in 2010, with only one win in conference this past season.
Overall, Grobe has achieved only four winning seasons in 10 years at Wake Forest and may be out of a job if the Deacs can't sneak in another one in 2011.
Dabo Swinney, Clemson
7 of 10
It's tough to include Dabo Swinney on this list because, frankly, he hasn't been at Clemson for very long.
Since taking over for Tommy Bowden during the 2008 season, Swinney has amassed a record of 19-15, highlighted by 9-5 mark in 2009, accompanied by an appearance in the ACC Championship Game.
However, people around the university expected the Tigers to contend for the conference title in 2010, only to see the team, without C.J. Spiller, go 4-4 in the ACC and finish with a 6-7 record overall. As bad as that was, Clemson fans were particularly irked by a second consecutive loss to in-state rival South Carolina.
Swinney will need something of a bounce-back season from the Tigers in 2011. Otherwise, he may go the way of the dinosaurs...and Tommy Bowden.
Ron Zook, Illinois
8 of 10
Another guy who knows something about taking heat after dropping the interim tag is Illinois' Ron Zook.
The Zooker took over at Florida after Steve Spurrier left for the NFL in 2002 and had moderate success in three years in the Swamp, though not nearly enough to satisfy even the most casual of Gators fans.
After being pushed out in favor of Urban Meyer, Zook took his services to Champaign to coach the Fighting Illini and has delivered to fans in Illinois what can best be described as a mixed bag.
Zook has managed only two winning seasons in six years at Illinois, including a loss to USC in the 2008 Rose Bowl. Outside of that, Zook's teams have been abysmal, on average, posting a 28-45 overall record since the Zooker's arrival in 2005.
Thus, if the Illini don't at least hold steady in 2011 after their 7-6 season in 2010, Zook will be the latest head coaching casualty in the Big Ten.
Mark Richt, Georgia
9 of 10
While Zook was at Florida, his Gators went head-to-head with Mark Richt's Georgia Bulldogs three times, winning two of those contests against very good UGA teams.
Since then, fans in Athens have seen their football team slip slowly but surely into, and now behind, the pack in the SEC.
The last two seasons, in particular, have been something of a debacle for Richt, as the 'Dawgs went 8-5 in 2009 and 6-7 in 2010, punctuated by a New Year's Eve loss to Central Florida in the Liberty Bowl.
Losing Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno to the 2009 NFL Draft was a huge blow to the program, which will be without star wide receiver A.J. Green in 2011, who is also off to the NFL after three seasons.
And, with Derek Dooley, son of Georgia legend Vince Dooley, poised for success at Tennessee, the pressure is on Richt to put up or shut up in 2011.
Houston Nutt, Ole Miss
10 of 10
Like Mark Richt, Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt won't be able to ride on the coat tails of his past successes forever.
With Jevan Snead in the backfield and Dexter McCluster all over the turf, the Rebels posted back-to-back 9-4 marks in Nutt's first two seasons in Oxford, including a huge upset over fourth-ranked Florida in the Swamp in 2008, after which Gators quarterback Tim Tebow made his famous "hard work" speech at the post-game press conference.
Each of those seasons also yielded a win in the Cotton Bowl for the Rebels, who in 2010 fell off to a 4-8 record overall, including only one win in eight SEC games.
Don't expect Archie Manning and the rest of the Ole Miss faithful to simply sit on their hands if Nutt delivers similar results in 2011.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
