College Football 2011: 10 Coaches Who May Have the Hottest Seats This Season

What have you done for me lately? It's a question and even an old joke, but for college football coaches, great seasons in the past don't buy you goodwill for very long, especially when you're at a program that expects more than a trip to the Weed Whacker Bowl or less.

This is not to say that these aren't good men or great coaches, just that their recent histories have placed them squarely on the hot seat. It's a good bet that at least half these men will be burned at the end of this season.

10. Greg Schiano - Rutgers - The only thing Schiano has going for himself is that this is Rutgers and it may be hard for that school to attract someone better. Still what do you do with a coach that is clearly not getting the results he once did?

Since a magical 2006 season it's been steadily going nowhere. Five years of decline and an overall losing record in your own conference for five years will be just too much to keep his administration happy.

Yes, he built the program up, but he's run it into the ground too.

9. Dabo Swinney - Clemson - Dabo got the job halfway through the season and used that half season to earn himself the big chair by righting the ship and getting the Tigers to a bowl. However three things are working against him and heating his chair.

First of all, he was given a short leash with the job and they haven't got him a contract that will be costly to get out of. Secondly, almost all his charity from continuing great recruiting has been taken away with last year's 6-7 record.

Lastly, the man he replaced had done more for the program and got himself fired. Clemson wants to be a winner and a winner now. They aren't patient, especially when they see South Carolina starting to wake up and become the state's big time program.

8. Mack Brown - Texas - No I haven't lost my mind. At the ripe old age of 60, the same age as Saban even though Brown looks like he could be his father, Texas could quickly come to a cross road with Brown at the end of this season if the Longhorns falter like last season or win less than nine games.

There's just too much money and talent at Texas for this team to miss a bowl game as they did last season. Fans just weren't disappointed, they were embarrassed.

Losses to Iowa State and Baylor made them a laughing stock. That just doesn't happen at Texas. Not for the team who controls all the power and money in that conference. Something tells me Brown may too proud to be fired and just wander off in the Texas sunset and retire if things go horribly wrong again this year.

7. Mark Richt - Georgia - The Georgia fans may wonder if Richt ran over my dog, made a pass at my wife or refused me an interview, none of which of course occurred. If there's a nicer guy that Richt, I've not met him. Yet I've been saying he's on a downhill slide for a while and the fans are finally lining up to agree with me.

He is barely over .500 the last two years and below .500 in the SEC. Those are numbers you just can't hide from or excuse away, not from a coach who has been there for 10 years to install every player and coach on the team.

Another subpar season will be his last and the Kirby Smart era will begin in Athens.

6. Paul Wulff - Washington State - Wulff found that winning at Eastern Washington and Washington State are two different things entirely. Wulff was 53-40 at EWU and is currently 5-32 at WSU and many, far too many of those losses at WSU were ugly, very ugly losses and I'm talking kick sand in your face and talk about your mother kind of losses.

He's put the ten in Pac Ten as in being the 10th best team in a 10-team race.

Being a native son will help, but it won't help enough to save his job.

5. Danny Hope - Purdue - Ok, it's Purdue, not Ohio State, but they still expect to beat the little brother teams like Toledo and Northern Illinois and they did neither last year.

Losses like that caused fans to stay away in droves and joke around campus that everyone had a seat inside the forty yard line.

Another disastrous season like last year will mean there is no more Hope in Perdue's program. Not with a 9-15 record over the past two campaigns to go with another egg being laid.

4. Steve Fairchild - Colorado State - Another saga of a returning son coming home to "right the program" only it just hasn't worked out that way. While Fairchild was an assistant, the team built up a respectable reputation.

As a head coach he's 13-24 and showing no signs to do much better this year. The recruits are about as hot on Fairchild as the fans right now and four years may be all he gets in this homecoming.

The good news he will land a good offensive coordinator's job somewhere after the firing.

3. Jeff Tedford - California - Like Richt, Tedford has done some good things at Cal and built up some goodwill. But also like Richt, the what have you done for me lately blues could cost him his job if the Bears go another year as bad as last years.

Since Tedford's 2006 season where he won 10 games and tied for first in the Pac 10, the seasons have ended with seven, nine, eight and five games in the win column.

With USC on probation Tedford has the opportunity to rake in some great recruits, but it isn't materializing either. Another bowl-less year could be his last and Cal will go out and try to find a younger, hotter "Tedford-like" coach to come in and turn things around.

2. Rick Neuheisel - UCLA - The golden-haired hero was supposed to "come back" to UCLA, a place where he had been a great assistant coach who tutored the likes of Troy Aikman to greatness. This was supposed to be a new start for both UCLA and Neuhesel.

What makes his predicament worse is that no head coach in recent years have come in and so publicly thrown down the gantlet as Neuheisel did to USC, only to have USC pick it up at beat the living crap out UCLA with it. He is 3-0 against them since that challenge.

Another thing is that Neuheisel was yesterday's news to current recruits and he never got the recruits that UCLA hoped he could bring in. But in the end, it may be this year's record combined with the 15-22 overall record that does him in.

 1. Mike Locksley - New Mexico State - Mike should run to nearest water and jump in, his seat is not only hot, it's set his pants are on fire.

That's what happens when you only win one game a year for two years, bring the school into legal problems with an age discrimination suit, a sexual discrimination suit and legal woes from hitting an assistant coach that cost him a 10-day suspension without pay.

Not even his buyout can stop them from firing Locksley after this season if he does his usually bad job. Fans are irate that the school didn't do it at the end of last season. Maybe the A.D. should start passing the plate at games and collect money to pay off his contract. I think he could collect it.

The sad truth is that this man deserves firing more than any coach in Division I football.