Heat Check: How toasty are some coaches' seats getting?
Midway through the season, some coaches are on the hot seat, some are feeling a little cooler and some are still to be determined. Rivals national recruiting director Adam Gorney gives his thoughts.
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Tom Allen, Indiana
Allen has been Indiana’s coach since 2017 and not counting the shortened 2020 COVID season, he has one winning campaign in Bloomington. That is not irregular at Indiana and the 8-5 season in 2019 was the first winning one since Bill Lynch’s first year in 2007. It’s just hard to win in an ever-improving Big Ten, and his is 2-3 this season heading into the Michigan weekend.
The Hoosiers are No. 12 in the conference recruiting rankings and one of two Big Ten teams, along with Northwestern, with no four-star commitments. The Hoosiers seem stuck in neutral but they’ve felt that way since forever.
Temperature check: Sizzling
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Dave Aranda, Baylor
Since beating Oklahoma State in the Big 12 championship and then taking down Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl to close out the 2021 season, Baylor is 8-11. Aranda owned up to some mistakes following a 6-7 season in 2022 but things haven’t seemed to get much better yet this season as the Bears lost to Texas State in the opener, got blown out by Texas, got hammered by Texas Tech this past weekend and needed a miracle fourth quarter to beat UCF.
Baylor is No. 10 in the Big 12 recruiting rankings and while things could open up a little more when Texas and Oklahoma leave for the SEC, any momentum from that title run has evaporated so with winnable games ahead, Aranda has a lot of proving to do.
Temp check: Warm
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Zach Arnett, Mississippi State
Since 2010 and not counting the 2020 COVID season, Mississippi State has had only two losing seasons. While the Bulldogs are off to a 3-3 start, all the losses have come to SEC opponents. Five of the last six opponents are conference foes as well.
The transition from coach Mike Leach’s unexpected death to Arnett left the lingering question whether this is the long-term solution or a stop-gap measure. It might be way premature to say Arnett is on the hot seat but there have been rumors so it’s certainly something to watch.
Temp check: Room temp
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Dino Babers, Syracuse
After starting 6-0 last season and having the Syracuse faithful excited again, the Orange basically collapsed down the stretch and won only one more game to finish the season 7-6. Babers has four losing seasons at Syracuse and while this year had started off great again with four straight wins, the Orange have lost to Clemson and North Carolina in convincing fashion and travel to Florida State this weekend.
The good news for Babers after FSU is that every other game is winnable – but that might be the bad news, too, if Syracuse doesn’t get it done. Recruiting is also just OK as the Orange sit No. 11 in the conference rankings with no four-stars among their 18 commits.
Temp check: Warm
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Neal Brown, West Virginia
Former coach Dana Holgorsen had seven of eight winning seasons at West Virginia before he left for Houston but other than the COVID season, Brown has had three losing campaigns in Morgantown. The Mountaineers have turned some things around this season with a 4-1 record as they’ve won close games and have a winnable schedule ahead. But it’s also a schedule that could have some hiccups and that could sink Brown’s time there.
Ironically, that all starts Thursday when WVU visits Holgorsen’s Houston team. West Virginia has the fifth-best recruiting class in the Big 12 right now with one four-star commit and it did win some important recruiting battles in 2023 as well.
Temp check: Getting toasty
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Eli Drinkwitz, Missouri
A 5-0 start certainly helped Drinkwitz’s job status and then Missouri battled LSU hard in a game that was much closer than the final margin of 10 points. But the schedule gets far tougher from here on out with all conference games starting this weekend at Kentucky, which is licking its wounds after getting blasted by Georgia.
Drinkwitz is dealing with back-to-back 6-7 seasons but the glory days of playing in back-to-back SEC title games was a decade ago. Recruiting is also going well as five-star WR Luther Burden is paying off, the Tigers have the commitment of five-star DE Williams Nwaneri and five-star WR Ryan Wingo is very much in the mix, too.
Temp check: Warm
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Tony Elliott, Virginia
The hard facts first: Elliott is 4-12 in his second season and 1-8 in ACC play. Close games have really hurt Elliott’s start in Charlottesville as the Cavaliers lost by one to James Madison and by three to Boston College and NC State this season. In Elliott’s first year, Virginia lost to Syracuse and Miami by two points and then lost to North Carolina by three.
But Elliott has also steered the program through tragedy last season when three players were killed in a mass shooting incident on a bus during a school field trip.
The schedule is tough down the stretch and recruiting is struggling as UVa is second-to-last ahead of only Boston College in the ACC rankings.
Temp check: Getting toasty
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Jimbo Fisher, Texas A&M
Now in his sixth season, Fisher only has one losing campaign – last year when the Aggies collapsed – but he also doesn’t have any 10-win seasons. With losses to Miami and now Alabama it appears Texas A&M is teetering on the verge of being out of the College Football Playoff hunt. The bigwigs didn’t give Fisher a jaw-dropping salary to be average.
Texas A&M’s offense has been sparked by bringing in play-caller Bobby Petrino and the defense (especially up front with all the five-stars) is better but the schedule remains tough with a game at Tennessee this weekend. Recruiting continues to be incredibly good as A&M has the fourth-best class nationally but that’s also the frustrating part, that the Aggies haven’t gotten to national elite status with all these phenomenal players.
Temp check: Warm
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Jeff Hafley, Boston College
Hafley came to Boston College with a phenomenal resume, experience in the NFL and at Ohio State, and it looked like the Eagles could turn a corner under his stewardship. In his first two seasons, Hafley followed the pattern of marginally above .500 seasons but last year the Eagles went 3-9 and BC is off to an unimpressive 3-3 start this season.
Here’s why: Boston College lost to Northern Illinois, hardly held off Holy Cross, battled Florida State but lost, got pummeled by Louisville and then just slipped by Virginia and Army.
Recruiting is not going well – as it’s tough to recruit to Chestnut Hill and there’s just no spark right now – and BC is last in the ACC rankings. The Eagles need some momentum heading into the second half of the season.
Temp check: Sizzling
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Dana Holgorsen, Houston
It would be surprising if Holgorsen gets fired considering that Houston won 12 games two seasons ago and went 8-5 last year. But he’s an unpredictable guy and losing to Rice and then getting blasted by TCU and Texas Tech in conference games doesn’t help.
In eight seasons at West Virginia, Holgorsen only had one losing year. He runs the risk of already having his second full-season losing campaign as the Big 12 schedule gets tough in the coming weeks. Recruiting is slow with only eight commits (only Kansas State has fewer in the conference) but there is a ton of talent in the Houston area that is still considering the Cougars.
Temp check: Getting toasty
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Sam Pittman, Arkansas
Following the short-lived and comically bad two-year regime of Chad Morris, Pittman had some leeway coming in. Any progress, any semblance of professionalism, and Pittman would look like Vince Lombardi after Morris went 4-20 in two years.
But now in his fourth season, the Arkansas coach is 21-21, 10-19 in SEC play and the Razorbacks visit Alabama this weekend. Arkansas is not a bad football team and has close losses but there’s also a general feeling that they’re not about to burst out and have phenomenal breakthroughs, either.
Arkansas is ninth in the SEC recruiting rankings this year, finished ninth last year, and is just sort of middling right now.
Temp check: Getting toasty
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Justin Wilcox, Cal
Wilcox has not been bad as Cal’s coach; he just hasn’t been great, either, and has sort of followed the line of other coaches in Berkeley who have a strong season here and there, some losing seasons and then generally go about .500.
The Cal coach is 33-39 overall, 18-34 in conference play,. While that’s not spectacular, the question is also raised whether the Berkeley administration is even engaged in putting in the resources to have an elite football program.
Temp check: Getting toasty