College Football’s Coaching Musical Chairs; What’s Next?

People who have just joined the college football fan gaggles in the last four or five years probably do not realize that there was a time when coaches did not get fired until December. We were ok to let the season play out to a completion. But the sport is currently on an epically active round of musical chairs. We are just now halfway through the season, and we already have seven FBS coaches fired, with more likely to come sooner rather than later.

Last year was a comparatively slow cycle in the coaching change industry. There were financial uncertainties due in large part to the House v. NCAA case. What was going to happen to NIL? Would there be revenue sharing? What would the role of the Collectives be? And what would be the financial impact on all the schools? As super agents like Jimmy Sexton and Trace Armstrong drive up the costs of firing coaches, cold feet ruled in 2024.

But now that college football can at least see two to three months down the road financially, the music is starting sooner, and the chairs are getting pulled quicker.

The Current Openings

Penn State, Arkansas, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma State, UCLA, Oregon State, and UAB are the schools that have fired their coaches since the season started. The Stanford job is also open, as Troy Taylor was fired back in March, and Frank Reich is only a caretaker until December.

Different perspectives alter the pecking order of the list. By any objective measure, Penn State is the job that will be watched the most. It is an undeniable blue blood program. Oregon State, UAB, and UCLA are not likely to compete at that level when it comes to potential compensation packages.

But keep your eyes on Stanford. The football program just got a $50 million gift from former player Bradford Freeman. Stanford is already one of the wealthiest athletic departments in the country in terms of endowment money. But now they have these new riches specifically earmarked toward “…scholarships, NIL, and the overall benefit of the program.”

The Future

We are not going to prognosticate on who else might lose their jobs. Preying on people’s employment is gross. But if you follow the sport weekly, you know there are other firings coming in the Big 10, ACC, and SEC.

And there won’t be answers as to who fills those jobs for at least another six weeks. They are going to be filled by people currently employed in the coaching profession, and so the announcements won’t come before the end of the regular season. Only the social media clickbait rumors will come sooner.

Moving the Chairs

James Franklin went from being moments away from playing for the national championship last season to looking for a chair now. The reports of the $49-$56 million buyout are inconsequential. His contract reportedly has a duty to mitigate clause. That means he must at least verifiably look for work. And with the offset clause in his contract, any money he makes in his next job reduces what Penn State owes him.

But the bigger subject here is that Sexton is his agent, and he is the king of leverage. Other Sexton clients are going to benefit from the Penn State opening even if they are not really candidates. Sexton used an alleged interest from USC in Franklin in 2021 to secure the bigger buyout from Penn State. It’s what Sexton does best.

The Names

So, what does that mean in the current cycle? Maybe Texas A&M coach Mike Elko is a real candidate for the Penn State job. Maybe he is not. But Sexton is his agent, so you are going to read that he is, and maybe Elko gets a restructured contract, having completed all of two years in College Station.

Who else is a Sexton agent who has shown a proclivity to move? Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin. Oregon’s Dan Lanning, Florida State’s Mike Norvell, Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer, Georgia’s Kirby Smart, and Texas’s Steve Sarkisian are also Sexton clients. Maybe they will be looking for other chairs. Maybe they will have a chair pulled out from them. But their names are going to be front and center as the music plays for the next six weeks.

The Tea Leaves

There is no science to this. There is only the art form of paying attention and adding some facts, perspective, and a dose of logic.

One publication said on Monday that Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule shut down the rumors linking him to the Penn State job. In fact, he did no such thing. What he did was give the only answer that he could, a non-denial denial.

There is no good answer for a coach to give under the circumstances. If he flat-out denies any interest in another opening, no one believes him. And when he does leave someday, he is called a hypocrite. So Rhule did what you do. Talk about how much you love it where you are, how you are focused on the remainder of the season, and the players pouring their hearts out on the field.

But those parts about mixing in facts, perspective, and logic? Rhule played his college career at Penn State under Joe Paterno. He knows what the highs of Penn State feel like. He was a volunteer assistant in 1998 for the Nittany Lions. And he is friends with PSU athletic director Pat Kraft, going back to their years together at Temple.

Does Rhule get an offer? Does he take the job? We don’t know, and in mid-October, neither does anyone else.

But if he does get/accept the job, it creates a December opening at another major program in Lincoln, Nebraska. The music will start again and the chairs will move again. And in the meantime, Brent Pry, Trent Dilfer, Mike Gundy, Trent Bray, Sam Pittman, and DeShaun Foster join Franklin in looking for their own chairs someone as their music already started.