20 college football coaches who are on the hot seat in 2025

It raised some eyebrows when Brent Brennan was named as the Wildcats' head coach when Jedd Fisch left for Washington. Brennan was 34-48 in seven seasons at San Jose State, but he did turn around a program that was notoriously bad for a long time. Three winning seasons and three bowl appearances are nothing to sneeze at, but it didn't scream like someone ready for a power job like Arizona. In his first season in Tuscon, the Wildcats went 4-8, where they lost 7 of their last 8 games and were blown out by rival Arizona State, 49-7.  

Carney has been placed in a tough position. Kenni Burns was fired due to off-field issues in April and Carney has been placed as the interim coach. Sometimes the interim coach can rally the team into a better-than-expected season and earn the permanent job, and that could happen here. But Kent State is a mess. The Golden Flashes were 0-12 last season, which was only slightly worse than their 1-11 mark the previous year. And Carney is inheriting Burns' roster, so it lacks the ability to improve much this year. While "hot seat" may be a bit of a mislabel in this case, since no one expects anything in Kent, but this is a job that will almost definitely be open next year. 

It just hasn't gone well in Ruston for Sonny Cumbie. In three seasons, the Bulldogs have gone just 11-26 with their best season coming last year -- a 5-8 record that includes an Independence Bowl loss (they were a late-minute replacement for Marshall). With Louisiana Tech on the verge of leaving a tame Conference USA for a much more competitive Sun Belt, Cumbie needs to show he is able to turn this program around. 

Trent Dilfer was a risk as a hire from the outset. The Super Bowl-winning quarterback had just come off a highly successful four-year run at Lipscomb Academy High School in Nashville. It hasn't happened at UAB. Dilfer's squad has won just seven games in two seasons and has taken one of the better G5 programs and dropped it into the abyss. The Blazers hadn't had a losing season since 2013 and Dilfer has delivered two in two seasons. 

Freeze didn't leave Ole Miss on the best of terms back in 2016, but a highly successful stint at Liberty worked him back to the SEC. But it isn't producing results at Auburn. The Tigers have had four consecutive losing seasons -- the last two under Freeze's watch -- which hasn't happened since the late 1940s. Auburn fans (and the school) have notoriously been impatient with their football coaches. One more bad season and Freeze may be put on ice. 

Could Mike Gundy really get fired? Well, he's sort of in that Steelers/Mike Tomlin space where he's been a great coach for a really long time at one place and it soon may be the time for the two to break up. I mean, the Cowboys have played in the Big 12 championship game twice in the last four years, but they are also coming off a gruesome 3-9 campaign where they lost every single conference game. It was the first time Oklahoma State missed a bowl game since Gundy's first season in 2005 and the most losses in a season since 1991. Again, I can't see a scenario where the Cowboys just fire Gundy -- he's been a legend in Stillwater with his rants and haircuts -- but it may be time to move on. 

Elliott's Cavaliers teams have improved incrementally in his three seasons: In 2022 the Cavs went 3-7 as the season was cut short due to the University of Virginia campus shooting; in 2023 Virginia went 3-9, but did win one more ACC game; last year, UVa was 5-7. None of that screams that the program is about to break through and challenge for an ACC title, and with a shift in priorities around the ACC regarding revenue distribution, Virginia doesn't want to be left out. Elliott needs to make more of an improvement, or else the school may elect to find someone who can get there faster. 

Fickell's success at Cincinnati just hasn't carried over to Wisconsin. The Badgers followed up a 7-6 season that ended with a ReliaQuest Bowl loss in Fickell's first season with a 5-7 thud last year. That was the first time that Wisconsin missed a bowl game since 2001. The job has changed since he initially took it -- the Big Ten added Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA and the league dropped the divisional format. Fickell's predecessor, Paul Chryst, was fired despite having better production, so the seat is pretty warm in Madison. 

I don't care who you are or how long you've been there: going 2-10 in the SEC is a non-starter. That holds doubly true for someone coaching at Mississippi State. Jeff Lebby's first season in Starksville was a disaster, beating only Eastern Kentucky and UMass while getting pummeled weekly in the SEC. The Bulldogs have had trouble finding consistency since the Dan Mullen days of the early 2010s, and its been falling off a cliff since Mike Leach suddenly passed away in late 2022. I'm sure the university doesn't want to change coaches so quickly once again -- Zach Arnett was fired after one full season and Lebby is entering his second year -- but you can't allow your program to go off the rails. The SEC is too difficult to have to go through that. If Lebby doesn't show tangible improvement, he may be in trouble. 

Locksley has had an up-and-down career at Maryland. He's just 33-41 over six seasons with the Terps, which includes a 1-5 stint as the interim head coach way back in 2015. It was sort of a risk when Maryland hired him as the full time coach in 2019 since he was 3-31 as a head coach in that interim and as head coach of New Mexico 2009 to 2011. After three straight winning seasons (and three straight bowl wins), the Terps sank to a 4-8 record and just 1-8 in the Big Ten. With the pressures of competing in the Big Ten mounting, Maryland doesn't want to be staring down another losing season. 

Frankly, Akron has been a mess for a long, long time. The Zips have had just one winning season since 2005 and their 4-8 record in 2024 was their finest season in six years ... and it's not even close. So, in one aspect, Moorhead has improved things in Akron. On the other, he is just 8-28 during his three seasons with the Zips and is just 5-19 in MAC play. No one is expecting conference championships just yet, but every coach is hired to be the one who finally makes them competitive in a league that lacks national relevance outside of their Tuesday night "MAC-tion". 

How hot is Napier's seat, really? Well, it was pretty hot going into last season and he bounced back with an 8-5 record with wins over Ole Miss, LSU and over rival Florida State late in the year. The four-game winning streak to end the season bought Napier a little more time, but it also bought him some expectations that the Gators need to build off that success. A lot is expected from Napier and QB DJ Lagway that a sub-.500 season just won't cut it. That may prove difficult as the Gators schedule is brutal: road trips to LSU, Miami, Texas A&M and Ole Miss; Georgia in Jacksonville; and Texas, Tennessee and Florida State in The Swamp. 

What a difference a year makes. In 2023, Florida State finished undefeated but was left out of the College Football Playoff because QB Jordan Travis suffered a season-ending injury late in the season. Head coach Mike Norvell led the charge to complain about the fairness of how a team gets a playoff berth and put a charge into the narrative that the ACC is crumbling and Florida State needs to get out.

You couldn't have a different season in 2024. Florida State sank to 2-10, last place in an ACC that just added Cal (the only FBS team the Seminoles beat) and Stanford. They scored more tha 16 points in a game twice all season, and one of those was against FCS Charleston Southern. In the last five weeks of the regular season, they were thumped by in-state rivals Miami and Florida, lost to a reeling North Carolina team by 24 points, and lost 52-3 to Notre Dame.

Big-time programs have down seasons -- but not this bad. You cannot be Florida State and follow up an ACC championship and undefeated regular season with that kind of performance. I mean, Noles fans got rid of Jimbo Fisher and Willie Taggart after 6 and 7-win seasons, so how do you think a 2-10 season was received? To put this in perspective, the Notes lost 11 games combined from 2021-2023 and lost 10 in 2024. Or this: in Bobby Bowden's first nine seasons with FSU in the ACC, he lost a total of 11 games. It was their worst record since 1974.

The Norvell era in Tallahassee has been so erratic. Three losing seasons combined with a 10-3 and 13-1 record. If he doesn't show, this was just a massively unlucky outlier of a weird year, I can't see him lasting beyond this season. 

Sam Pittman was on the hot seat last year, but a 7-6 record and a Liberty Bowl win bought him at least one more year. Pittman has been up and down in Fayetteville, but the Razorbacks really haven't been challenging for anything in the SEC in his five seasons. It really mirrors Bret Bielema, who was fired after five years, so it would seem that Pittman has to get 8 or more wins to keep his job after the season. That may be difficult against a schedule that features games against Texas, Notre Dame, LSU, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, and Auburn. 

Virginia Tech has been seeking a new leader for the program since Frank Beamer's retirement in 2015. Pry has gone just 16-21 in three seasons, and his time in Blacksburg is looking at lot like his predecessor, Justin Fuente. I mean, 7-6 and 6-7 seasons are okay for middling programs but Virginia Tech believes they are better than that -- especially in a down ACC. If Pry can't get the Hokies to 8 or more wins, they may start to look elsewhere.  

Is Lincoln Riley really on the hot seat? In a sense ... yeah. Riley's success at Oklahoma hasn't really spilled over at USC. In three seasons with the Trojans, Riley has more losses (14) than in five years at Oklahoma (10). His first season was a success -- Pac-12 regular season title, Cotton Bowl bid, and a Heisman trophy win for Caleb Williams. The following year saw a drop-off, despite Williams still being in school, and last year's 7-6 record and 9th-place finish in their first season in the Big Ten is unacceptable. USC just hasn't been able to find the magic from the Pete Carroll era and Riley was supposed to provide it. 

Satterfield's hiring at Cincinnati wasn't exactly met with applause from the locals. Satterfield didn't exactly wow anybody down the river at Louisville (25-24 in four seasons) and he was on their hot seat before the Bearcats came calling. Satterfield took over for Luke Fickell, who had Cincinnati in the College Fooball Playoffs. Now, the Bearcats moved up from the AAC to the Big 12 so it was going to be tougher to replicate what Fickell has done. Still, a 3-9 season followed by a 5-7 season isn't getting it done. If you look at that and feel Satterfield is improving, then maybe 2025 will be another step and the Bearcats will be in a bowl game. But another losing season could see the program move in another direction. 

It's unusual to see his name on this list, considering he has done wonders with a Kentucky program that may be the only one in the SEC that values hoops more than football. In 12 seasons, he's netted the Wildcats' first two 10-win seasons since 1977 and only their third and fourth ever. The last one was 2021, which made Stoops a name to watch in the annual coaching carousel, but that may be changing. Kentucky has lagged behind in the NIL transfer portal era, and the Wildcats crashed to a 4-8 mark last year, losing 7 of 8 SEC games -- their worst conference record since Stoops' first season. The season started out alright, with a close 13-12 loss to Georgia, followed by a win over Ole Miss, but the Cats lost 6 of their last 7 games and were absolutely throttled by rival Louisville in Lexington. That slide, mixed with the general bleh feeling from fans may make this one of those mutual divorces if the Wildcats suffer another bad year. 

We discussed Lincoln Riley's success at Oklahoma earlier. He was 55-10 with four Big 12 championships in five seasons in Norman. Venables was a bit of an out-of-the-box hire just for the fact that he was a defensive coach taking over a program that was known for high-octane offenses. Venables was a hot name in coaching circles from his time at Clemson, but took his time for the right job to come along. Obviously, this would take a bit of time as the program was changing its identity, and the Sooners landed with a 6-7 season in 2022. The patience seemed to pay off in Year 2 with a 10-3 record and a tie for 2nd place in the Big 12. Venables first season in the SEC was a near complete dud -- a 6-7 record and a 13th place finish in the 16-team conference. If not for a late-season thumping of Alabama, Venables' seat may be hotter right now.  Still, with QB John Mateer the hope is that the Sooners can be more competitive in the SEC and that Alabama win wasn't just an outlier.  

Cal is in a tough spot. It was always a high-academics school that had really worked to field quality football teams in the Pac-12. Now it has the same obstacles, but now they are in the ACC, which provides tough geographical issues and makes local kids think twice during recruiting. Justin Wilcox has been okay, and that may be the problem. In eight seasons, Wilcox has had just two winning seasons, and both were prior to 2020. Aside from the 2020 pandemic season (the Bears finished 1-3), Cal hasn't been awful either. They've just been below average, and below average seems to be where they are stuck. His buyout may give him some more time, but how much longer is it worth being 6-7 every year?