Kevin McGuire: This season we have already seen the departures of Mike Lockesly at New Mexico and Mike Stoops at Arizona. Seems like a bad time for head coaches to be named Mike, so when your phone rings Mike Riley (Oregon State) and Mike Price (UTEP) you may want the call to go to voicemail. As we enter the second half of the season, who do you think are some of the coaches that are now under the most pressure to save their jobs before 2012 comes around?
Are we looking for coaches who entered the season with high expectations but have fallen short of meeting them (Mike Sherman, keeping with the Mike theme?) or are there guys whose time is about to come to an end after years of frustration and futility? For the purposes of this conversation, let’s remove the Joe Paterno (Penn State) is old aspect and recognize that Howard Schnellenberger (Florida Atlantic) is already planning on retirement. We’re just talking about coaches who are in danger of being handed a pink slip at the end of the season, if not before.
Go!
Aaron Torres: Well, the name that everyone jumped on early in the season was Mark Richt, but honestly at this point, I just don’t see it. Since falling to 0-2 to start the year, the ‘Dawgs have won six straight, and with South Carolina’s recent off the field troubles and Florida’s problems on it, it seems to me like Georgia will eventually find their way to Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game. If only by default.
So with that, I’ll stay in the SEC, and head over to Ole Miss.
Really, I can’t think of one compelling reason to keep Houston Nutt at this point. I understand that he won nine games in each of his first two years, but that was undoubtedly thanks to the talent boon that Ed Orgeron left when he departed five years ago. Since those classes left though, it’s been slim pickings in Oxford. They are a combined 6-16 since the start of the 2010 season, with more losses to Vanderbilt (two) than SEC wins (one, over Kentucky in 2010), with back-to-back, inexcusable losses to Dan Mullen and Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl. Of course only compounding things is that this program continues to be an embarrassment off the field. Four players were suspended for last week’s Alabama game, and given Nutt’s notoriously “lenient” disciplinary record, coupled with his need not to get embarrassed on national TV, I assume whatever they did was pretty bad or they would’ve played. And sadly, things will only get worse, as Arkansas, Auburn (on the road), LSU and Mississippi State remain.
Quite frankly, I think I have a better shot to be head coach at Ole Miss next year than Nutt does.
Matt Yoder: He may not fall into this discussion as an interim coach, but I have a hard time believing Luke Fickell keeps his job in Columbus. The Buckeyes season might have been saved from being a complete disaster in Champaign, but unless Braxton Miller shows real improvement and this team beats Michigan at the end of the year, there are going to be countless fans saying the job is too big for Fickell. With the Joe Bauserman fiasco at Nebraska, his deer in the headlights look in Miami, and already more losses in the Big Ten than any season since 2004, it’s going to be very tough for him to stick around. It may not be fair for a man that had to step into the biggest coaching mess in the country, but it’s the reality of the task he faced.
Tom Perry: This may be a bit of a long shot, but I’m going with Cal’s Jeff Tedford. He had a great run, but Cal has been spinning its wheels for about three years now and there doesn’t seem to be any signs that things are getting better.
Cal is 3-3, but 0-3 in the Pac-12 (too bad it can’t claim that non-conference game against fellow Pac-12 member Colorado).
Tedford built a reputation as a coach who could turn good quarterback talent into first-round NFL talent. Well, that well has dried up for Tedford.
It’s not that he’s a bad coach, but it just seems he needs a fresh start (about as much as Cal does).
Allen Kenney: I think Jeff Tedford is a good call, Tom, just based on Cal’s complete lack of forward momentum. Most Cal fans who I’ve spoken to have deemed him safe for the time being. I guess he’s still living off of where that program was when he took over. That and he once coached Joey Harrington, of course.
Changing gears, there’s another Pac-12 coach I’m thinking of. When your boss describes your job status as “day to day,” I think that firmly affixes your ass to the fire. I’m looking at you, Pistol Rick.
One guy I definitely wonder about is Tom O’Brien at North Carolina State. He scraped together a 9-4 campaign a year ago, but his previous three teams all finished the year under .500. The Wolfpack are currently sitting at 3-3, but two of those wins came against Liberty and South Alabama. With plenty of conference tests remaining on the schedule, another losing season isn’t out of the question for NCSU.
As a former Marine, O’Brien definitely looks the part of a successful college football coach. His five years in Raleigh suggest otherwise, however.
Michael Felder: First I’ll hit on Tom O’Brien because I’m here where the situation is all happening. His seat seems warm but not quite on the firing playing field because his team does have so many issues with injuries, youth and just lacking bodies.
The interesting part about TOB, for me, is there was always this “gameday coach” vs “program builder-recruiter” battle that he and Butch Davis were embroiled in where State fans told UNC fans that recruiting didn’t matter and they’d take O’Brien anyday of the week. Well O’Brien’s failings in recruiting are showing in a big way this year and I do want to see if that changes going forward or how it affects popular opinion.
I like the picks of Nutt, Tedford and of course Luke Fickell and Everett Withers, as the interim guys who opened the year and are on the hot seat.
Othewise, another name that I’d like to kick out there? Frank Spaziani.
The BC head coach just cannot get the ship right in Chestnut Hill and folks are absolutely upset. The offense is pathetic, the defense has some good parts but the entire unit leaves much to be desired. After going to a couple ACC Championship Games under previous coaches the Eagles have continued to decline since Spaz’s takeover and things are starting to come to a head this season.
Aaron Torres: Felder, great call on Spaz.
It’s interesting, because from the beginning, he never seemed like a great fit; if anything, he just seemed like the logical guy to hire, when Jeff Jagodzinski left town in a pinch. Correct me if I’m wrong , but Jag’s leaving BC happened late in the process, and BC needed a guy fast. So rather than going out and conducting a proper national search, they promoted the “company man,” to try and get some semblance of continuity back to the program. Which basically never works. Like, ever.
Interestingly, Spaziani also raises an interesting theory that I’ve always had but is impossible to prove: Some guys are just not cut out to be head coaches. There are guys who are great as coordinators, great at recruiting, great at being No. 2 (in specific, I think Dave Wannstedt is a great example), but just don’t have the force of personality and smarts to be the guy calling the shots.
The point being, when I hear an Urban Meyer, a Jim Harbaugh (miss you bud!), a Chip Kelly, Bob Stoops, Brady Hoke speak, those guys just sound like they have the confidence in themselves and what they’re doing to be “the guy.” I don’t feel the same about Spaziani, nor have I ever.
