Last college football season featured an extremely chaotic coaching carousel that opened up some of the biggest jobs in the industry. The Athletic had a dozen Power 4 conference coaches listed in our 2025 preseason hot seat temperature check column, and seven of them ended up losing their jobs, including LSU’s Brian Kelly, who, as we described it at the time, had “the weirdest situation of any coach on this list.”
Other major names who lost jobs? James Franklin, who had Penn State in the national title hunt in 2024, was fired at midseason. Arkansas’ Sam Pittman was fired in September, as was longtime Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy. Michigan’s Sherrone Moore was involved in serious off-field drama and fired after the regular season.
The landscape heading into the 2026 season on the coaching carousel seems almost as thorny — especially in the ACC, where things are primed to get messy. Here’s our latest assessment after talking to numerous industry sources, most on the condition of anonymity so they could speak candidly and protect relationships, about the FBS coaching landscape.
ACCBill O’Brien, Boston College
O’Brien took over after Jeff Hafley bailed for the NFL following a 7-6 season. After a solid debut in 2024, things took a dreadful turn. The Eagles went from 7-6 to 2-10, with their lone FBS win the season finale at Syracuse. BC has a pretty strong football history, and it’s not just the legend of Doug Flutie; even under Steve Addazio, the Eagles had a bunch of winning seasons, going 7-6 or 7-5 five times in a six-year span. Jeff Jagodzinski, who was there for only two seasons, went 20-8. Before that, Tom O’Brien had four Top 25 seasons. But that all seems like ancient history in this name, image and likeness and transfer portal world.
“They’re just never gonna be all in,” said an industry source. “That place isn’t built for this era. At Northwestern and Vanderbilt (two other high-academic private P4 programs), at least you’re getting TV money. In the ACC, they’re really not.”
The sense we’re getting from sources is that if O’Brien doesn’t get the Eagles better than 4-8, he’s probably done and that athletic director Blake James isn’t going to be that patient.
Temperature check: Toasty
Mike Norvell, Florida State
The 44-year-old has won 76 games as a college coach and led the Seminoles, who were spinning their wheels before he took over, to 10-3 and 13-1 records just a few years back. He is again feverishly trying to dig FSU out of a deep hole. A disastrous 2-10 campaign in 2024 was followed by a slightly better season last fall, when FSU began 3-0 and upset No. 8 Alabama but stumbled to 5-7, the nadir a 40-21 loss to archrival Florida.
Norvell is a very good offensive coach and has some firepower to work with at the skill positions. But the first half of the schedule is daunting: four Top 25 teams in the first seven games, three of which are on the road: vs. No. 19 SMU, at No. 13 Alabama, at No. 24 Louisville, at No. 7 Miami. If the Seminoles — who open the season on Saturday against New Mexico State — can start at least 4-3 heading into a post-Miami bye week, there’s a viable path forward.
Maybe.
If not, and the Noles have a losing record at that point, I hear that the FSU money people will become more motivated, especially if new Florida coach Jon Sumrall gets the Gators going fast. It definitely doesn’t help that FSU’s other big rival, Miami, is now a national title contender. Coaching moves often happen during bye weeks — and the Noles have theirs after that Oct. 17 Miami game. Norvell’s buyout is in the $45 million range (subject to offset), which is hefty, particularly by FSU standards.
“USF has not had more money than FSU,” an industry source noted, not coincidentally. FSU did not have a robust budget to work the portal to upgrade the roster this offseason, where the Noles were spending much closer to USF than Miami. It felt like the program was saving money for something else.
Even getting to 8-4, I’m told, might not be enough to convince folks there he should get more time, if there are some bad losses factored into that record.
Temperature check: Hot
Bill Belichick, North Carolina
The greatest coach in NFL history had a horrible first season in Chapel Hill. He was hired for $10 million a year to replace Mack Brown, who in six seasons in his second stint at UNC never had a worse record than 6-7 and was 11 games over .500. Belichick’s squad got destroyed by TCU in his opener, 48-14 at home. A few weeks later, the Tar Heels were drilled by a mediocre UCF team, 34-9. They finished 4-8 and have become the laughingstock of the sport. That’s in part due to all of the dysfunction surrounding the program, most notably with general manager Mike Lombardi, the highest-paid GM in college football, who botched the program’s roster management spectacularly.
The GM boasted about how UNC was now the NFL’s 33rd team, yet the Tar Heels were unable to produce even one NFL Draft pick last year for the first time in a decade. Belichick fired his offensive coordinator and special teams coordinator after his first season but kept Lombardi, who is currently on paid leave while he is being investigated by the university regarding an HR complaint. Belichick’s son, Steve, the defensive coordinator, is on leave for medical reasons.
Asked about Belichick’s coaching prospects earlier this month, an industry source told The Athletic: “I’d be shocked if he’s coaching there next year. It’s a mess there with Lombardi and his son.”
UNC did upgrade its staff by bringing in Bobby Petrino to run the offense. The Tar Heels are riding with an experienced quarterback in Wisconsin/Maryland/Wake Forest transfer Billy Edwards. They open the season in Dublin, Ireland, in Week 0 with what feels like a pivotal rematch against TCU. They go to Clemson in Week 3 before Notre Dame visits Chapel Hill after a bye. A 1-3 start (the other game is against FCS East Tennessee State) feels likely. If they can get to 2-2, it should spark some optimism, which hasn’t been felt around there since probably the first quarter in Belichick’s first college game. They also do have road games at Pitt, Duke and Virginia and host Miami and Louisville.
Temperature check: Muy caliente
Fran Brown, Syracuse
He started with a bang, going 10-3 and finishing No. 20 in his first season. Last year was a big dud, going 3-9, but it started out promising. Led by Notre Dame transfer QB Steve Angeli, the Orange went to Clemson and beat the Tigers to get to 3-1. Angeli tore his Achilles in the third quarter of that game and was ruled out for the rest of the year, and the Orange proceeded to lose the next eight games by double digits. A few of them were crushing defeats: losing to Notre Dame 70-7 and in the season finale at home to a woeful Boston College 34-12.
The good news: Angeli says he’s fully recovered. He was impressive in this system, just as Kyle McCord was the year before. Syracuse avoids Miami this fall but plays Notre Dame in the season finale. I think, barring another 3-9 or worse season, Brown will get more time. But he does have a new boss in athletic director Bryan Blair, who I expect to be aggressive in elevating the program.
Temperature check: Warm
Big TenLuke Fickell, Wisconsin
The former Ohio State defensive lineman had an amazing run at Cincinnati, getting the Bearcats into the College Football Playoff when it was only a four-team field. He has struggled to get any traction in Madison in three seasons, going from 7-6 to 5-7 to 4-8 as he has pivoted from an initial miscalculation in trying to get the Badgers’ offense right.
Even though the record has gotten worse each year, it feels like he might finally be on the right track. That’s because the Badgers finished 2025 with two wins in November against ranked teams, beating No. 23 Washington and whipping No. 21 Illinois. It’s also noteworthy because they ended October with back-to-back games against Ohio State and Oregon and never quit on Fickell or each other. There is plenty of excellent young talent, especially on defense, led by budding stars Mason Posa and Cooper Catalano, a pair of sophomore linebackers who shined in those wins. The hope is that speedy Old Dominion transfer QB Colton Joseph, the 2025 Sun Belt Offensive Player of the Year, can spark what has been a horrid offense.
It seems like a stretch to expect a win against a loaded Notre Dame team in the opener at Lambeau Field, but if Wisconsin can be competitive, that should be a good sign. It also doesn’t have to face Indiana, Oregon or Ohio State — the likely three best teams in the league. Getting to 7-5 seems very realistic. Fickell does have a new boss, AD Shawn Eichorst, but it’s been no secret that the Badgers were slow to warm up to NIL and only now are starting to get caught up.
Temperature check: Hot
Luke Fickell went 57-18 at Cincinnati but is 17-21 at Wisconsin. (Mark Hoffman / USA Today Network via Reuters Connect)
Mike Locksley, Maryland
After a pretty solid run under Locksley with three consecutive winning seasons from 2021-23, Maryland has plummeted the past two years with consecutive 4-8 seasons that featured 1-8 records in Big Ten play. AD Jim Smith, who was new to college sports, opted to bring Locksley back for 2026. There is a lot of impressive young talent; sophomore QB Malik Washington has star potential, as do several of the team’s young defensive linemen.
Folks close to the program really respect Locksley and the work he’s done in the local community. That said, Locksley really needs a bounceback fall in his eighth season at Maryland. The Terps figure to get off to another good start, opening against Hampton and then going to UConn before former Maryland assistant James Franklin and Virginia Tech visit, followed by UCLA making the long trip east. I think 3-1 is likely. Later, Maryland has home games with Rutgers and Illinois and a visit to Purdue. Bowl eligibility, given all the young talent that now has some seasoning, doesn’t feel like a big ask.
A 7-5 season might be enough, but this is also a job plenty of coaches seem tempted by.
Temperature check: Hot
Lincoln Riley, USC
This one is the most intriguing scenario on the board, and possibly similar to Brian Kelly’s situation at LSU last year. Riley is 90-28 as a head coach and has produced teams that have finished in the top 20 in seven of his nine seasons. He got off to a fast start at USC, going 11-3 with Heisman winner Caleb Williams after taking over a program in disarray. But the Trojans sputtered the next two seasons, going 9-9 in Big Ten play. USC has had a lot of headaches playing on the road. The fan base and a lot of the former players have become very frustrated. They’ve made big financial commitments to NIL and for a massive facilities upgrade.
But the Trojans just signed the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class for 2026. They have a very experienced QB in Jayden Maiava and brought in a Hall of Fame coach in defensive coordinator Gary Patterson. Riley has been vocal about thinking that the Trojans are about to win big. He needs to.
It’s Year 5. He’s been paid a fortune, even by college coaching standards. His AD, Jen Cohen, did not hire him. His buyout is still massive, probably north of what LSU had to navigate to ditch Kelly.
The Trojans’ schedule starts fairly easy, opening with four opponents not anywhere near the preseason Top 25. But in late September things get interesting: No. 2 Oregon visits, then No. 17 Washington. A week later, the Trojans make the long trip to Happy Valley to face No. 18 Penn State in the Nittany Lions’ prime-time White Out game. After visiting Wisconsin, they host No. 1 Ohio State before traveling to defending national champion Indiana after a bye week. Going 9-3 against this schedule would actually feel impressive. Going 8-4, though, might cost him his job.
Temperature check: Steamy
Big 12Dave Aranda, Baylor
Aranda’s record is 36-37, but his Bears have been wildly inconsistent: They went from 2-7 in his first season to 12-2 and finishing No. 5 the following year. Then it was back to 6-7, down to 3-9 and back up to 8-5 before failing to get bowl eligible last fall at 5-7. Aranda’s hire of OC Jake Spavital has provided a much-needed boost to the offense, and the hope is talented Florida transfer QB DJ Lagway is primed to break through. The big problem has been, surprisingly enough, Aranda’s specialty: defense.
Aranda has altered his style a bit this offseason and is being more public on social media. Baylor has a new AD in Doug McNamee, who I hear has really been trying to help make this program work. Given how the schedule sets up, it looks like there is a real path forward. After the opener in Atlanta against what figures to be an improved Auburn team, Baylor hosts Prairie View A&M, Louisiana Tech and Colorado. Then it goes to Arizona State before TCU visits, which will be tough, but after that it’s Kansas, UCF and Iowa State, which are likely three of the weakest teams in the Big 12. Though the Bears finish with three preseason ranked teams (at BYU, Texas Tech, at Houston), going 7-5 doesn’t seem to be a very heavy lift.
Temperature check: Hot
Scott Satterfield, Cincinnati
After a brutal first season in which the Bearcats also transitioned into the much tougher Big 12 from the American and went 3-9 overall and 1-8 in league play, Satterfield has shown progress, going from 5-7 to 7-6. An issue has been how much this program has struggled in November, going 1-11 in three years. But if he can build off last season and emerge as an upper-half Big 12 team, he should be safe. If the Bearcats take a step back and Fickell becomes available, that dynamic could factor in with the possibility of the former coach returning.
Temperature check: Kind of warm, and worth keeping an eye on
SECJeff Lebby, Mississippi State
He’s 1-15 in SEC play in his first two seasons, but at least he showed some improvement from 2-10 in his first season to 5-8 last year with a win over No. 12 Arizona State. The Bulldogs should be fun to watch with a dynamic quarterback in Kamario Taylor, who is dripping with talent. Zach Arnett, the head coach in 2023, returns to Starkville to take over the defense again, which should help a lot. The Bulldogs have been the SEC’s worst defensive team over the past two years.
The schedule has the potential to get problematic in a hurry. After hosting ULM, Mississippi State visits Minnesota and then goes to South Carolina. Opening 1-2 while playing two unranked teams wouldn’t look good. Then it gets this stretch: vs. No. 25 Missouri, vs. No. 13 Alabama, at No. 11 LSU, vs. No. 10 Oklahoma and at No. 5 Texas. Falling back to 4-8 or worse feels dicey.
Temperature check: Toasty, and could be scorching by mid-September
Shane Beamer and South Carolina are trying to recover from a fall to 4-8 last season. (Ken Ruinard / USA Today Network via Reuters Connect)
Shane Beamer, South Carolina
The son of Virginia Tech legend Frank Beamer has done better than most Gamecocks coaches. He’s been a good cultural fit, rallying the fan base and also winning a bunch of big-time recruiting battles. He’s also beaten archrival Clemson a few times. In his first five seasons, he’s had two Top 25 finishes. Aside from the great Steve Spurrier leading the Gamecocks to four Top 25 finishes, this is a program that has only had four other ranked teams since 1959. There have been six head coaches here in the past 40 years, and besides Spurrier, Beamer’s the only other one with a winning record (33-30). Hall of Famer Lou Holtz wasn’t even at .500.
But last year’s 4-8 season with just one SEC win was a gut punch. Beamer hired the wrong offensive coordinator after Dowell Loggains left to become the head coach at Appalachian State, and I suspect new OC Kendal Briles will be a better fit with QB LaNorris Sellers.
Beamer’s path to another bowl game feels realistic; the first three games are against Kent State, Towson and Mississippi State. After a trip to Alabama, South Carolina hosts a rebuilding Kentucky team. If the Gamecocks are 4-1, this team could be rolling to a big bounceback season.
Temperature check: Pretty hot, but we think it should cool down soon
Group of 6Derek Mason, Middle Tennessee
Rick Stockstill had the job for 18 seasons, going 113-111. Except for a 2-11 season in 2011, MTSU was never that bad, but Stockstill left after an 4-8 record in 2023, and Mason, the former Vanderbilt coach, has come in with back-to-back 3-9 seasons.
Last year, MTSU got blown out by Austin Peay, an in-state FCS program, in its home opener. The good news: MTSU seemed to keep improving over the course of 2025 and did finish with back-to-back wins. Better still, Roman Gagliano, a rugged 235-pound QB who sparked the late-season surge, is back. He’s a big dude who can move. I think he gives them a real chance to get things turned around. He has some decent skill talent around him, too, so this should be a pretty dangerous offense. The question could be whether the defense (Mason’s wheelhouse) slows opponents down.
The Blue Raiders were picked to finish No. 9 in the 10-team Conference USA preseason media poll.
Temperature check: Toasty
Major Applewhite, South Alabama
The former Texas quarterback had a decent first season with the Jaguars, going 7-6 with a bowl win, but last year, after losing QB Gio Lopez to the portal, South Alabama fell to 4-8. The Jaguars did come close to knocking off Tulane, losing 33-31, and lost in overtime at Troy and then by one to Arkansas State. The Jaguars lost a bunch of guys on defense in the portal this offseason, which is why they were picked to finish sixth in the Sun Belt West in the preseason coaches poll.
Applewhite, who did a good job as Kane Wommack’s OC when this program got cranked up (finishing with its first FBS winning season at 10-3 in 2022) is taking back over as the play caller after Paul Petrino left for Louisville. The Jaguars went from No. 1 in the Sun Belt in plays of 20-plus yards in 2024 to last in 2025. The hope is this offense, which does have some experience, will be able to spark more explosive plays.
They’ll need to. This is a pretty attractive job to a lot of coaches given the fertile recruiting area, and it’s a place that before last season had been to bowl games in three straight seasons. The nonconference slate has games at Tulane and at Kentucky plus one vs. Ohio, which went 9-4 and beat a good UNLV team to end last season. Winning at least one of those three would help a lot, in addition to the home opener against FCS Southeastern Louisiana. The bright side: South Alabama doesn’t have to face James Madison and Old Dominion, two of the projected top teams in the Sun Belt.
Temperature check: Warming up
Tony Sanchez, New Mexico State
Jerry Kill was a tough act to follow in Las Cruces, especially after he took Diego Pavia with him to Vanderbilt after winning 10 games in 2023. That 10-win season was NMSU’s most victories since 1960 in the old Border Intercollegiate Athletic Association. Expectations here are modest. Before Kill, they hadn’t had a winning season in conference play since 2004. Sanchez is 7-17 in two years, including 4-12 in Conference USA.
Last year, the Aggies lost two games in OT and two others by a field goal, so they weren’t that far from being bowl eligible. Unless the program takes a big step back, I’d be surprised if a move was made after just three seasons. Doug Martin went 10-38 in his first four years at NMSU before getting the Aggies into a bowl game in his fifth season.
Temperature check: Lukewarm
Scotty Walden, UTEP
Walden did well at Austin Peay before taking the UTEP job. It’s been two decades since Mike Price had back-to-back eight-win seasons here. Sean Kugler and Dana Dimel each had a seven-win season in their time leading the Miners, but it’s been a pretty listless program. The 36-year-old Walden went 3-9 in his debut season and then fell to 2-10 last year, with UTEP’s lone FBS win over an equally inept Sam Houston squad in its first season under Phil Longo. Things could get dicey here as UTEP makes the jump from Conference USA to the Mountain West, which should be a tougher league.
The Miners open at Oklahoma and play at Michigan two weeks later, sandwiched around FCS Texas Southern. If the Miners can get to four wins, Walden might be safe. But that feels like a big if.
Temperature check: Warm
Chris Creighton, Eastern Michigan
Creighton has done a terrific job with what had been a dismal program for so long before he arrived. Creighton led the Eagles to six bowls in eight years from 2016 to 2023, and keep in mind this school had been to only one bowl game ever before he arrived, and that was in 1987. But it does feel like the program may be starting to backslide. The 57-year-old, who is entering his 13th season at EMU, is coming off his first three-year stretch of losing seasons, from 6-7 to 5-7 to 4-8. He’s also not that far removed from leading the Eagles to a 9-4 record in 2022 — the second-best season in program history. Before his arrival, EMU hadn’t had a winning season in 18 years, with only one season in that time where the Eagles won more than four games.
The good news for him: EMU has one of the best QBs in the MAC in Noah Kim, a seventh-year senior, and he has a good group of receivers. The defense, though, has to get much better.
Temperature check: Getting a little warm
Dell McGee, Georgia State
A terrific assistant for Kirby Smart at Georgia, the former Bulldogs running backs coach has gotten off to a rocky start with the Panthers, going 4-20 overall and 1-15 in Sun Belt play. This was a program that had been pretty solid under Shawn Elliott, posting four winning seasons in five years from 2019-23. Worse still, Georgia State lost one of the best wideouts in the Group of 6 in Ted Hurst, a third-round pick. But QB Cameran Brown, a former Texas Tech Red Raider, has talent.
The Panthers are picked to finish last in the Sun Belt’s East division and received the fewest voting points of any of the 14 teams in the league from the conference’s coaches. After the opener against North Carolina A&T, the schedule does not look very promising. But this program had a much rougher schedule last year, taking big lumps at Ole Miss and Vanderbilt (teams that went a combined 23-5) and against Memphis. They did give another CFP team, James Madison, a game, losing 14-7 after the score was tied into the fourth quarter. Getting to 4-8 would feel like McGee is starting to get some traction.
Temperature check: Pretty warm