{"id":285911,"date":"2025-11-11T20:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T20:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/285911\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T20:00:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T20:00:08","slug":"pete-thamel-predicts-which-college-football-team-will-make-a-coaching-hire-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/285911\/","title":{"rendered":"Pete Thamel predicts which college football team will make a coaching hire first"},"content":{"rendered":"

ESPN insider Pete Thamel has been playfully nicknamed \u201cthe Authority\u201d by fellow College GameDay colleague Pat McAfee<\/a> given his wealth of insight into what\u2019s happening behind the scenes in college football. Of course, there are those rare moments when Thamel doesn\u2019t much insight to provide.<\/p>\n

During last Saturday\u2019s pregame show from Lubbock, ESPN\u2019s \u201cthe Authority\u201d effectively punted a question about which current open Power Four head coaching job will be the first to make a hire this season. But when given a second chance during Monday\u2019s College GameDay Podcast with fellow co-hosts Rece Davis and Dan Wetzel<\/a>, Thamel was far more forthcoming, and even named four Power Four programs that could have an announcement to make over the next two weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI caught a little bit of flack from our fans on the GameDay set because I didn\u2019t give a straight answer to this question, so I think you\u2019re trying to give me a reboot. I think whoever hires someone first will come from the second-tier group of Arkansas<\/a>, West Virginia<\/a>, UCLA<\/a>. They have been most aggressive in going out and trying to seek somebody,\u201d Thamel said on Monday\u2019s College GameDay Podcast<\/a>. \u201cNobody\u2019s been hired yet, but I do feel like those conversations (over the next) 7-10 days at places like that \u2013 Oklahoma State<\/a> is right in there too \u2013 are going to begin in earnest. And I think that\u2019s where you\u2019re going to see that pool of top G5 candidates really have to make some difficult decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are currently 13 openings at the FBS level, including an astounding nine openings among the Power Four ranks, four from the SEC alone. But for athletic directors searching to fill top-tier jobs at Auburn<\/a>, Florida<\/a>, LSU<\/a> and Penn State<\/a> might wait out several current Power Four coaching candidates to finish their respective seasons \u2014 including those like Ole Miss<\/a>\u2018 Lane Kiffin<\/a>, whose Rebels are in the thick of the College Football Playoff race \u2014 other second-tier programs could force the hand of their preferred Group of Five coaches to make a decision sooner than later.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it\u2019s Eric Morris<\/a> at North Texas<\/a>, Bob Chesney<\/a> is obviously hot at James Madison<\/a>, you\u2019ve got (Alex) Golesh<\/a> (at USF<\/a>),\u201d Thamel continued. \u201c(Tulane<\/a>\u2018s Jon) Sumrall<\/a> is probably in a little bit of a different category because he\u2019s going to be on the second tier or maybe top tier of some of those top four jobs that are the National Championship-type jobs. (Memphis<\/a> coach) Ryan Silverfield<\/a> broaches both categories too. So it\u2019s a fascinating (game of) chess\/musical chairs, whatever you want to call it. I\u2019ve never seen a carousel quite like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thamel then revealed several of the aforementioned coaching candidates have openly complained about how taxing the current coaching carousel has been on them as they continue coaching their current programs to potential postseason berths.<\/p>\n

\u201cTalking to some of the candidates, they were like, \u2018I could actually just talk to other schools all day and not coach my team,\u2019\u201d Thamel concluded. \u201cSo I have some empathy for these guys trying to win league titles, trying to make Playoff pushes, trying to (win for) the team that busted their tail for them, and they\u2019re talking\u00a0 to schools at 11 at night because they don\u2019t want to distract (from their current mission). So those guys are on a high-wire act right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESPN insider Pete Thamel has been playfully nicknamed \u201cthe Authority\u201d by fellow College GameDay colleague Pat McAfee given…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-285911","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}