College Football Hot Seat Report

Welcome to the Coaches Database Hot Seat Report, an updating list of college football head coaches with low job security. With each update, coaches will be added, removed and shuffled around based on their performance (note: coaches are listed alphabetically). Keep up with coaches changes that have already happened on our FBS Coaching Carousel page.

**UPDATED AUGUST 30, 2024**

YOUR CHAIR IS ON FIRE, SIR

Coaches at the end of the line at their current school. 

• Stan Drayton (Temple)
  • Drayton enters year three at Temple as the preseason pick to finish last place and coming off back-to-back 3-9 seasons. The Owls have only won two AAC games under Drayton and have had some really embarrassing losses, including a 55-0 drubbing at home against SMU last year. Temple went to five-straight bowl games 2015-19 but hasn’t been back since. The school is paying Drayton $2.5 million a year to finish at the bottom of the league, so he is really in a make-or-break situation.
• Tony Elliott (Virginia)
  • Virginia had one of the worst offenses and defenses in the ACC last year, finishing 3-9 (2-6) after going 3-7 (1-6) the year prior. Elliott’s tenure started in tragedy, with the shocking November 2022 shooting on the UVA campus that left three players dead and a fourth wounded, all at the hands of a former player from before Elliott’s time there. The on-field results for that season can be forgotten and last year can be kind of written off as a rebuild, but this year’s team is going to need to show improvement on the field or Elliott is going to be done.
• Billy Napier (Florida)
  • Paying a coach $26M+ to go away sounds ridiculous on the surface but this is the SEC. This is Florida. They would do that rather than continue paying a coach $7M+ a year to finish below .500, as Napier has done in each of his two seasons at the helm. Picked 12th in the preseason poll, the Gators have an experienced QB in Graham Mertz and a top 15 recruiting class but the pressure is certainly on their third-year head coach. Fans and boosters are well past restless at this point, and back-to-back 22-point losses to rival Georgia is not helping.
• Sam Pittman (Arkansas)
  • Perhaps on the hottest seat in college football, Pittman is entering his fifth season at Arkansas with an overall record of 23-25. He led the Razorbacks to a 9-4 record in his second season (2021), but dropped to seven and four wins, respectively, in the last two including a 1-7 mark in SEC play in 2023. You have to think that anything short of a bowl appearance will trigger a coaching change, but honestly Pittman may need to win 7-8 games this year to turn down the heat enough to keep his job.

THIS SEAT IS RATHER WARM

These coaches need to start winning right now, but that may not even be enough…

• Dave Aranda (Baylor)
  • It was only a few years ago that Baylor went 12-2, won the Big 12 and the Sugar Bowl to finish the season ranked #5 in the country. Since then, Aranda’s teams have gone 9-16 overall and 6-12 in league, with an embarrassing 3-9 (2-7) mark in 2023 that had many wondering if a change in leadership was coming. Baylor confirmed after the season that Aranda was returning for 2024, but his team was picked 12th in the expanded Big 12 field. The Bears face an early test on the road in Week 2, going to visit #12 Utah in Salt Lake City (this is previously agreed-upon non-conference game, even though Utah is now also in the Big 12). Aranda will need to really turn things around if he’s going to stay in Waco past this season.
• Clark Lea (Vanderbilt)
  • Lea has been the head coach at Vanderbilt for three seasons in he has already gone winless in the SEC twice, finishing 2-10 (0-8) in both 2021 and 2023. In any other scenario, he is clearly at the top of this list. But after Vanderbilt fired head men’s basketball coach Jerry Stackhouse – and reportedly paid him as much as $15M on the way out – the athletic department may be looking to avoid another massive buyout in 2024. We think that any sort of improvement from 2-10 will buy Lea another year, but this is the SEC so you never know.
• Mike Neu (Ball State)
  • Neu has been the head coach at his alma mater since 2016 holds an overall record of 37-56 (23-39 MAC). The Cardinals went bowling in 2020 and 2021, but outside of that have been non-factors in the MAC picture. Neu enters year nine coming off a third-straight losing campaign and his team was picked ninth in the preseason poll.

WE’VE GOT OUR EYE ON YOU, COACH

Here are those guys that are having a rough year (or two… or three…) but aren’t in total danger right now. 

• Mike Bloomgren (Rice)
  • Just 22-46 through six seasons, Bloomgren is technically coming off the best season of his Rice tenure, as the Owls finished 6-7 (4-4) in their first year of AAC play. They have been to two-straight bowl games (both losses) but need to continue showing improvement in their new league if the school is going to make Bloomgren a long-term commitment as its head coach.
• Don Brown (UMass)
  • The 69-year old Brown is in his third year of his second stint (eighth overall) at UMass and has gone just 4-20 since rejoining the program in November 2021. This is the last year for the program as an Independent, as they will joining the MAC in 2025 (though they play five MAC teams in 2024). If there were ever a natural point for a coaching change it would be after this season, going into a new era with a new leader. So save for a significant change in on-field results this year, that’s how we are expecting things to play out in Amherst.
• Sonny Cumbie (Louisiana Tech)
  • Cumbie has gone 3-9 in each of his first two seasons at Louisiana Tech and he enters year three picked to finish 7th in Conference USA. The Texas-native had never coached outside of his home state before taking the Tech job in late 2021 and while he has been able to recruit well – he’s had some of the league’s best recruiting classes and transfer portal hauls since taking over – it is really time to get that talent level to translate to wins on the field. This is a classic make-or-break year for Cumbie, who needs to prove he can do better than three wins if he’s going to have a future in Ruston.
• Will Hall (Southern Miss)
  • Year three for Hall was a regression, going back to 3-9 after 7 wins and a bowl appearance the year prior. 2024 is Hall’s fourth at Southern Miss and it’s time to show that he can move the program in the right direction. One of the best recruiters of high school and transfer players in the league, Hall grew up in the state and has deep ties across the entire region. It just hasn’t translated to a consistent winning product between the white lines yet.
• Thomas Hammock (Northern Illinois)
  • We had Hammock on our list last season and he did end up leading the Huskies to a win in the Camellia Bowl, his first bowl in and second bowl appearance through five seasons at NIU. But the 7-6 finish after going 3-9 the year before was not quite enough to get him completely off the hook. The program has established itself as one of the best in the MAC and fans expect to be competing for a league title (they won it all in 2021, Hammock’s third year) every season. Continued movement in the right direction will push Hammock into the safe zone, but we are keeping him on the list for now. His latest contract (signed in 2021) has him in Dekalb through the 2026 season.
• Mike Houston (East Carolina)
  • ECU was on an upward trajectory through four seasons under Houston, going to back-to-back bowl games in 2021 and 2022, but last year saw a significant regression to just 2-10 overall and 1-7 in the AAC. League media is projecting the Pirates as a middle-of-the-road team in 2024, which would probably be enough to keep Houston around and write off last year as an anomaly. Anything worse is going to have fans hoping for a change in direction (if they aren’t already). The contract extension he signed in 2021 runs through the 2026 season and stipulates that the school will owe him $1.4M per remaining year as a buyout if he is terminated without cause.
• Jim McElwain (Central Michigan)
  • McElwain went to two bowl games in his first two seasons at CMU, but the Chips are just 9-16 (6-10 MAC) in the two full seasons since then. The 62-year-old has had plenty of highs and lows throughout his career, but if we wants to keep the #MACtion alive he is going to need to get his team back in the bowl picture. The Chippewas were picked 8th in the preseason league poll and will have to get a few road wins this year to get bowl eligible, something they have struggled with the past couple years.

COACHES THAT ARE SAFE (FOR NOW)

This section is comprised of coaches who were previously in one of the above categories this season or are just starting to feel heat but are not yet in any real danger of being fired.

• Neal Brown (West Virginia)
  • Brown is coming off his best year at WVU, going 9-4 (6-3) and finishing ranked #25 in the Coaches Poll after a Duke’s Mayo Bowl victory over North Carolina. It took four mediocre seasons to get to the 9-win mark, though, and many fans were beyond restless going into 2023. Brown is in a slightly more stable place now, signing a new deal in March that lowered his salary a bit but more importantly added another year and keep him under contract through 2027. We have him in the safe category, as firing him during or after this season will cost WVU 75% of his remaining salary, which would be around $9.5 million.
• Butch Jones (Arkansas State)
  • After starting his tenure with respective 2-10 and 3-9 records, Jones and the Red Wolves showed some improvement last year to win six and get to a bowl. Other mid-majors may have some leeway with new head coaches but Arkansas State has been a very successful program the last two decades, with head coaches like Hugh Freeze, Gus Malzahn, Bryan Harsin and Blake Anderson parlaying their success into bigger jobs. So Jones and company will need to keep the momentum going, otherwise he will be right back on the hot seat.
• Maurice Linguist (Buffalo)
  • The Bulls took a step back in 2023 after going bowling in 2022, finishing just 3-9 overall and 3-5 in MAC play. Linguist had big shoes to fill taking over for Lance Leipold in 2021, but after a slower first season he led Buffalo to a 6-6 regular season in 2022 plus a win over Georgia Southern in the Camellia Bowl. Excitement was high, so the minus-4 shift in win total last season was a major disappointment. Linguist has leeway to turn things around, but it’s fair to wonder if he can return to the success of 2022.
• Justin Wilcox (California)
  • It was looking like another rough season for Wilcox and Cal in 2023, but the Bears won their final three games, including road victories over Stanford and UCLA, to earn their first bowl bid since 2019 (lost to Texas Tech to finish 6-7). There have been some highs during his 7+ years in Berkeley, but the on-field results have been largely mediocre. Beating Stanford in three of the last four meetings helps, but with both teams playing in the ACC this year the program is in uncharted territory. There are lots of question marks around Wilcox and Cal, but the fact that he has a $15 million buyout probably has him pretty safe in 2024.