Mike Gundy, Hugh Freeze and other college football coaches on the hot seat in 2025

New York Times

18 hours ago

Last season was an uncharacteristically quiet year in the coaching carousel in college football with only six head coaching changes in Power 4 conferences (North Carolina, UCF, West Virginia, Purdue, Wake Forest and Stanford). Expect a lot more turnover this season.
Here's our latest assessment after talking to numerous industry sources about the FBS coaching landscape heading into the 2025 season.
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He had a terrific run as a Clemson assistant, helping his alma mater become a powerhouse, but in his three seasons at Virginia, Elliott has been underwhelming with an 11-23 overall record and just 6-17 in the ACC. He is coming off his best year, going 5-7 with an upset over then-No. 18 Pitt on the road. Unfortunately, that was sandwiched between two three-game losing streaks.
This should be Elliott's most talented team and the schedule looks favorable. A 3-1 start seems realistic, and the Cavaliers have very winnable games against Washington State, Cal and Wake Forest in the second half of the season. Getting to a bowl might be enough to buy Elliott more time. Short of that, with a buyout under $5 million, UVA might be ready for a change.
Temperature check: Very warm
Last year felt like the season where the former Penn State defensive coordinator would break through in Blacksburg. It didn't happen. Getting hit by a run of injuries didn't help, but going 0-5 in one-score games really stung. Pry, who is 16-21 in three seasons, is now 1-12 in games decided by seven points or less.
The Hokies are talented enough to compete with everyone in the ACC, and they pretty much have. They probably should've beaten Miami last year on the road. This season, Pry has two new coordinators (Philip Montgomery on offense, Sam Siefkes on defense) and a very experienced QB in Kyron Drones. The opener against South Carolina and Frank Beamer's son, Shane, is tough, but Virginia Tech doesn't play either of the ACC's two Playoff teams from last year, Clemson and SMU. And Miami visits Blacksburg.
Seven wins might be enough to buy Pry another season, but the Hokies have to find a way to start winning close games. Sooner or later (preferably sooner for Pry's sake), the ball has to start bouncing the Hokies' way, right?
Temperature check: Hot
It's still very early here. Brennan has been at Arizona only one season, and he did an impressive job in his first stint as a head coach at San Jose State. Last year, though, was rough at Arizona. Brennan took over after Jedd Fisch left. There were a bunch of talented holdovers in Tucson from a 10-win team, but the Wildcats went 4-8.
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Brennan scrapped the offense they had last year. Beyond quarterback Noah Fifita, a bunch of those talented holdovers from the Fisch era are now gone. A few more followed him to Seattle, while All-American wideout Tetairoa McMillan jumped to the NFL and some others left for other programs. Brennan's buyout is not staggering in the $7 million range, but then again Arizona's not Auburn. It's not a big number, but it is a big number here. However, athletic director Desireé Reed-Francois isn't the one who hired him, and that's never a good thing.
Opening with Hawaii and Weber State should help Arizona get off to a nice start, but after that, it's hard to see the Wildcats favored in many games. Barring a worse record than last year, I don't think Arizona moves on from Brennan in under two seasons, but that's no lock.
Temperature check: Warm.
After winning big at Appalachian State, Satterfield left for Louisville. He had a superb debut season and brought a warmer glow to the Cardinals in the wake of Bobby Petrino's vibes there, but then he sputtered to a 4-7 season in Year 2 and bolted for Cincinnati two years later.
The Bearcats had been rolling under Luke Fickell, who jumped to Wisconsin and the Big Ten while Cincinnati moved to the Big 12. Truth be told, things haven't gone well for Fickell at Wisconsin or for his old team. Satterfield is 8-16 overall and 4-14 in the Big 12. Getting bowl eligible would help a lot. The Cincy administration likes him and wants to keep him, but the fans want to see some tangible evidence that Satterfield can get it going.
With an experienced QB in Brendan Sorsby and some good pieces on both sides of the ball, winning at least six seems realistic. Knocking off Nebraska won't be easy in the opener, but at worst the Bearcats should be 2-1 heading into Big 12 play. They also get two of the weaker conference teams, Arizona and UCF, at home.
Temperature check: Hot.
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The former Cowboys quarterback has been around Oklahoma State football for most of his life. He's the winningest coach in school history with a career mark of 169-88. But last year was atrocious, going from conference favorite to 3-9 and 0-9 in Big 12 play. There was a big power struggle after the season where it felt very possible the school was going to hire a new coach. Gundy's seat was scalding hot for about a 24-hour stretch. In the end, things settled down in Stillwater. He agreed to a pay cut, restructured his contract and shook up his coaching staff.
This team now feels like a wild card. Will it bounce back? A new defensive staff has brought a lot of new energy. This now feels like the most unpredictable program in the sport's most unpredictable conference. After opening against Tennessee-Martin, the Cowboys visit Oregon. On the bright side, after that they have a Tulsa team coming off a 3-9 season, Baylor in Stillwater and then three Big 12 teams that missed making a bowl last year in Arizona, Houston and Cincinnati.
Temperature check: Still hot.
After Locksley led the Terrapins to three consecutive winning seasons from 2021-23, Maryland took a big dip in 2024, going 4-8 and just 1-8 in Big Ten play. The season started out decent at 3-1, but then the defense fell apart and the Terps dropped seven of their last eight. The only victory was a 29-28 win over USC. Getting blown out 37-10 at home by a listless Northwestern squad was the low point.
Locksley's seat isn't as warm actually as many might think. According to sources inside the program, Locksley is so well-respected locally and has built up so much goodwill in his time there that they will be patient with him to try to get things headed back in the right direction.
Temperature check: Warm
Pittman is one game under .500 in five years, going 30-31. His second season was excellent, as Arkansas finished No. 21 with a 9-4 mark in 2021. Over the next three seasons, he went 7-17 in SEC play and 18-20 overall. Not bad, considering how much Bret Bielema struggled there, but getting more than six seasons in the SEC for being average is probably asking a lot.
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His buyout, by SEC standards, is quite manageable. Circle Week 4 at Memphis as a key game. It comes after a trip to Ole Miss and before Notre Dame comes to town. The Razorbacks should be 2-0 out of the gate. Sitting at 2-2 with the schedule about to get much rougher would make bowl eligibility seem quite daunting. They play six teams ranked in the AP Top 25, four of them on the road.
Temperature check: Hot
Freeze returned to the SEC and took over an Auburn program that had gone 11-14 in two tumultuous seasons, with Bryan Harsin fired just eight games into his second year. Freeze knew the SEC well from his days at Ole Miss, and it seemed like a good match, but he's gotten off to a slower start than anyone would've imagined. He's 11-14, and it feels worse than that after losing at home to New Mexico State in his first season and then dropping home games to Cal, Vandy, Oklahoma and Arkansas in 2024.
The Tigers appear to have upgraded their roster a lot this offseason. If Oklahoma transfer Jackson Arnold plays like the five-star QB recruiting analysts thought he was coming out of high school, the Tigers, with a seasoned O-line and potent receiving corps, should be a Top 25 team. If not, and Freeze has another losing season, the Tigers likely will be heading for another search.
Temperature check: Toasty
AD Scott Stricklin has shown some patience with Napier, something that seldom happens in Gainesville with its football coaches, whether it was Dan Mullen, Jim McElwain or Ron Zook.
Napier started 11-14 his first two years after an impressive run at Louisiana and got off to a shaky start in 2024. The Gators got thumped at home by Miami in the opener and then lost by two TDs at home against Texas A&M, but Stricklin saw that Napier's team never quit on him. The Gators kept battling, notching consecutive wins against LSU and Ole Miss and finishing the season on a four-game winning streak to go 8-5.
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There is a lot of optimism inside the program. Sophomore QB DJ Lagway is very talented and looked really good when he was healthy. The front seven looks ferocious. But so does the 2025 schedule. After opening against Long Island, there are no cupcakes. USF is one of the more talented G5 programs, and then the Gators face a gauntlet: at LSU, at Miami, Texas and at Texas A&M. A few weeks after that, they face Georgia. In all, they face seven Top 25 teams, with four in the top 10.
I think they're still good enough to win eight, at least, but there isn't much margin for error against this schedule. If they take a big step back, things could get interesting here.
Temperature check: Lukewarm but worth keeping an eye on.
Stoops is one of the best coaches in UK's 100-plus seasons of college football. The Wildcats have had only four 10-win seasons, and he's responsible for two of them. Last year was the first season since 2015 in which the Wildcats didn't make a bowl game, as they went 4-8 and 1-7 in conference play.
Getting the offense right has been his biggest challenge here. The optics of losing top recruiter Vince Marrow to archrival Louisville aren't great, but Kentucky fans hopefully haven't forgotten how tough this job is or that they hadn't had even one Top 25 finish in the 28 years before he arrived. On top of that, his buyout is enormous at close to $40 million.
Temperature check: Warm, but not especially.
This is the weirdest situation of any coach on this list. Kelly is a proven winner who did an excellent job at Notre Dame for over a decade. He got an immense deal to go to Baton Rouge and had a stellar debut season. Last year, in his third season, the Tigers took a step backward, finishing unranked at 9-4 after dropping three in a row around midseason. That included getting blown out at home by Alabama and falling to unranked Florida.
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The Tigers spent a ton of money in the portal to upgrade the roster. They have an excellent QB in Garrett Nussmeier and a loaded squad. This feels like a legit national title contender that should at least make the Playoff this season. If it doesn't, things will get messy in Baton Rouge.
The only thing Kelly's three predecessors at LSU — Ed Orgeron, Les Miles and Nick Saban — had in common is that each of them won a national title with the Tigers and they all did it within the first four seasons there. Kelly has lost all three of his season-openers at LSU and now opens at Clemson. Losing that one would be a gut punch, but don't write the Tigers off even if they stumble out of the gate again.
Now, if they drop that one, and then lose at home to Florida two weeks later, that would be a big problem. LSU plays seven teams ranked in the AP Top 25. Kelly's buyout is north of $50 million. Whether LSU tries to find a way to wriggle out of that deal is a story for another day.
Temperature check: Tepid, but worth keeping an eye on.
Since 2000, the Sooners have won 11 or more games 16 times and had only two losing seasons. Both losing seasons have been in Venables' seasons in charge. Sandwiched in between two 6-7 years was a 10-3 record in 2023.
The Sooners made a couple of big moves this offseason, hiring OC Ben Arbuckle from Washington State — one of the country's hottest young coaches — to fix the offense, and with him came his stud QB John Mateer. They also added Cal RB Jaydn Ott. Hiring respected longtime NFL personnel man Jim Nagy from the Senior Bowl to become the GM was a game-changing move for Oklahoma. OU should be dramatically better on offense this season, and it feels like this will be a bounce-back year for the Sooners.
If they can beat Michigan in Week 2 in Norman, a 3-0 start is likely. Then, they have Auburn and Kent State at home before Texas. This is exactly the kind of schedule that should give the new offense some runaway to get heated up. If it doesn't, Venables' buyout is still in the $40 million range, and with beloved Sooner AD Joe Castiglione set to retire in June 2028, another hiring search would create a weird dynamic.
Temperature check: Kind of hot but things should cool down soon.
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The former Super Bowl-winning-QB-turned-TV-analyst got the UAB job over then-Blazers offensive coordinator Bryant Vincent, who took the Blazers to a bowl in an interim season and improved Louisiana Monroe from 2-10 to 5-7 in his debut there. The optics of that decision — especially after Vincent's ULM team blew out UAB 32-6 in early September last year — haven't been great.
Dilfer went 4-8 in his first season and 3-9 last year. On the bright side, all three of UAB's wins were blowouts. The Blazers should start out with a win over Alabama State but then they visit a really good Navy team. Week 3 feels like a big one when Akron visits. The Zips have won just 11 games in the past six seasons combined, but they finished strong last year and might not be a gimme. After that, UAB visits Tennessee and then gets reigning American champion Army. Getting to even five wins might not be enough for Dilfer.
Temperature check: Steamy
The former Texas Tech QB has struggled to get much momentum in Ruston after going 6-18 in his first two seasons. Last year, things got a little better, as a road upset of WKU helped Louisiana Tech improve from 3-9 to 5-7 followed by an Independence Bowl loss to Army after Marshall withdrew from the game.
A 5-8 record isn't going to make Bulldogs fans happy, but Cumbie's squad played a lot better in 2024, losing three games in overtime and two other road games by a touchdown. Given how much is in flux in Conference USA right now with so many former FCS programs in it, expecting a winning record this season shouldn't be a stretch.
Temperature check: Very warm
(Top photos: Brian Bahr, Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
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