2 weeks until college football. Won’t be long now!
Along with last week’s new head coaches, it’s also wise to look at football coaches on the hot seat. These are the coaches that were huge disappointments and could be ready to lose control of their program. Nothing like a melt down on campus to give a good betting opportunity. Teams will quit on their coaches midway through the season if not sooner.
So here are the coaches that better step it up this year or get ready to move the family.
Along with last week’s new head coaches, it’s also wise to look at football coaches on the hot seat. These are the coaches that were huge disappointments and could be ready to lose control of their program. Nothing like a melt down on campus to give a good betting opportunity. Teams will quit on their coaches midway through the season if not sooner.
So here are the coaches that better step it up this year or get ready to move the family.
Coach and Record at Current Location | Problem on the Home Front |
Will Muschamp - Florida 22-16 Dana Holgorsen – West Virginia 21-17 Charlie Weis - Kansas 4-20 Ron Turner - Florida International 1-11 Mike London - Virginia 18-31 Norm Chow - Hawaii 4-20 Darrell Hazell - Purdue 1-11 Skip Holtz - La Tech 4-8 Tim Beckman - Illinois 6-18 Todd Monken - Southern Miss 1-11 Brady Hoke - Michigan 26-13 | ![]() You just don't do that in Gainesville. You don't go 4-8 and lose to a Div 1AA school like Georgia Southern. The Gator offense was an abomination last year ranking 119th in red zone scoring. The result was the first losing season in 34 years and the hiring of the 3rd offensive coordinator in four years. Florida lured away Duke OC Kurt Roper to reenergize the Gator offense. He's got his work cut out for him. On the plus side he gets back QB Jeff Driskel who got knocked out for the season in game three last year. But Driskell is also inconsistent and turnover prone. Florida can get back to a winning record if Roper can get their tinkerbell offense back on track. The Gators lost 4 games by a TD or less. Still, even a four game improvement may not be enough to keep the realtors from Muschamp's door. The hiring of Holgorsen was strange to begin with. Bizarre coach in waiting hiring. But things started out great as he won the Big East championship in 2011 and then destroyed Clemson 70-33 in the Orange Bowl. 2012 started out on fire as the "Neers went 5-0 and were ranked 4. Oh, those were heady days. Then they got crushed by Texas Tech 49-14 and started a tailspin that WVU has still not pulled out of. Since that day, West Virginia has gone 6-14 including a loss to Kansas last year. Kansas?? Holgorsen may not even make it out of September as he starts the season with Alabama, Maryland (who crushed WVU 37-0 last year) and Oklahoma. In fact, seven of their first eight FBS opponents went bowling last year. Typical for HC on this list he named a new coordinator. This time its a DC - Tony Gibson. Gibson was their DB coach last year and was also DB coach at Michigan during the DickRod era. Oooof. Not the best of credentials. How old Front Butt got hired in the first place was always a mystery to me. The guy is both arrogant and incompetent. After 3 season, Kansas is finally figuring out what should have been obvious from the beginning. The guy is pathetic as a head coach (and coordinator for that matter). Mr. Schematic Advantage finished 120th in points scored and 119th in total offense last year. But, hey, at least he beat Holgorsen. And he beat another coach on the hot seat too - Skip Holtz. His other two wins, South Dakota and South Dakota State. Wow! Barring a miracle this guy is toast. Which means some other head coach in trouble will hire him as OC. sigh During last year's New Coaches review I pegged this guy as the worst hire of the class. Nailed it! With credentials like - as OC for Da Bears his teams were consistently ranked 20th or worse. After getting canned by Chicago he took over as QB coach for the Bucs where Josh Freeman regressed horribly over his last two years. And as HC at Illinois - he had one good year in 2001 when he went 10-2. The other six years he was a combined 9-26. Absolutely awful. Well, he is keeping his track record going. In 2013, his offense was 125th dead last in the nation averaging a mere 9 points per game. The defense was better. It was only porous - ranking 94th overall allowing 37 points per game. He did have one win over fellow hot seat candidate Todd Monken at Southern Miss. Turner even managed to lose to Div 1AA Bethune Cookman. FIU plays Bethune Cookman this year as well as another Div 1AA team - Wagner. Its going to take more than 2 wins to keep his job. Maybe Mario Cristabol will come back. Mike London was brought back despite posting a 2-10 season and going winless in the ACC. That brought his ACC record to 8-24. In 2013 the Cavs were awful on both sides of the ball ranking 110th in points scored and 99th in points allowed. So why was he brought back? Recruiting. London signed two 5 star recruits for the defense and 4 start recruits for the offense. Too bad he won't be around for their entire careers. Virginia has a brutal schedule with the likes of UCLA, Florida State and Va Tech on the slate. Former Boston College and NC State HC Tom Obrien is on the staff. Looks like a transition plan is already in place. Esteemed offensive guru and Norm Chow has had middling success on the offensive side of the ball ranking 58th overall. It's the defense that has been abysmal. Last year the Rainbow Warriors were 117th overall on D. So what do you do when you are on the hot seat? Get a new DC. This time it might work. Kevin Clune comes to the islands from Utah State where he was linebackers coach. He had three LBs get all MWC and Utah State is known for their tight defenses. He brings the proper credentials. If Clune can tighten the screws a bit, Hawaii might chalk up a few more wins. They lost 5 games by a TD or less. But wins may be tough to come by especially early on as the start the season with three PAC 12 teams. Looks like Chow may be retiring in his native Hawaii. When Hazell was hired last year I thought MAC promotions were risky but that he could provide some pop to a moribound offense. Nope The Boilers ranked 121st on offense. The defense was only marginally better coming in 105th. Purdue was this close to a winless season needing to pull out all the stops to beat Indiana State. Purdue might be able to scrounge up a few more wins this year with Western Michigan, Central Michigan and Southern Illinois on the docket. Being in the BIG West helps too. But this is still a relatively young, inexperienced team and recruiting hasn't helped. Hazell got promoted after one good year at Kent State. Looks like he will be headed back for some more seasoning. Good ol' Skippy. Lil Holtz made a train wreck out of South Florida and parlayed that into a La Tech gig. Yup, doesn't make sense to me either. Skip got a chance to upgrade his below average defense (61st in points allowed) when his DC left to become HC at Eastern Illinois. So he brought in Manny Diaz who was canned as DC at Texas after the first game of last season. Ouch. Last season La Tech managed to squeak out four wins with two of those over other fellow hot seaters FIU and Southern Miss. Another win was over Div 1AA Lamar. And to add fuel to the Fire Skippy bandwagon - he lost to Kansas and Army. Sorry Dwink but you got to be pretty bad to lose to Army. The Bulldogs face Oklahoma and Auburn but the CUSA slate is manageable. There is a way to get enough wins to be bowl eligible. That is for a competent coach. La Tech will stay home this December while a search for a new coach commences. Tim Beckman is a piece of work. One minute he is caught by ESPN chewing tobacco on the sidelines. The next he is leveled by the refs and flagged 15 yards. He got off on the wrong foot with the Illini fan base by using half his introductory presser to talk about lasagna. Loveable quirks if you are winning. But he is not. Illinois has one win in BIG play in his two years and that was over another hot seater Purdue. Illinois' offense improved after that snapped up OC Bill Cubit when he got sacked as HC by Western Michigan. Its the defense that sucked, ranking 105th in points allowed. But in a huge surprise, Beckman did....nothing. Tim Banks will continue as DC for the 3rd straight year. Got to admire the loyalty and consistency. With Youngstown State, Western Kentucky and Texas State on the schedule and getting to play in the BIG West there is plenty of opportunities to get to a bowl. Not sure he will though. Another MAC promotion looks like it's biting the dust. Monken was hired to improve Southern Miss and in one way he did. He inherited a team that went 0-12 and went 1-11 by winning the last game of the year. So a 23 game losing streak changed into a one game winning streak. Monken decided to clean house by starting 8 true freshman and 6 sophomores out of 22 starters. Trouble was sure to follow. One measure of bumbling underclassmen - the Golden Eagles led the nation on turnovers lost at 38. And they were unprepared too being outscored 134-24 in the first quarter. Southern Miss has a couple of brutal games early at Miss St and Bama. But they also host Alcorn and App State. And there are enough opportunities in the CUSA slate to make some decent progress in the win column this year. This is still a very young team but Todd should make it through to next year. No Hot Seat list would be complete without perennial hot seater Brady Hoke. Hoke continually cries for more time until he gets his recruits in place. Problem is that the more of his overrated recruits he lands the worse his record gets. His record has gone from 11-2 in year one to 8-5 to 7-6 last year. And his problems go beyond the just on the field. For all the on field antics of players like Taylor Lewan, there are even more off the field. From assault charges, to cover ups of rape charges to keep players eligible to steering players into athlete only classes and majors - the media "Blue Wall" used to cover up for scUM football but no longer. They have turned on Hoke making his days numbered. Michigan starts out with the rematch of the famous Appalachian State game. They better blow out the Mountaineers because the BIG did not do any favors for Michigan by putting them in the BIG East. Hoke is 2-4 against MSU and OSU and plays both on the road this year. Unless he wins at least one of those games and puts up double digit wins Hoke (and perhaps AD David Brandon) will be shown the door. |
One preseason tradition down is Tuscaloosa is the Gump Run. Fans line up for hours (and sometimes days) for the chance to run out of the players tunnel, across the field and get in line to have $aban's autograph. One enterprising Auburn fan put the video of this years Running of the Gumps up against the iconic Rod Bramblett’s Kick Six call
Classic. This one is for the Big Guy and all you War Eagle fans
And how about another pump up video. This time it's for all you Spartan fans. Back before the season started, Mark Dantonio vowed to go to the Rose Bowl. He is a man of his word. Here's to a glorious 2013 season and more to come.
Remember - the GO JUMBO weekend is Nov 15th 2014. We are staying at the Westgate Resort (former LVH Hotel)