20 college football coaches who are on the hot seat in 2026

South Alabama has regressed under Major Applewhite, something we've seen from him in his previous head-coaching gig in Houston. Kane Wommack took the struggling FBS program to a 17-9 record over his final two seasons (and got their first-ever bowl win in 2023), but Applewhite hasn't kept the vibes going. After a nice 7-6 record and another bowl win in Year 1, the Jaguars fell to a 4-8 mark, where half of their wins were over the two worst teams in the Sun Belt.

The offensive production has dipped, and the defense was awful last season. If this keeps up, he won't be around for a fourth season. 

Dave Aranda has had quite a roller coaster career at Baylor ... following up good seasons with bad ones. Well, last year was a bad one, so there may be some reason for optimism. After a 4-2 start to the 2025 season, the Bears closed with losing five of their final six games ... and they allowed at least 41 points in four of those losses. That's pretty jarring considering Aranda is a defensive coach.

Baylor has made a change at Athletic Director, which means Aranda is now working for someone who didn't hire him. If this season goes off the rails again, then he's likely gone. Honestly, he may need to have a 7- or 8-win season to fend off the vultures. Baylor is hoping Florida transfer DJ Lagway will realize his potential in Waco. He's had four losing seasons over his six years, and another one likely means he is gone. 

South Carolina fans fancy their football team to be among the best in the SEC, so a 1-7 mark in SEC play last season doesn't cut it. Beamer Ball has only produced a 33-30 record over five seasons, with last year's 4-8 mark a massive disappointment. After the Gamecocks' strong finish to the 2024 season and the return of LaNorris Sellers, high expectations entering last season were not met.

Norris is back, and this season seems like the pressure is on to get South Carolina back into the thick of the SEC race. With all the transitioning going on in the conference, South Carolina does not want to be stuck in the mud as they've been for about 15 years. 

North Carolina went all in as a university when they hired 6x Super Bowl champion head coach Bill Belichick to take over the Tar Heels program. The media circus around the program was immediate: he was on all the talk shows and events, there was talk of a "Hard Knocks" show following the program, and the buzz about the upcoming season was loud.

After the first drive of the first game against TCU ended in a touchdown, it all went downhill. The team wasn't just bad, but they looked unprepared. Reports from concerned parents and about his girlfriend's role in the program began to cast a dark cloud over the program -- so much so that there were reports that his time at UNC nearly ended mid-season.  

He made it through, but this seems like a make-or-break year in Chapel Hill. The buzz is down. The noise is down. So are the expectations, which is not what the school was hoping for when they opened the bank to bring Belichick in. It has been relatively quiet this offseason, and Belichick has built a team through traditional recruiting and less around the mass transfers of last year. His massive buyout protects him quite a bit, but 4-8 seasons are not worth what they are paying for. 

Jeff Choate is just 6-19 in his two seasons at Nevada, which is a tad bit better than the 4-20 they were under Ken Wilson. While Nevada is one of the tougher places to win, they have done it (the Wolf Pack went to 14 bowls from 2005-2021) and should expect more than they've gotten the last four years.

Choate needs to be that guy. Technically, Nevada improved last year by winning its first two Mountain West games under Choate (they were 0-7 in 2024). The Mountain West is also weaker, as some of the top programs left for the Pac-12 while struggling programs (Northern Illinois, UTEP) and an FCS power (North Dakota State) have replaced them. There is an opportunity for Choate to move this program forward, and he needs to capitalize on it. 

Chris Creighton is entering his 13th season with the Eagles, which speaks more to the program's desire for stability than for winning. Creighton has gone 61-83 over those first 12 seasons and 36-58 in MAC play. They've had just two winning seasons in the last seven years and just one winning conference season (when they won the West Division in 2022).

The Eagles have had a worse record in each of the last four years, bottoming out at a 4-8 mark last year -- their most losses since going 1-11 in 2015. Hopefully returning QB Noah Kim can repeat his 2025 performance and turn this program around. Eastern Michigan is a really tough coaching job, and they seem to be fine with what Creighton has done with it. But if it falls off any further, it may be time for a change. 

Fickell's success at Cincinnati has not carried over to Wisconsin. After going 57-18 over six seasons with the Bearcats (including the first College Football Playoff appearance by a non-power program), he has won just 17 of 38 games with the Badgers and has finished in the bottom third of the Big Ten the last two seasons.

Fickell barely hung on to his job this offseason, but there need to be signs of getting back on track. Wisconsin was shut out in consecutive games for the first time in nearly half a century last year ... and that was by a combined score of 71-0. For quite a while, Wisconsin was one of the three or four best programs in the Big Ten but is nowhere near that anymore. His predecessor, Paul Chryst, was fired after following up a 9-win season with a 2-3 start. There cannot be more of the same for the Badgers. 

Give Lebby some credit -- he vastly improved the Bulldogs from two to five wins last year. The ugly part is that Lebby's team is still horrible in SEC play, having lost 15 of 16 games. That 5-8 season began with a 4-0 start and ended with 8 straight losses. To be fair, Mississippi State was able to hang around in some of those losses (losing in overtime to Tennessee and Texas; losing at Florida by two), but moral victories tend not to carry over year to year.

Life in the SEC isn't always fair and can crush a team trying to rebuild. If Lebby keeps showing real progress, then they'll stick with him. But if the poor end to the season is more of the norm, then it may be time to try something different. 

Lance Leipold was the talk of the town when the Jayhawks got off to a 7-2 start in 2023 and made Kansas relevant again. That season was looked at as the next step in building a program from the depths of despair into one that matters. Since then, Kansas has posted consecutive 5-7 seasons and lost five of their final six games last year. That 2023 campaign was the only winning season on his watch.

Now, that wouldn't be a fireable offense in Lawrence before, but they had a taste of success, and we are now living in a world where Indiana picked itself off the garbage heap and won a national championship. Kansas isn't asking for those kinds of results right now, but another winning season isn't out of the question. 

Like Baylor's Dave Aranda, Mike Locksley is now working for a new Athletic Director at Maryland. After going 4-8 in each of the last two seasons (including 1-8 in the Big Ten both years), Locksley needs to wow the administration if he wants to stay on past this season.

Locksley has had NFL talent in College Park -- this year, one of the nation's top recruits, Zion Elee, is making his debut as a Terp -- but the wins haven't followed. The schedule is manageable and should net a winning season. Anything short of that most likely means a change. 

Whatever that was in Phil Longo's first year at Sam Houston, it can't happen again. The Bearkats sunk to a 2-10 record, culminating in a 56-16 blowout loss to Florida International to end the season. This comes after Sam Houston went 39-17 over the previous five seasons and posted a 10-3 record in 2024.

It wasn't as if Longo was a popular hire, either. He was fired as the offensive coordinator before the end of his second season at Wisconsin in 2024, and he was just 7-14 at La Salle ... his only other head coaching job. Fans are angry, and another ugly season (or even a bad one) may be it for Longo. 

Derek Mason was given a lot of runway when he was the head coach at Vanderbilt (he was 27-55 over nearly 7 full seasons), but he got a second chance in 2024 at nearby Middle Tennessee. It has been more of the same.

Posting consecutive 3-9 records in your first two seasons isn't getting it done, and I'm fairly certain that the folks at Middle Tennessee won't have the same patience that Vandy had. The defense has been horrible -- and that's concerning when your head coach has a defensive background. 

Dell McGee must turn this thing around in his third season with the Panthers, or there will be a change. While Georgia State is a tough job, going 4-20 over the last two seasons (including 1-11 in 2025) isn't going to cut it. His predecessor, Shawn Elliott, reached a bowl in 4 of his final 5 seasons with the Panthers, including winning his last three bowl appearances.

McGee is coming off a season where they lost their final 9 games and their only win was over FCS Murray State. He has lost 15 of 16 Sun Belt games, and they cleaned house with the assistant coaches during this offseason. Another bad year, and it will all fall on McGee.

It was a bit of a surprise that Mike Norvell hung onto his job after a disastrous second half of the Seminoles' 2025 season. Their 13-0 regular season in 2023 seems like such a massive outlier that this has to be a show-me season in Tallahassee.  Outside of that 2023 season, he's been just 25-33. Like others on this list, his high buyout is a reason he's kept his job (thanks to that '23 season), but this program has really fallen apart over the last decade. From 1976 to 2017, Florida State went 41 seasons without a losing season. In the eight years since, they've had six losing seasons.

Norvell had the Noles looking like they were back after a blistering 3-0 start last year, which included a win over Alabama. They've gone 3-13 in ACC play the last two seasons, which is unfathomable when you think about how they used to dominate this league. This needs to be a great year for Florida State. 

It's difficult to know just how hot Bill O'Brien's seat really is. Boston College is a very difficult job, and it felt like the university did a fantastic job luring someone with O'Brien's track record to Chestnut Hill. But last season's 2-10 thud was a bit shocking. The Eagles haven't been great, but they've at least been around a 6- or 7-win team for much of the last 15 years or so.

O'Brien is from the area and has NFL and high-end college football experience, so I'm not sure they would be willing to cut ties with someone with his resume so quickly. But only winning two games anywhere is not ideal. 

It would seem weird to see Rhule on this list, especially since Nebraska gave him a two-year extension, which ties him to the Huskers until 2032. They did so to keep him in Lincoln after Penn State was eyeing him to take over once they fired James Franklin. Rhule has gone just 19-19 with Nebraska and has finished at the bottom half of the Big Ten every year.

Rhule has been a head coach at four different places, and this is just the second time he has reached a fourth season. After leaving for bigger jobs after stops at Temple and Baylor, Rhule was fired early in his third season as head coach of the Carolina Panthers, and he hung on to his job and got that extension at Nebraska after another mediocre 7-6 season. Due to the extension and massive buyout, he may be the safest name on this list. But Nebraska expects more than just average, right? Right???

One of the wildest truths of the College Football Playoff era is this: USC has never been in it. The program that dominated in the 2000s has failed time and again to earn a CFP berth. That was one of the reasons USC went out and got Lincoln Riley from Oklahoma (where he reached a couple of CFP appearances), but that pursuit still hasn't materialized.

Don't get me wrong -- the Trojans haven't been bad. They finished 9-4 last year and were 16th in the final CFP rankings. The key loss was late in the season to Oregon, which essentially knocked them out of the playoff. But fans and the administration invested heavily in Riley to quickly get them back to elite status. The Trojans, who have one of the top recruiting classes in the nation, get Oregon and Ohio State in LA and travel to Indiana and Penn State. Those are the games fans and the committee will care about how they perform. If Riley continues to miss the playoff, there will be some tough decisions to be made. While Riley's job may not be in jeopardy (his staff could be), programs that feel they are elite don't wait around for long to see a return on their investment.

Scott Satterfield is entering Year 4 at Cincinnati, and while the Bearcats reached a bowl game last year, 7-6 seasons won't cut it. Satterfield is just 15-22 so far, which is worse than his four years spent at Louisville.

That also takes into account two years of Brendan Sorsby as their quarterback. He played really well, which is why he was such a sought-after transfer by Texas Tech. The controversy surrounding his gambling issues has touched Cincinnati, and while no wrongdoing has been found by anyone involving the Bearcats, the investigation is ongoing. It could be bad news for anyone around this program, including Satterfield, if the school just wants a clean slate.

Cincy has a rough schedule, traveling to Arizona, Houston, Iowa State and BYU while hosting Kansas State, Texas Tech and Utah. This needs to be an 8-win or more season. 

Another coach entering his third season who needs to show he can get his program on the right path. Jay Sawvel has gone 3-9 and 4-8 in his two seasons and just 4-11 in Mountain West play. This is quite a fall from the Craig Bohl era, which took the Cowboys to six bowl games in his 10 years and produced the best player in program history in Josh Allen.

Just like Jeff Choate, Sawvel now gets to work in a depleted Mountain West Conference that saw Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State, Utah State and Colorado State leave for the Pac-12. Wyoming has also expanded its football budget this year to not only bring in more talent but keep the talent they already had. This is an important year for the Cowboys and Sawvel. 

"Hot seat" doesn't always mean a guy is close to being fired. In some respects, it just means the marriage between coach and program may have run its course. That could be the case in Clemson with Dabo Swinney. Swinney's time with the Tigers has been outstanding. The fact that he was able to step right up to Alabama during their Nick Saban prime and pull off two titles and a string of ACC championships shows what kind of impact he has had on that program and that he deserves statues of him and his name on something in the football department.

But last year was not a good season. And it comes on the heels of Clemson ... while they've still been really good ... no longer being the national power. They did reach the College Football Playoff in 2024, but 7 wins last year have a lot of fans upset. Swinney is the poster boy of a coach not ready to embrace the current era of college athletics, and while it is noble that he's taking that kind of stance, if you aren't winning at the level you've been accustomed to, then the fans aren't going to be happy with your moral choices.

Swinney won't be fired. His buyout is massive and, frankly, he deserves a lot of runway for what he's done for that program. But another mediocre season where the Tigers miss the playoff could start the process of wandering eyes. Fans have already been vocal about their dislike of not being title contenders. It has been clear that Dabo gets defensive when anyone challenges the success of his program, and he's pretty much said that if you don't like what he's doing, then he'll go somewhere else that will. While it just seemed like an angry threat, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that a job opens up elsewhere and Swinney actually takes a look at it.