December 21 Announcements: Jax State Hires Charles Kelly 30 Years After He First Served As Assistant For Gamecocks Updated Dec. 22, 2024

2025 Coaching Changes

In addition to the new head coaching searches underway, there are two schools in the Mountain West, Fresno State and Utah State, that entered the 2024 campaign with interim head coaches and are now faced with making a decision on their permanent status. Jeff Tedford stepped down from the Bulldogs on July 15, citing health concerns. Blake Andersen was fired from Utah State on July 16, with cause, as the school contended he violated school policy by interfering in an investigation of sexual misconduct and domestic violence, alleged to have been committed by a player in April of 2023.

Coaching changes can shake up the game, much like discovering a great deposit bonus that makes every play count.

By the way, every FBS team nicknamed Owls - Kennesaw, Rice, Temple and FAU -  found themselves in need of a new head coach for 2025.

As one door closes, another one opens. It's the circle of life in the head coaching profession.

Jax State on December 21 announced the hiring of journeyman assistant Charles Kelly as head coach, replacing Rich Rodriguez who left to take on a second stint as head coach at West Virginia on December 12. Kelly had various assistant roles at Jax State from 1994-1998. He's leaving his co-DC job at Auburn, his Alma mater, for his first HC gig. He had also served at Auburn as a GA in 1993. Rodriguez left Jax State on December 12 to take the country roads back home to Morgantown where he played defensive back from 1981-1985 and coached from 2001-2007. For WVU, he brings with him a career record of 190-129-2 that was cobbled together in a circuitous journey. His most recent success at Jax State certainly re-elevated his stock as guided the upstart team to a 27-10 record in 3 seasons, a New Orleans Bowl victory last year (the school's first in the FBS) and a CUSA Championship this year. His OC and QB coach, Rod Smith, was named interim HC for the Gamecock's 2024 bowl game, the Cure Bowl on December 20 in Orlando which was lost 30-27 to the MAC Champion Ohio Bobcats. Rodriguez was 60-26 at WVU in his first tenure and had the team in position to play in the BCS Championship game in the 2007 season until a 13-9 home loss to Pitt in the season finale. His departure to Michigan made him one of the most-hated men in the Mountain State, but the school is clearly now yearning for the "good old days" to return. Rodriguez himself becomes the 4th head coach at WVU since 2008.

Neal Brown was fired from WVU on December 1, one day after a 52-15 blowout loss at Texas Tech, and just 8 days after the Mountaineers had become bowl eligible with a win over UCF.  Brown was hired away from Troy on January 5, 2019 to replace Dana Holgersen when he resigned to become the head coach at Houston. Brown was 31-8 in his last 3 seasons Troy, but it took him 6 seasons to reach 37 wins (35 losses) at WVU. His Big 12 mark was 25-28. Chad Scott, the OC under Brown, was later named as IHC for the Frisco Bowl which West Virginia lost 42-37 to Memphis.

Wake Forest on December 18 announced the hiring of Jake Dickert as the replacement for Dave Clawson who resigned on December 16. He is the only coach to win at least 10 games in a season at four Division I schools (Fordham, Richmond, Bowling Green, Wake Forest). The Deacs slipped to 4-8 in 2024 and 2023, leaving Clawson with an 11-year record of 67-69. He had 6 winning campaigns and 5 losing seasons, hitting a high note in 2021 with an 11-3 mark, ACC Atlantic division title and a Gator Bowl win. He has a career record of 157-149. Dickert leaves Washington State after an 8-4 season and a Holiday Bowl bid, leaving the Cougars in the hands of AHC Pete Kaligis as interim HC for the bowl game. Dickert took the reins as interim HC at Washington State midway through the 2021 season after Nick Rolovich and several assistants were fired on October 18 for failing to get vaccinated by the state-imposed deadline.  Rolovich was 4-3 in his second season after a 1-3 inaugural campaign during the shortened 2020 Covid season. Washington State removed the interim tag from Dickert, the day after the Cougars won the Apple Cup rivalry game against Washington. Dickert guided the Cougars to a 3-2 finish and bowl eligibility (7-5). He leaves Pullman with a 23-20 record..

On December 18, Ohio removed the interim tag from Brian Smith before he had ever coached a ball game. The AHC and OC under Albin was named as the temporary replacement for Tim Albin when he left to take the same position at Charlotte on December 8. Smith and the Bobcats then defeated Jax State 30-27 in the Cure Bowl on December 20. Albin leaves Ohio after four seasons where he posted a 33-19 record including a 23-9 mark against conference opponents. The move comes a day after Albin led Ohio to its first MAC title since 1968. Over the past three seasons, the Bobcats had 30 wins, including three straight 10-win seasons from 2022-24, and a 20-4 mark vs. MAC foes. The 30 wins marked the most successful three-year run in program history. At Charlotte, Albin replaces Biff Poggi who was fired November 18, ending his tenure as head coach in just 22 games. The 49ers, who were 6-16 under his tutelage and 4-10 in the American Conference, were 3-7 this season after going 3-9 in year one. Associate head coach Tim Brewster was named interim head coach and went 2-0. Brewster was the head coach at Minnesota from 2007 until a little over halfway through 2010 when he was fired from that job. In his second and third seasons, he led the Golden Gophers to a pair of Insight Bowls where they lost each time.

Also on December 18, Phil Longo was named Sam Houston's replacement for KC Keeler.  Longo was fired as Wisconsin's OC/QB coach on November 17 after four seasons at North Carolina. This is Longo's second head coaching job and it comes 20 seasons after a 2-year tenure at La Salle (2004-2005) where he was 7-14 and left to become OC at Minnesota-Duluth.  Keeler stepped down on December 1 from Sam Houston after a 9-3 mark in the school's second season at the FBS level. OC Brad Cornelsen was named interim HC for the New Orleans Bowl where the Bearkats defeated Georgia Southern 31-26. The Bearkats would have been in the CUSA Championship game if Jax State had not lost to Western Kentucky in the final regular season game. Keeler made the move to become the new head coach at Temple where he succeeds Stan Drayton (3-7) and interim head coach Everett Withers (0-2). Records of 9-25 overall and 4-18 in the American Conference were not good enough for Drayton to see the completion of his third season at Temple. It seems a bit ironic, however, that the Owls were 2-2 in their last four games and coming off an overtime win at home over FAU. Drayton had previously served as associate head coach and running backs coach at Texas (2017-2021), working under both Steve Sarkisian and Tom Herman. He's also been an assistant in the NFL with the Packers and Bears. Withers took on interim head coach responsibilities after serving as the Owls' DC under Drayton. Withers had an 18-7 record as HC at JMU from 2014-2015. Keeler spent 11 seasons at SHU, compiling a sterling record of 97-39, including 62-19 in conference games, and winning the 2020-21 Covid season national title in the FCS. He also won a FCS Natty at Delaware in 2003 where he posted 11-year marks of 86-52 overall and 49-41 in conference games. He is the only FCS coach to win a national title with two different schools, the only one to take 3 teams to NCAA Championship games, and he owns the best FCS playoff record of any coach in history (25-7). Before Delaware, he took Rowan to five D3 national championship games and came up empty to powerhouse Mount Union four times and Wisconsin-La Crosse once. Keeler played linebacker at Delaware from 1978-1980.

On December 14, New Mexico announced the hiring of FCS member Idaho head coach Jason Eck to the same position with the Lobos. Eck led Idaho to a  10-4 record in 2024 and leaves Moscow with a 26-13 record in 3 seasons, including FCS Playoff appearances each year, including quarterfinal losses in last two. On December 6, Utah State and New Mexico both announced Bronco Mendenhall left UNM to become the new HC of Utah State. Mendenhall was 5-7 in his one season at New Mexico. Dreiling was 4-8 as the interim HC at Utah State. On July 16, Utah State moved forward with the dismissal of Blake Anderson who had been notified 14 days prior of the intended move. Dreiling, the DC under Anderson, had the interim head coaching duties added to his responsibilities. Details involving the situations that led to Anderson's dismissal can be found HERE. An on-line statement regarding the action taken by the school reads as follows, "This action is based on significant violations of his contractual obligations related to USU’s employee reporting requirements. These reporting requirements include a prohibition on employees outside the USU Office of Equity from investigating issues of sexual misconduct, including domestic violence. Additionally, Anderson failed to manage the team in a manner that reflects USU’s academic values.Consistent with Anderson’s employment agreement, the university provided him with written notice of its intent to terminate and 14 days to respond. To USU’s disappointment, Anderson’s response failed to acknowledge his responsibilities as a USU employee and as a head coach and instead sought to make excuses and unsuccessfully recast the clear language of USU’s policies."

UNLV on December 12 hired Dan Mullen as its new head coach, replacing Barry Odom who exited on December 8 to become the HC at Purdue. Mullen was previously the HC at Mississippi State from 2009-2017 (69-46) and Florida from 2018-2021 (34-15). He has been serving as a very capable analyst on ESPN. Odom replaces Ryan Walters at Purdue after he led UNLV to a 10-3 record with a loss at Boise State in the MWC Championship game. Walters was fired on December 1 after just two seasons that produced records of 4-8 (3-6, B1G) in 2023 and 1-11 (0-9, B1G) in 2024.  It was the first HC job for Walters who previously served as the DC for Illinois and Missouri. The former Colorado safety (2004-2008) began his coaching career as a student assistant at CU in 2009. His 2022 Illinois defense was 1st, 2nd or 3rd nationally in multiple categories. Walters replaced Jefff Brohm who quit Purdue to take the HC job at Louisville. Odom was 19-8 in two seasons at UNLV after previously spending 4 seasons as the HC at Missouri where he was 25-25. He is 0-3 in bowl games. Wide receivers coach Del Alexander was later named UNLV's interim head coach for the LA Bowl which the Rebels won, 24-13, over Cal.

North Carolina on December 11 announced famed NFL head coach Bill Belichick as the successor to Mack Brown. The school announced on November 26 that the Hall-of-Fame head coach will not be retained by the Tar Heels. Brown, who had three years left on his contract, coached the final game of the regular season at home against NC State on November 30 (lost 35-30), and said afterward that he also will not coach the 6-6 team in its bowl game. He lamented how the game has changed with the arrival of the transfer portal and NIL, echoing the feelings of Nick Saban when he stepped down from Alabama. Brown was 44-33 in his second stint with the school (2019-2024) after going 69-35-1 in his first stint from 1988-1997. In between, he led Texas to the 2005 national championship over USC in one of the most exciting college games ever played at that level. He spent 16 seasons in Austin from 1998-2013, compiling a 158-48 record. Over-all he has marks of 288-155-1 over-all, and 14-12 in bowl games. Freddie Kitchens was named the interim head coach for the bowl season. People thought the school would lean in the direction of a younger coach, and they did, by a little under 7 months. On April 16 of 2025, Belichick will be the same age as Brown was (73) on the day that he was essentially let go. Belichick has never coached at the college level as he entered the profession as a 'special assistant' with the Baltimore Colts in 1975. His only head coaching jobs were with the Cleveland Browns and the New England Patriots, and he was fired from the first job when Art Modell moved the team from Cleveland to Baltimore to become the Ravens. He was 36-44 for the Browns with 1 winning season. Then came the job with New England where he went 5-11 in his first season before reeling off 19 consecutive winning campaigns with 6 Super Bowl wins - all with Tom Brady at QB. Brady left for Tampa Bay after the 2019 season and signed with Tampa where he won his 7th Super Bowl as the Pats went 7-9. In four seasons without Brady, Belichick would coach in just one playoff game.

Central Michigan on December 9 announced that Matt Drinkall, the offensive line coach and co-coordinator of the offense for the Army West Point Black Knights, is the new head coach of the Chippewas. Drinkall had served on Jeff Monken's staff since 2019, overseeing one of the highest-ranked offenses in the country in multiple categories. Prior to his time at Army, Drinkall was the HC at NAIA Kansas Wesleyan where his teams were 42-17 over 5 seasons and advanved to the National Championship playoff semifinals his final year. At CMU, Drinkall repalces Jim McElwain who announced on November 20 that he was retiring at the end of the season, his 6th with the Chippewas. They finished with a third straight losing season with records of 4-8 over-all and 2-6 in the MAC. In his first three seasons in Mt. Pleasant, his teams were 8-6, 3-3 (Covid-19 pandemic season) and 9-4, and finished tied for first in the MAC West in 2019 and 2021. The 2021 squad won the Sun Bowl, 23-21, over Washington State, for the school's first bowl win since 2012 and just the fourth in history.

Southern Miss on December 8 announced Marshall head coach Charles Huff as the new HC of the Eagles. Huff leaves the Herd after leading them to the Sun Belt title and compiling a 32-20 record in four seasons and a 1-2 record in bowl games. He replaces Will Hall who was fired on October 20 when the team was 1-6. Hall's assistant head coach and GM, Reed Stringer , served as the Golden Eagles' interim head coach for the remainder of the 2024 season and went 0-5. Hall was just 14-30 at Southern Miss, including a woeful 8-19 mark in conference games. Seven of the over-all wins, and four of the conference wins, came during the 2022 season when the Eagles were 7-6 (4-4) and won the Lending Tree Bowl over Rice, 38-24. His career record of 70-50 includes sterling records of 25-11 at D2 West Alabama from 2011-2013, and 31-9 at West Georgia from 2014-2016. West Georgia was a D2 school at the time and is now in its first season in the FCS. His teams also made the D2 playoffs in two of his three seasons at each of those schools, including a pair of semifinals appearances at West Georgia. As a player, he was the D2 player of the Year (Harlan Hill Trophy) in 2003 as the quarterback of North Alabama which was also D2 at that time, but moved up to the FCS in 2022. Interim head coach Stringer, who has been with the program since 2018, was an offensive tackle at Delta State (1998-2001).

Marshall quickly named NC State defensive coordinator Tony Gibson as the new head coach. He has been with the Wolfpack since 2019 after previously spending the 2013 through 2018 seasons at West Virginia. Telly Lockette, the AHC under Huff, was named interim HC of Marshall for the bowl season, but the Herd backed out of that game for a lack of players.

Tulsa announced that Tre Lamb resigned his head coaching position at ETSU to accept the same job with the Golden Hurricane. He was 7-5 in his one season with the FCS school in Johnson City.  Lamb spent the previous four seasons at FCS member Gardner-Webb in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, leading the Running Bulldogs to a 20-20 record over-all, and twice taking them to the FCS playoffs (1-2) for the first two appearances in the school's history. Lamb becomes the official head coach successor to Kevin Wilson who was fired on Sunday, November 24. The Golden Hurricane were 3-8 at the time of Wilson's dismissal and 1-6 in conference play. He served as head coach for one game shy of 2 seasons, compiling records of 7-16 over-all and 3-12 vs. American Conference foes. Wide receivers coach Ryan Switzer was 0-1 as interim head coach. Wilson had served at Ohio State for six years as the OC and TE coach, and was the HC at Indiana for 6 seasons preceding his time with the Buckeyes. Wilson's career records as head coach are 33-63 overall and 15-49 in conference play.

UCF on December 7 welcomed back Scott Frost as head coach. He led the team to a perfect 13-0 season in 2017. He balanced duties between his new job at Nebraska and coaching UCF in the Peach Bowl win over a Auburn team that was coached by Gus Malzahn. The school named themselves National Champions. Josh Huepel replaced Frost and went 16-8 in three seasons before he left to take the job at Tennessee. Malzahn came onboard after he was fired from Auburn. Malzahn resigned as the head coach of Central Florida on November 30, the day after a season-ending 28-14 loss at home to Utah completed a dismal 4-8 campaign. He made the move to join Mike Norvell's staff at Florida State as offensive coordinator. FSU fired OC Alex Atkins and DC Adam Fuller on November 10. He was 28-24 in four seasons at the Orlando school, but just 10-15 since the Knights moved from the American to the Big 12. He is 105-62 in his head coaching career which spans 13 season, 8 of which were spent at Auburn. Malzahn and Norvell first teamed up as assistants at Tulsa in 2007 when Norvell was hired as a GA. As for Frost, he was unable to duplicate the success he had at UCF with the Nebraska school he QB played for and only managed a 16-31 mark. He was fired by the Cornhuskers after just three games of the 2022 season (1-2) and was serving a "senior football analyst" with the NFL's LA Rams when the Knights re-hired him.

Appalachian State on December  7 announced South Carolina offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Dowell Loggains as its new head coach. Loggains, who has been on Shane Beamer's staff since 2023, has extensive NFL assistant coaching experience, as well, but this will be his first gig as a HC. He replaces Shawn Clark, whom the Mountaineers fired on December 2 after a 5-6 season that included the cancellation of the Liberty home game due to the devastating effects on the region in the aftermath of  Hurricane Helene. It was the program's first losing season since joining the FBS in 2014. Clark's teams were 40-24 over-all in 5 seasons + plus the 2019 bowl game. He was 25-15 in Sun Belt play and 3-1 in bowl games.

FIU on December 7 named former Florida A&M head coach (2018-2023) and Duke RB coach (2024) as its new head coach, replacing Mike MacIntyre who was let go on Sunday December 1, FIU announced MacIntyre's firing after a 3-season tenure that produced identical 4-8 campaigns for a cumulative record of 12-24. His teams were 6-18 in conference games. Coach "Mac" has been a HC at three different schools for a total of 12 seasons with just two winning campaigns. A 10-2 record in 2012 at San Jose State led to his becoming the HC at Colorado for 6 seasons where he was 10-4 in 2016. But over-all, he was 16-21 with the Spartans and 30-44 with the Buffaloes. His career records are 58-89 over-all and a woeful 28-70 in conference games. Simmons was 45-13 at Florida A&M, including the SWAC title and a Celebration Bowl win in 2023 to capture the HBCU National Championship. He also led the Rattlers to the FCS playoffs in 2021 and a MEAC Championship in 2019.

Ball State on Wednesday, December 4 named Mike Uremovich as its permanent replacement for Mike Neu who was fired on Sunday, November 16 after nearly 9 full seasons that produced records of 30-63 overall and 25-43 in the MAC. At the time, the Cardinals were 3-7 over-all and 2-4 on the MAC. Three of the losses were by 3 points or less, and five losses were by 3 points or less going back to November 1 of last season. Offensive line coach Colin Johnson served as interim head coach for the final two games of the season, going 0-2. Neu only had one winning season with the Cardinals and that was in the Covid-shortened 2020 season when they finished 7-1 overall, 5-1 in the conference, won the MAC title and beat San Jose State in the Arizona Bowl for the first and only bowl win in school history (1-8). Uremovich has spent the last three seasons as the head coach at Butler (23-11, 15-9 Patriot) where is team was 7-4 twice and 9-3 this past year with a 5-3 conference mark each season. He was previously the head coach at St. Francis (IL), an NAIA school, from 2005-2011 where his teams went 33-45 over-all, but 17-7 in the last two seasons. His final team advanced to NCAA quarterfinals.  He left St. Francis for an assistant position at Northern lllinois and spent 10 years at various FBS schools, including NC State and Temple, before taking the job at Butler.

Fresno State on Wednesday 4, named former North Dakota State head coach Matt Entz (2019-2023) as its permanent replacement for Jeff Tedford who stepped down for health reasons prior to the start of the 2024 season. Entz spent 2024 on the USC staff as the assistant head coach of the defense and linebackers coach. He was 60-11 in five seasons in Fargo, winning two FCS National Championship and losing in the title game in another. Tedford resigned on July 15, 2024. The school had announced back on December 1, 2023 that Tedford was taking a leave of absence' and Tim Skipper, AHC and LB coach, was named interim head coach for the bowl season. Tedford returned in February for spring practice and other activities. In 2019, heart issues forced Tedford to resign as head coach, only to return in 2022. The Bulldogs were 8-4 in 2023, including a 4-4 mark in conference play, as they faded down the stretch with losses in 3 of their last 4 games. In 2024, Skipper led the team to a 6-6 mark and bowl eligibility for a fourth straight season.

UMass on Wednesday, December 4 announced Rutgers DC Joe Harasymiak who was the 2018 national FCS Coach of the Year after he led Maine to the semifinals of the playoffs where the Black Bears lost to Eastern Washington. After that season, he left to become an assistant coaching safeties at Minnesota and was named co-DC the following year. He moved to Rutgers as DC in 2022. At UMass, he becomes the official replacement for Don Brown whose second stint as HC of the Minutemen came to an end when his dismissal was announced on Monday, November 18. Brown, 69, has had a long career in sports, mainly as a much-respected defensive coordinator in football. But he also spent some time coaching baseball and basketball. UMass were just 2-8 at the time of his firing, and his teams were 7-28 in almost three full seasons. His first stint as the UMass HC ran from 2004-2008 when football competed as a FCS program and played in the 2006 FCS Championship game (lost). During that period, his record was 43-19. Shane Montgomery, who was 17-38 as HC of the Miami RedHawks from 2005-2008, was named interim head coach with the unenviable task of facing Georgia for his first game. Montgomery went 0-2.

FAU on Monday, December 2 announced the hiring of Zach Kittley as its hew head coach, replacing Tom Herman who was fired on November 16 after 22 games. The Owls were 6-16 over-all and 3-11 in conference play under a man who had previous head coaching experience at Houston (22-4) and Texas (32-18), and still has a decent over-all career record of 60-36. His Houston and Texas teams went bowling every year. Special teams coordinator Chad Lunsford was named interim head coach and went 1-1. Lunsford was the HC at Georgia Southern 2017 until 4 games through the 2021 season when he was fired and ultimately replaced by Todd Helton. Helton had been fired just two games into his 7th season at USC. Kittley, age 33, began as a student assistant at Texas Tech before moving to Houston Baptist and Western Kentucky for OC/QB coaching jobs and back to Texas Tech as OC/QB coach for the last 3 seasons.

On Sunday, December 1, Kennesaw revealed that Jacksonville Jaguars' running back coach Jerry Mack had been hired to be the official successor to Brian Bohannon, effective at the end of the Jags' NFL season.  2024 was his first in Jacksonville after spending three years as the RB coach at Tennessee. He has also spent time as an OC, WR coach, and AHC. His last, and only previous, stint as a head coach was with North Carolina Central from 2014-2017 when we went 31-15, including a 26-6 mark in the MEAC.  On Sunday, November 10, the school made a mess out of messaging about a head-scratching maneuver when it announced that Bohannon, the football program architect and the only head coach its ever had, had decided to step down after a 1-8 start. Bohannon quickly refuted the school's messaging and said he was fired.  We are inclined to believe the latter. From the school's website: "Bohannon has constructed Kennesaw State from the ground up and turned the Owls into a powerhouse program at the FCS level in just eight years. Now entering his 10th season, he's readying to take Owl Nation into its next chapter -- NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and its inaugural year in Conference USA." Those bios are always glowing, but Bohannon had a nearly 9-year record at the school of 72-38, multiple national coach awards, FCS playoff appearances and victories, and a resume that would be envious to almost any school. He had previous multi-year stints as an assistant of various positions for Georgia Southern, Navy and Georgia Tech. His son, Braden, is a sophomore QB at the school on a QB roster of 3 sophomores that have played this season. His co-offensive coordinator, Chandler Burks, handled the interim duties and went 1-2. On him, the school's website says this: As a player (2013-2018), Burks finished his career with 2,813 rushing yards and 56 rushing touchdowns. During his three-plus seasons as the signal caller for the Owls, he threw for 3,638 yards and 33 touchdowns, which tops the Kennesaw State record book. As the most decorated player in program history, he played in 42 career contests and had an astounding 31-6 record as the starting quarterback. After graduating, he spent a year at Wofford as a defensive quality control coach, then returned to Kennesaw as QB Coach in 2020. He was promoted to co-OC in February of 2024.

East Carolina on November 27 made Blake Harrell the official head coach after he went 4-0 as the interim replacement, and then lost two days later at home to Navy by a 34-20 count. The Pirates were 3-4 under Mike Houston when he was the first head coach to be fired during the 2024 season on October 20. Harrel, the defensive coordinator, was immediately named his interim successor for the rest of the season. The switch came the day after the Pirates lost 45-28 to Army, a game which everyone expected them to lose by almost precisely that margin with spreads ranging from 16.5 to 18.5 at the various sportsbooks. Conference media picked ECU to finish 8th in the American in its preseason poll, and the computer also projected the Pirates to finish 8th with records of 5-7 over-all and 4-4 in the conference. Houston was previously the head coach from 2011–2013 at Lenoir–Rhyne (2013 D2 runner-up), 2014–2015 at The Citadel, and 2016–2018 at James Madison (2016 FCS National Champions, 2017 runner-up). He had a career record of 106-62, including a 27-38 mark in Greenville, North Carolina over a span of 5 full seasons + 7 games. This was the first time Houston had been fired, having always resigned from his post to take the next level job.

Rice announced Davidson head coach Scott Abell as its new head coach on Tuesday, November 26. Abell was 47-28 with the FCS Wildcats over 7 seasons, including a 6-5 mark in 2024, and three consecutive FCS playoff appearances from 2020-2022. Before his tenure at Davidson, he was the head coach at D3 Washington & Lee from 2012-2017 where his teams went 39-24 and played in three D3 playoffs. None of his teams at either school survived the first round of those playoffs. Back on October 27, the school made Mike Bloomgren the third head coach to be fired. Taking his place on an interim basis for the remainder of the season is Pete Alamar, who served as Bloomgren's associate head coach & special teams coordinator. The move was announced after the Owls fell to 2-6 with a 17-10 setback at UConn. Three weeks prior, Rice was an upset 29-27 winner at home over UTSA. Rice was expected to have some modest success this year. The Owls were preseason picked to finish 7th in the 14-team league by the media whose beat in the American Athletic Conference. The Congrove Computer Rankings at CollegeFootballPoll.com put them in 6th with a forecast of an 8-4 season with a 4-4 league mark. The consensus was less lofty with an average finish of 9th predicted by 16 respected preseason magazines and websites, according to stassen.com. A former Florida State GA upon his graduation from that school, Bloomgren had mostly worked as an offensive coordinator and spent time with the New York Jets in the NFL from 2007-2010. When Rice hired him, he had spent seven seasons with Stanford. He leaves with a record of 24-52 over-all, including a 17-32 mark in conference games, over 6 seasons and 8 games. The high water mark during his tenure came last season when Rice finished 6-6 in the regular season, and 4-4 in conference play, but lost 45-21 to Texas State in the First Responders Bowl on the SMU Campus. Alamar was brought to Rice by Bloomgren from Stanford after the 2022 season when David Shaw resigned as head coach of the Cardinal . He had been with Stanford for 11 seasons as special teams and tight ends coach.

2024 Coaching Changes

Team	2023 Coach (Record)	2024 Coach
Alabama	Nick Saban (12-2)	Kalen DeBoer
Arizona	Jedd Fisch (10-3)	Brent Brennan
Boise State	Andy Avalos (5-5), I Spencer Danielson (3-0), Spencer Danielson (0-1)	Spencer Danielson
Boston College	Jeff Hafley	Bill O'Brien
Duke	Mike Elko (7-5), B Trooper Taylor (1-0)	Manny Diaz
Fresno State	Jeff Tedford (8-4), B Tim Skipper (1-0)	I Tim Skipper
Houston	Dana Holgorsen (4-8)	Willie Fritz
Indiana	Tom Allen (3-9)	Curt Cignetti
James Madison	Curt Cignetti (11-1), B Damian Wroblewski (0-1)	Bob Chesney
Louisiana-Monroe	Terry Bowden (2-10)	Bryant Vincent
Michigan	Temporary during season opening 3-game suspension of Jim Harbaugh I Jesse Minter (1-0) I Jay Harbaugh/Mike Hart (1-0) I Sherrone Moore (1-0) Temporary during season ending 3-game suspension of Jim Harbaugh (7-0) I Sherrone Moore (3-0) Jim Harbaugh (9-0)	Sherrone Moore
Michigan State	Mel Tucker (2-0), I Harlon Bennett (2-8)	Jonathan Smith
Middle Tennessee	Rick Stockstill (4-8)	Derek Mason
Mississippi State	Zach Arnett (4-6), IGreg Knox (1-1)	Jeff Lebby
Nevada	Ken Wilson (2-10)	Jeff Choate
New Mexico	Danny Gonzales (4-8)	Bronco Mendenhall
New Mexico State	Jerry Kill (10-4)	Tony Sanchez
Northwestern	I David Braun (5-5), David Braun (3-0)	David Braun
Oregon State	Jonathan Smith (8-4), Trent Bray (1-0)	Trent Bray
San Diego State	Brady Hoke (4-8)	Sean Lewis
San Jose State	Brent Brennan (7-6)	Ken Niumatalolo
South Alabama	Kane Wommack (7-6)	Major Applewhite
Syracuse	Dino Babers (5-6), I Nunzio Campanile (1-1)	Fran Brown
Texas A&M	Jimbo Fisher (6-4), I Elijah Robinson (1-2)	Mike Elko
Troy	Jon Sumrall (11-2), B Greg Gasparato (0-1)	Gerad Parker
Tulane	Willie Fritz (11-2), B Slade Nagle (0-1)	Jon Sumrall
Utah State	Blake Anderson (6-7)	I Nate Dreiling
UTEP	Dana Dimel (3-9)	Scotty Walden
Washington	Kalen DeBoer (14-1)	Jedd Fisch
Wyoming	Craig Bohl (9-4)	Jay Sawvel (after bowl)

On February 9, Boston College hired Bill O'Brien as its replacement for Jeff Hafley who left to become the defensive coordinator at Green Bay. So while Hafley leaves a college HC job to become an NFL assistant, O'Brien takes the opposite route and moves from an assistant NFL job as OC of the New England Patriots to take on his second college head coaching gig. O'Brien was the HC at Penn State for two seasons (2012-2013), replacing Joe Paterno in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. He fled to become the head coach of the Houston Texans for a position he held for 6-1/4 seasons until he was fired 4 games into the 2020 campaign. O'Brien has been rumored for several openings in the past, and was reportedly close to accepting the HC job at Virginia Tech when Justin Fuente was fired, but he chose to continue as the OC and QB coach at Alabama. O'Brien was 15-9 at Penn State, and 52-48 with the Texans.

It was January 31st that the Green Bay Packers announced Hafley as their new DC, creating the new FBS power 5 head coaching vacancy for the Eagles. Hafley was 22-26 in 4 seasons at BC, achieving bowl eligibility in 3 of his 4 seasons. But the school had to cancel the 2021 Military Bowl appearance just a day before the game against East Carolina due to Covid-19 issues. The prior year, the team was one of many that declined bowl consideration due to the pandemic. After a 3-9 campaign in 2022, the team rebounded to finish 7-6 in 2023 with a 23-14 win over SMU in the Fenway Bowl after ending the regular season on a 3-game snide. An interim head coach was not immediately named. At Green Bay, Hafley replaces Joe Barry who was fired after three seasons as the DC under head coach Matt LaFleur. ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported the reason for his decision stemmed from the changing landscape in college football, and the need to focus on other areas such as NIL and roster retention. “He wants to go coach football again in a league that is all about football,” a source told Thamel. “College coaching has become fundraising, NIL and recruiting your own team and transfers. There’s no time to coach football anymore.”

NIL (name, image, likeness) contracts and the transfer portal have become a headache for college football head coaches, one that many have determined they just don't need. Jim Harbaugh left Michigan, Nick Saban walked away from Alabama, and Dabo Swinney has voiced his disdain. Meanwhile, the NCAA is under fire for investigating and penalizing teams for NIL and transfer portal 'violations' (Florida, Tennessee, Florida State - just to name a few) when the rules themselves are vague and ever-changing, and being challenged in multiple lawsuits.

On January 24, Jim Harbaugh set off to the Los Angeles Chargers, leaving Michigan after guiding the Wolverines to the national championship. Harbaugh was the head coach for 9 games in the 15-0 season, leaving assistants to fill in as interim head coaches during two different suspensions. Sherrone Moore was the interim head coach for 4 of those games, including the final 3 regular season games and the school's 1,000th win.

Moore was promoted to head coach on January 26 and he will be charged with guiding the program into the new edition of the Big Ten after the conference welcomes former PAC-12 members Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington

Michigan knocked off Washington 34-13 for the national championship and will visit the Huskies as a Big Ten foe in the sixth game of the 2024 season. Neither team will have the same head coach as Washington's Kalen DeBoer is now at Alabama. Texas, whom, the Wolverines will face in week 2 in Ann Arbor, is the only Final Four team that returns the same head coach, Steve Sarkisian, in 2024. Michigan locked horns with Texas just once previously, bowing 38-37 in the 2004 season Rose Bowl. The Wolverines have a 9-5 series advantage over Washington, including a 3-0 mark since 2002. Michigan gets Oregon at home in week 9. The Wolverines hold a 3-2 series lead over the Ducks, but are 0-2 in the last 51 years. Michigan hosts USC in week 4. Michigan and USC have played 10 times with 8 of those meetings coming in the Rose Bowl. This will be their first meeting since the 2006 season Rose Bowl which the Trojans won 32-18 to extend their series lead to 6-4. It will be their first non-bowl meeting since 1958.

4 different interim head coaches were appointed during the season-opening school-imposed 3-week suspension of Jim Harbaugh for alleged NCAA violations of Covid - recruiting "dead period" (impermissible contact with recruits).
9/2 vs. East Carolina - co-defensive coordinator Jesse Minter
9/9 vs. UNLV - special teams coordinator and safeties coach Jay Harbaugh (Jim's son) for 1st half; running backs coach Mike Hart for 2nd half.
9/16 vs. Bowling Green - offensive coordinator and O-line coach Sherrone Moore.

Harbaugh was again suspended for 3 games (the final 3 of the season) after the Big Ten and NCAA opened an investigation of impermissible sign-stealing. This time, the conference levied the suspension. The suspension is only in effect for game days.
11/11 vs. Penn State - offensive coordinator and O-line coach Sherrone Moore.
11/18 at Maryland - offensive coordinator and O-line coach Sherrone Moore.
11/25 vs. Ohio State - offensive coordinator and O-line coach Sherrone Moore.

Harbaugh played QB for the Chargers in 1999 and 2000, but his only previous NFL head coaching experience came with San Francisco from 2011-2014 where he was 44-19, including a loss in his second season to his brother, John, and the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl XLVII.

Harbaugh was a QB for the Wolverines from 1982-1986.

As the head coach at Michigan, Harbaugh compiled an over-all record of 83-25, a conference mark of 57-17, a bowl record of 2-6, three Big Ten Championships and one National Championship with three Final Four appearances.

On January 21, San Jose State named Ken Niumatalolo as head coach, replacing Brent Brennan who was hired by Arizona to replace Jedd Fisch, who was hired by Washington to replace Kalen DeBoer, who was hired by Alabama to succeed Nick Saban. Niumatalolo was the head coach of Navy from 2007-2022 where he compiled a record of 109-83, but was just 11-23 over his last 3 seasons which led to his dismissal. He was 37-26 in American Athletic Conference games. He is the winningest coach in Navy history

On January 16, Arizona hired Brent Brennan away from San Jose State to fill the spot vacated by Jedd Fisch when he left for Washington to succeed Kalen DeBoer who was hired to replace Nick Saban at Alabama.

Brennan was 34-48 in 7 seasons with the Spartans, and won a Mountain West title in the 2020 Covid season. He was 25-30 in conference play and 0-3 in bowl games.

On January 14, Washington named Jedd Fisch as the successor to DeBoer. Fisch, in his first head coaching gig, elevated Arizona from 1-11 in his first season to 10-3 in 2023 with a 38-24 Alamo Bowl win over Oklahoma. He served as an interim head coach at UCLA in 2017, going 1-1 with a 35-17 Cactus Bowl loss to Kansas State, making his overall record 17-22.

Kalen DeBoer was named the new head coach at Alabama on Friday, January 12. DeBoer was 25-3 in 2 seasons with Washington, including a 14-1 mark in 2023 with the lone loss coming to Michigan in the national championship game. He was 12-6 at Fresno State after going 67-3 at Sioux Falls when it was a D3 school. Add it all up and his career record is 104-12.

Nick Saban on Wednesday, January 10 resigned as head coach of Alabama. He is universally considered the generational best at his profession. Calling him THE greatest of all time (G.O.A.T.) gets a little tricky, if only because Bear Bryant coached at the same school. Saban has won 7 national titles, and 6 of those came at Alabama which is the same number as the Bear. No other head coach today is even on the radar of getting to 6 or 7 national titles at the FBS level. Urban Meyer, who is unemployed from coaching and should stay that way, has 3. Dabo Swinney has 2.

Saban's career coaching record is 292–71–1, including a ridiculous 201–29 record at Alabama where his teams went 117-18 in the SEC, won 11 conference championships in 17 seasons and went 14-4 in postseason games. He was the SEC coach of the year 5 times, and would have probably doubled that if the voters hadn't gotten tired of voting for him.

On January 16,South Alabama head coach Kane Wommack resigned to take the defensive coordinator position at Alabama. Wommack was 22-16 over his 3 seasons as head coach of the Jaguars. South Alabama ranked 15th in total defense this past season in a conference of teams that highlighted a lot of strong offenses.

South Alabama announced Major Applewhite had been promoted as Wommack's successor on January 18. He has been on the South Alabama staff since 2021 as offensive coordinator and QB coach. Applewhite previously held the head coach position at Houston for 26 games, beginning with the 2016 Las Vegas Bowl and ending with the 2018 Armed Forces Bowl that produced a 70-14 loss, resulting in his firing. He was 15-11 with an 0-3 bowl record, but he landed on his feet as an analyst for Nick Saban the next two years (2019-2020) before joing the Jaguars' staff. The former Texas QB (1998-2001) still holds several Big 12 and Texas records.

Jerry Kill resigned from New Mexico State on Christmas Eve, stating he didn't have anything left to give. Kill only coached the program for two seasons, but they were two of the best seasons in the program's history with campaigns of 7-6 and 10-4 while making back-to-back bowl appearances for the first time in school history. On January 4, former player Tony Sanchez and current assistant Tony Sanchez was elevated to head coach. His only other experience as a head coach was from 2015-2019 at UNLV which him after 5 non-winning seasons and a cumulative record of 20-40 that included a 13-27 mark in the Mountain West conference.

Troy on December 18 named Notre Dame offensive coordinator Gerad Parker as its new head coach. The former Kentucky wide receiver saw little action as a player from 2000-2004 but has ascended rapidly in the coaching ranks. He was 0-6 as Purdue's interim head coach in 2016.

Tulane on December 8 announced Jon Sumrall was leaving Troy and headed to New Orleans as the successor to Willie Fritz who resigned on December 3 to fill the post at Houston which became available when Dana Holgorsen was fired on November 26. Offensive coordinator Slade Nagle was name interim head coach. Perhaps, Fritz' experience serves as evidence that head coaches should get more than 2 or 3 years to turn around a program as the first six years were not telling of what would happen in seasons 7 and 8. Fritz was 31-43 from 2016-2021, and then came a 2022 season with a Cotton Bowl win over USC capping a 12-2 campaign that was followed by an 11-2 season in 2023 and a second straight American Athletic Conference title.

At Troy, Sumrall only needed one season. His predecessor was 15-19 in 3 seasons. Sumrall was 11-2 in each of his 2 seasons at Troy with back-to- back Sun Belt titles. Defensive coordinator Greg Gasparato was name interim head coach for the Birmingham Bowl game against Duke.

At Houston, Holgorsen was fired after a 4-8 season in which the Cougars were 2-7 in their first year in the Big 12. Holgorsen had records of 31-28 over-all, 20-19 in conference play (18-12, American) and 2-1 in bowl games. He had previously spent 8 years at West Virginia and has career marks of 92-69 over-all, 58-51 in conference games, and 4-6 in bowl games. His 2011 WVU team tied for 1st in the now-defunct Big East and his 2021 Cougars team tied for 1st in the American.

Duke on December 7 announced that former Miami Hurricanes head coach Manny Diaz is the successor to Mike Elko who resigned on November 27 to replace the fired Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M. Diaz has spent the last two seasons as the DC and LB coach at Penn State after his 3-year stint as the HC at Miami ended with his dismissal after going 21-15 overall and 16-9 in the ACC. Trooper Taylor, the AHC and RB coach uner Elko, will serve as interim head coach in the bowl game. Trooper served in the same capacity after David Cutcliffe was let go in 2021 until Elko was hired two weeks later. Elko was 16-9 at Duke, including 9-7 in ACC games, with a Military Bowl win last year over UCF. He was Jimbo Fisher's DC from 2018-2021.

Fisher was fired from Texas A&M on November 12, a day after the Aggies blew out Mississippi State 51-10 in College Station to become bowl eligible at 6-4 over-all and improve to 4-3 in the western half of the SEC. Director of Athletics, Ross Bjork, announced the change was effective immediately. "After very careful analysis of all the components related to Texas A&M football, I recommended to President Welsh and then Chancellor Sharp that a change in the leadership of the program was necessary in order for Aggie football to reach our full potential and they accepted my decision. We appreciate Coach Fisher's time here at Texas A&M and we wish him the best in his future endeavors." The buyout is expected to cost the school $77 million. The move also comes at a time when conference realignment means the additions of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC next season when the College Football Playoff will expand to 12 teams. Fisher finishes with a 45-25 over-all record with the Aggies, a conference record of 27-21, and a 3-0 mark in bowl games. Texas A&M was a late bow-out of the 2021 season Gator Bowl due to COVID-19 issues and season-ending injuries within the program. They were ineligible at 5-7 last year. Fisher, who has career marks of 128-48, was the head coach of Florida State when the 'Noles won the final BCS Championship game at the end of the 2013 season. He took FSU to the inaugural playoff final four the following year, but his team was smoked 59-20 by Oregon in the Rose Bowl. Two more quality seasons of 10-3 followed, before falling off to 5-6 in 2017 when Fisher announced on December 1, 2017 that he was leaving for College Station for a 10-year deal worth $75 million. Elijah Robinson was 1-1 as interim head coach. Robinson had been promoted to assistant head coach and run game coordinator in January of 2022 after serving as the defensive line coach in his first four seasons at Texas A&M.

James Madison on December 7 announced the hiring of Bob Chesney as the successor to Curt Cignetti, who resigned on November 30 to take the same position at Indiana. Damian Wroblewski, who joined James Madison's staff in 2018 as the offensive line coach and associate head coach for the offense, will serve as IHC for the bowl game.

The 46-year-old Chesney has been a head coach since 2010, working his way up from D3 Salve Regina in Rhode Island (2010-2012) to D2 Assumption in Wrocester, Massachusetts (2013-2017) to FCS member Holy Cross from 2018 until his resignation to accept the JMU job in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Chesney was 23-9 at Salve Regina, 44-16 at Assumption, and 44-21 at Holy Cross where the Crusaders won or tied for 5 straight Patriot League titles.

Indiana announced on November 26 it was parting ways with Tom Allen after 8 seasons at the helm. Indiana is coming off a 3-9 season in which the Hoosiers were 1-8 in the Big Ten, and Allen leaves with records of 33-49 over-all, 18-43 in conference play, and 0-3 in bowl games. The only head coach in their history who led the Hoosiers to more bowl games was Bill Mallory who accomplished that feat six times from 1986-1993 when far fewer bowl games were available.

Cignetti has been in the coaching ranks since 1983 when the former West Virginia QB began as a GA at rival Pitt. His stops along the way on his path to JMU, and now Indiana, include a 4-year stint as WR/RB coach under Nick Saban at Alabama from 2007-2010, his first gig as head coach at D2 IUP from 2011-2016 before moving on to Elon from 2017-2018, and then landing at JMU. He has a stellar record of 119–35 over-all with 8 D2 or FCS playoff appearances. He would be 2-for-2 in bowl appearances if JMU were not ineligible last year. He guided JMU from the FCS to the FBS and went 19-4 over-all, 13-3 in the Sun Belt in 2 seasons.

New Mexico on December 7 announced a big name to replace Danny Gonzalez. Bronco Mendenhall, who had a stellar 11-year tenure at BYU and a half-decent six-year term at Virginia. He left Charlottesville to "take a pause" and, after 31 straight seasons as an assistant and head coach, spent time his wife on their ranch in Montana. Mendenhall's teams were 36-38 at Virginia (22-27, ACC) and 1-2 in bowl games. He was 99-43 at BYU where he caught everyone off-guard when he announced he was leaving to fill the position at Virginia. Over-all, he is 135-81 with a 7-7 bowl record. Gonzales, a New Mexico alum, was fired on November 25 after 4 seasons produced records of 11-32 over-all, and 5-26 in the MWC. The school was actually coming off his best record in 2023 with an over-all 4-8 mark and a conference record of 2-6.

Wyoming on December 7 announced defensive coordinator Jay Sawvel (since 2020) will take over for Craig Bohl who is retiring after the Arizona Bowl on December 30. Wyoming won that game on a 24-yard walk-off field goal, 16-15 over Toledo. Bohl was 61-60 over-all, 37-41 in MWC games, and 4-2 in bowl games. With the victory, the Cowboys finished 9-4 for the school's best record since becoming a FBS program in 1998.

On December 6, MTSU announced the hiring of Derek Mason who served as Oklahoma State's defensive coordinator in 2022 and was the former Vanderbilt head coach from 2014-2020. He spent the 2023 season working as an analyst for the SEC Network. Mason was fired by the Commodores when the program suffering the 2020 Covid season and was 0-8 on his watch (finished 0-9). The dismissal came one day after he played a significant role in college football history as Sarah Fuller kicked off to begin the second half to become the first woman to see action for a Power 5 school. Over-all, Mason's Vandy teams were 27-55 and a woeful 10-46 in SEC contests. Vandy hasn't been any better since then, going 9-27 over-all and 2-22 in conference play. At Middle Tennessee, Mason replaces Rick Stockstill who was fired on November 27 after a 4-8 campaign (3-4, CUSA). At the time, Stockstill was the fourth-longest tenured current head coach in the FBS at 18 seasons, going 113-111 overall with a solid 82-58 conference record and a 4-6 mark in bowl game that included two bowl wins in the previous two seasons.

ULM on December 5 announced the hiring of former UAB interim head coach Bryant Vincent. He served as New Mexico's offensive coordinator this past season after being passed over (in favor of Trent Dilfer) for the permanent position at UAB, despite leading the Blazers to a 7-6 mark with a bowl victory in 2022. ULM fired Terry Bowden on November 24 after 3 season that failed to produce any on-field improvement in terms of won-loss record. In fact, his first two teams were each 4-8 and won a combined 5 conference games, but ULM was 0-8 in conference play in 2023 and 2-10 over-all to run his totals in Monroe to 10-26 over-all and 5-19 in the Sun Belt. Bowden has been the head coach of 6 different programs, ranging from D2 Salem (WV) to Auburn. He has a career mark of 185-140-2.

UTEP on December 4 announced the hiring of Austin Peay head coach Scotty Walden to replace Dana Dimel who was fired on November 26 after a disappointing 3-9 season (2-6, CUSA). Among other comments, Vice President and Director of Athletics, Jim Senter, said, "When he (Dimel) was hired, UTEP Football was coming off a winless season and he built a more competitive team. However, we have not seen the kind of improvement necessary to compete for and win championships." Dimel had records of 20-49 over-all, 10-34 in CUSA, and 0-1 in the school's only bowl appearance on his watch. In four seasons at Austin Peay, Walden has gone 26-14 over-all and 17-6 in conference play. His 2023 team was eliminated in the first round of the FCS Playoff.

Nevada on December 4 announced the hiring of Texas assistant Jeff Choate as the successor to Ken Wilson who was fired November 1 after 2 seasons produced cumulative records of 4-20 over-all and 2-14 in conference play. Wilson came over to Nevada from his previous post of co-defensive coordinator at Oregon. Choate previously served as the head coach of FCS member Montana from 2016-2020 where his teams were 28-22 with a pair of NCAA Playoff appearances. He left that job to become the Co-DC and ILB coach at Texas.

On December 3, Boise State named Spencer Danielson its head coach after he led the team to a 3-0 record as an interim head coach. Danielson, the defensive coordinator, was tagged to temporarily lead the team after Andy Avalos was fired on November 12. The Broncos were 5-5 at the time. A statement on the school's website by director of athletics Jeramiah Dickey simply read, "I am grateful for the passion, effort and dedication Andy has given to our community and his alma mater while serving as our head coach. Andy will always be a Bronco and we wish him and his family all the best in their next steps." The former BSU linebacker (2001-2005) was named head coach on January 12, 2021, succeeding Bryan Harsin when he left for what turned about to be a short-loved stint at Auburn. Avalos was 5-5 this season and 4-2 in MWC play. He leaves with marks of 22-14 over-all, 17-6 in MWC play, and 1-1 in bowl games. Danielson, who played linebacker at FCS San Diego (2008) and D2 Azusa Pacific (2009-2011), has been on the Broncos staff since 2017.

On December 1, Nevada dismissed Ken Wilson after 2 seasons produced cumulative records of 4-20 over-all and 2-14 in conference play. Wilson came over to Nevada from his previous post of co-defensive coordinator at Oregon.

Also on December 1, Fresno State announced Jeff Tedford will take a leave of absence to deal with 'health issues' and Tim Skipper, AHC and LB coach, was named interim head coach for the bowl season. In 2019, heart issues forced Tedford to resign as head coach, only to return in 2022. Tedford, at this time, is expected to be back next season. The Bulldogs were 8-4 in 2023, including a 4-4 mark in conference play, as they faded down the stretch with losses in 3 of their last 4 games.

San Diego State announced on November 29 that Colorado OC Sean Lewis would succeed the retiring Brady Hoke. Lewis resigned as the head coach of Kent State after going 5-7 in the 2022 season to take the OC post under Deion Sanders, who then took away Lewis' play-calling duties after 8 games. Lewis was 24-31 in 5 seasons at Kent, 19-17 in MAC games and 1-1 in bowl games, accounting for half of the school's four total bowl appearances in its history. The 2019 Frisco Bowl win is the school's only bowl victory. Hoke announced his resignation on December 13. He was 40-32 in six seasons across two head coaching stints, ranking seventh in program history in victories (40) and winning percentage (.556, min. 2 seasons). For his career, Hoke is 105-92 (.533) with stints at his alma mater Ball State (2003-08), Michigan (2011-14) and San Diego State (2009-10, 2020-23). Hoke took over a SDSU program in 2009 that hadn't had a winning season or a bowl appearance since 1998. It took Hoke just two seasons to make the Aztecs a Mountain West power as the 2010 team went 9-4, beat Navy (35-14) in the Poinsettia Bowl, and began a 13-year streak of bowl eligible teams (2010-22). The school, now 3-7 (1-5 in the MWC), will not make the bowl season this year.

Syracuse announced on November 28 that Georgia defensive backs coach Fran Brown is Dino Babers' successor. He will be officially introduced as such at a press conference on Monday, December 4. The school parted ways with Babers on November 19 after a 31-22 loss dropped the Orange to 5-6. Tight ends coach Nunzio Campanile handled interim duties for a 35-31 win over Wake Forest that made the Orange bowl-eligible at 6-6. Campanile also served in that capacity in 2019 at Rutgers when Chris Ash was fired and went 1-7. In nearly 8 full seasons, Babers compiled records of 41-55 overall, 20-45 in ACC play, and 1-1 in bowl games. The high water mark came in 2018 when Syracuse went 10-3 and finished 2nd in the Atlantic division of the ACC at 6-2, then went on to defeat West Virginia 34-18 in the Camping World Bowl in Orlando.

Oregon State on November 28 announced the promotion of Trent Bray to head coach, succeeding Jonathan Smith who accepted the same position at Michigan State. Kefense Hynson had been named interim head football coach. Hynson served as the wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator. On the school's website, Bray was called "one of the most notable defensive players in Oregon State history". Vice President and Director of Athletics Scott Barnes added, "After interviewing several qualified candidates, we realized our top choice ... has been a part of Beaver Nation for a long time and his love for this place is real." He was a standout linebacker from 2002-2005, collecting 337 tackles. Bray is in his sixth season during his second stint with the Beavers. He came back to Oregon State in 2018 as the team's linebackers coach and was promoted to defensive coordinator in November 2021. He previously served a three-year stint from 2012-14.

On November 25, the day after finishing 2-8 under interim head coach Harlon Bennett, and a disappointing 4-8 on the year after firing Mel Tucker with cause just two games into the season, Michigan State announced the surprising hiring of Oregon State head coach Jonathan Smith. The Beavers were 8-4 in the regular season this year, and Smith leaves with an over-all record of 34-35, a conference mark of 23-29, and a bowl record of 1-1.

Oregon State and Washington State are the two schools that have been left behind in the mass exodus of programs out of the PAC-12. Bennett, the DB coach at MSU, was appointed interim head coach during the suspension and eventual firing of Tucker in the wake of sexual harassment allegations brought forth by Brenda Tracy, a rape survivor and victim's advocate. Tucker admitted in interviews with the school that he (pleasured himself) during a phone call with Tracy. Tucker was 2014 over-all and 12-13 in Big Ten play in 3 seasons + 2 games. Smith became first Oregon State grad to serve as head coach. As a player, Smith was a walk-on who wound up starting 38 games at quarterback and, in 2000, led the Beavers to an 11-1 season that culminated with a 41-9 rout of Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl. It is the school's greatest season since joining the PAC-8/PAC-10/PAC-12 in 1968.

Mississippi State on November 26 announced the hiring of Oklahoma offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby as head coach, succeeding the fired Zach Arnett. Lebby is no stranger to the SEC. Before joining Brent Venables' first staff at Oklahoma, he spent two seasons directing Ole Miss' offense and coaching quarterbacks after a two-year stint at UCF under then-head coach and former Oklahoma All-American quarterback Josh Heupel. The MSU job became available on November 13 when the school fired Zach Arnett, two days after being routed at Texas A&M and one day after that school fired Jimbo Fisher. Arnett had been promoted from defensive coordinator after the tragic passing of beloved head coach Mike Leach last December. The Bullogs went on to upend Illinois in the ReliaQuest Bowl in Tampa Bay, but his 2023 record was 4-6 over-all and just 1-6 in conference play. To be fair, MSU was predicted by the Congrove Computer Rankings to finish 5-7 over-all and 1-7 in the SEC. Senior offensive analyst Greg Knox, who has 35 years of coaching experience including 28 years in the SEC, served as interim head coach and went 1-1 as the school, indeed, finished with the computer's predicted records of 5-7, 1-7. Knox was in his second stint at MSU, having previously served as the Bulldogs' interim head coach after during the 2017 TaxSlayer Bowl, where he led the team to a 31-27 win over Louisville after Dan Mullen left for Florida. Ironically, Knox was also 1-1 as the interim head coach at Florida in 2021 after Mullen was fired from Florida.

On November 19, Syracuse announced the dismissal of Dino Babers after a 31-22 loss dropped the Orange to 5-6. Tight ends coach Nunzio Campanile will handle interim duties. He served in that capacity in 2019 at Rutgers when Chris Ash was fired and went 1-7. In nearly 8 full seasons, Babers compiled records of 41-55 overall, 20-45 in ACC play, and 1-1 in bowl games. The high water mark came in 2018 when Syracuse went 10-3 and finished 2nd in the Atlantic division of the ACC at 6-2, then went on to defeat West Virginia 34-18 in the Camping World Bowl in Orlando.

On November 15, Northwestern removed the interim tag from David Braun who agreed to step up when head coach Pat Fitzgerald was fired on July 10 in the wake of an investigation into ongoing hazing in the football program. Braun had taken a team in turmoil and guided it to a 6-5 record at the time of the announcement. It was somewhat surprising that Fitzgerald had not already been given the boot after the Wildcats went 1-10 a year ago after a 3-9 season in 2021. Braun had just been hired as defensive coordinator this past January from North Dakota State.

2023 Coaching Changes

Team	2022 Coach (Record)	2023 Coach
Arizona State	Herm Edwards (1-2), I Shaun Aguano (2-7)	Kenny Dillingham (10-3)
Auburn	Bryan Harsin (3-5), I Carnell "Cadillic" Williams (1-3)	Hugh Freeze (6-7)
Charlotte	Will Healy (1-7), I Pete Rossomando (2-2)	Francis "Biff" Poggi (3-9)
Cincinnati	Luke Fickell (9-3), B Kerry Coombs (0-1)	Scott Satterfield (3-9)
Coastal Carolina	Jamey Chadwell (9-3), B Chad Staggs (0-1)	Tim Beck (8-5)
Colorado	Karl Dorrell (0-5), I Mike Sanford (1-6)	Deion Sanders (4-8)
FAU	Willie Taggart (5-7)	Tom Herman (4-8)
Georgia Tech	Geoff Collins (1-3), I Brent Key (4-4)	Brent Key (7-6)
Kent State	Sean Lewis (5-7)	Kenni Burns (1-11)
Liberty	Hugh Freeze (8-4), B Josh Aldridge (0-1)	Jamey Chadwell (13-1)
Louisville	Scott Satterfield (7-5), B Deion Branch (1-0)	Jeff Brohm (10-4)
Mississippi State	Mike Leach (8-4), Zach Arnett (1-0)	Zach Arnett (5-7)
Navy	Ken Niumatalolo (4-8)	Brian Newberry (5-7)
Nebraska	Scott Frost (1-2), I Mickey Joseph (3-6)	Matt Rhule (5-7)
North Texas	Seth Littrell (7-6), B Phil Bennett (0-1)	Eric Morris (5-7)
Northwestern	Pat Fitzgerald (1-11)	I David Braun (8-5)
Purdue	Jeff Brohm (8-5), B Brian Brohm (0-1)	Ryan Walters (4-8)
Stanford	David Shaw (3-9)	Troy Taylor (3-9)
Texas State	Jaek Spavital (4-8)	G.J. Kinne (8-5)
Tulsa	Philip Montgomery (5-7)	Kevin Wilson (4-8)
*-UAB	I Bryant Vincent (6-6)	Trent Dilfer (4-8)
UNLV	Marcus Arroyo (5-7)	Barry Odom (9-5)
USF	Jeff Scott (1-8), I Daniel Da Prato (0-3)	Alex Golesh (7-6)
Western Michigan	Tim Lester (5-7)	Lance Taylor (4-8)
Wisconsin	Paul Chryst (2-3), I Jim Leonhard (4-3)	Luke Fickell (7-6)
*-Bryant Vincent was named interim head coach at UAB after Bill Clark resigned for health reasons on June 24.

Northwestern fired head coach Pat Fitzgerald in the wake of an investigation into ongoing hazing in the football program. In addition, three former players made assertions of racism and confirmed the hazing reports. The school president, Michael Schill, announced the action himself with a posting on the university's academic website, dated July 10. It is somewhat surprising that Fitzgerald had not already been given the boot after the Wildcats went 1-10 a year ago after a 3-9 season in 2021. Defensive coordinator David Braun, who had just been hired this past January from North Dakota State, was expected to be named the interim head coach. The football team tried to stick up for its coach with a tweet posted on July 8. Fitzgerald was a star defensive linebacker at Northwestern from 1993-1996 and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2008. He played under Randy Walker, became an assistant under Walker, and succeeded Walker after his sudden passing in 2006. Fitzgerald's career records are a pedestrian 110-101 over-all and 65-76 in the B1G. However, since 2019, his records are 14-31 over-all and 9-25 in the conference. Those marks are inflated by a 7-2 Covid season campaign as three of the last four years had produced no better than a 3-9 finish with just a single conference win in 2019, 2021 and 2022. Still, he easily has the most wins of any Northwestern head coach in history with his 110 outdistancing Pappy Waldorf's 49 from 1935-1946, but he only ranks 9th in winning percentage.

The Coaching Carousel had previously stopped spinning on Monday, December 19 when Navy announced the promotion of Brian Newberry from defensive coordinator to head coach. Newberry replaces his former boss, Ken Niumatalolo who was fired on Sunday, December 11, the day after the Midshipmen lost to Army in overtime to fall to 2-5 in the last 7 meetings with their arch-rival. It was later revealed by Niumatalolo that he was fired in the locker room immediately after the loss. He is the winningest coach in school history with a record of 109-83, but just 11-23 over the last 3 seasons. He was 37-26 in American Athletic Conference games. Before joining the Navy staff in 2019, Newberry was the DC and secondary coach at FCS member Kennesaw State from 2015-18. He has been widely considered to be one of the best DC's in the nation over the last several years. The odd thing in this move is that the offense will keep the same triple-option attack its been running since the Paul Johnson days.

Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach passed away Monday night, December 12 after suffering a major heart attack on Sunday. Defensive coordinator Zach Arnett was immediately named interim head coach for bowl season. but had the interim tag removed on December 15 and became the official head coach. In a 21-year career as a major college football coach at Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State, Leach compiled records of 158-107 over-all and 8-9 in bowl games. Leach became known as "The Pirate" and once said that "Pirates function as a team. There were a lot of castes and classes in England at the time. But with pirates, it didn't matter if you were black, white, rich or poor. The object was to get a treasure. If the captain did a bad job, you could just overthrow him."

Kent State on December 14 officially named Minnesota RB coach Kenni Burns as head coach. That job opened up on December 6 when Sean Lewis announced he was leaving to become the offensive coordinator at Colorado. He was 24-31 in 5 seasons as the head coach of the Golden Flashes.

On December 13, North Texas named Washington State OC and QB coach Eric Morris as head coach. He was 24-18 in his only previous head coaching job at FCS member Incarnate Word from 2018-21. North Texas fired head Seth Littrell on Sunday, December 4, despite leading the team to the Conference USA Championship. The Mean Green lost 48-27 at UTSA two days earlier. It was the second time he led UNT to the CUSA title game and lost (2017). In 7 seasons, Littrell was 44-44 overall and 32-23 in league play. Phil Bennett, who was hired last year as defensive coordinator, was the interim head coach for the 35-32 loss in the Frisco Bowl on December 17 against Boise State. Bennett spent 6 seasons as the head coach at SMU from 2002-2007 where he was a woeful 18-52 overall and 14-34 in conference games. Bennett was the winning interim coach for Pitt in the 2010 BBVA Compass (Birmingham) Bowl. Bennett's defense this year was 9th out of 11 CUSA programs and 124th out of 131 FBS schools in the nation.

Purdue on Tuesday, December 13, named Illinois defensive coordinator Ryan Walters as its new head coach. It will be the first head coaching gig for Walters who was a Broyles Award finalist in 2022 after guiding the Illini defense to Top 10 national rankings in 17 different defensive categories. At age 36, he becomes the 4th youngest head coach in the FBS. Walters replaces Jeff Brohm who was named the head coach at Louisville on December 8th, bringing one the school's biggest stars in history back home. Brian Brohm, Jeff's younger brother by more than 14 years, was named as Purdue's interim head coach for what became a 63-7 loss to LSU in the Citrus Bowl. The Louisville spot opened up when Scott Satterfield left for Cincinnati after Luke Fickell left the Bearcats to go to Wisconsin. Brohm, the older one, was a start QB with the Cardinals and is in the stadium's Ring of Honor after a collegiate career (1989-1993) in which he threw for 5,451 yards with 38 TD's and 28 INT's under head coach Howard Schnellenberger. These days, those were numbers would seem almost average, but it was a different era in college football. Brohm bounced around pro football for 8 years before becoming the head coach of Louisville's Arena League team, the Fire, in 2002. He was hired by Bobby Petrino as the Cardinal's QB coach the next season and rose to AHC and OC by 2008 under Steve Kragthorpe. He left Louisville in 2009 to rejoin Schnellenberger at FAU, but then moved on to Illinois, UAB and Western Kentucky (under Petrino) before replacing Petrino as head coach in 2015. He was 30-10 (19-5, CUSA) with the Hilltoppers over three seasons, and 36-34 (26-25, Big Ten) at Purdue in 6 years.

On Monday, December 5, Cincinnati announced they had persuaded Satterfield to leave Louisville and move 100 miles NE to to replace Fickell. Satterfield's records at Louisville were 25-24 over-all and just 15-18 in the ACC. His career mark is 76-48 and he is 4-1 in bowl games.

This made the December 17 Fenway Bowl more interesting as Cincinnati and Louisville were the combatants in that game with Louisville winning 24-7. Deion Branch, director of player development, was named interim head coach for the Cards. Cincinnati was led by interim head coach Kerry Coombs, a long-time assistant in college and the NFL who just joined Fickell's staff for the 2022 season after being let go by Ohio State. He had mostly served as a special teams and defensive backs coach under Fickell and it was thought that he would and rejoin him at Wisconsin after the bowl game. However, Coombs was given a 3-year contract to stay at Cincinnati.

Wisconsin announced the hiring of Fickell on Sunday, November 27th, after his six-year run in Cincinnati produced a 57-18 record over-all and a conference mark of 35-11 while claiming back-to-back American Athletic Conference titles in 2020 and 2021. The Bearcats also played in the 2019 championship game and lost, and were in the hunt once again in 2022 until Tulane's 27-24 upset win at Cincinnati on November 26 in the final game of the regular season. His biggest accomplishment was leading Cincinnati into the College Football Playoff in 2021 when his team went 13-0 before losing to Alabama in the semifinal round.

Wisconsin played the final 7 games of the 2022 season under interim head coach Jim Leonhard. Minds were blown on Sunday (October 2) when the completely unanticipated news began peppering Twitter that Wisconsin had fired Paul Chryst after a 2-3 start. Chryst was 67-26 during his 7-plus seasons in Madison with three Big Ten west division titles, He was 43-18 in conference games and had a 6-1 bowl record. Defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard was immediately named interim head coach. Some compared the move to Nebraska's decision to fire Frank Solich after the 2003 season when he went 9-3 and was 58-19 over-all. The 'Huskers are now on their sixth coach since making that move and none have equaled his winning percentage at Nebraska of .753. Solich went on to become a legend at Ohio University before retiring prior to the 2001 season with a 173-101 career record.

This is the statement published on the school's website:

Defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard has been named interim head coach of the Wisconsin football team, UW Director of Athletics Chris McIntosh announced Sunday. Leonhard replaces Paul Chryst, who was in his eighth season as the Badgers' head coach.

"After a heartfelt and authentic conversation with Coach Chryst about what is in the long-term best interest of our football program, I have concluded that now is the time for a change in leadership," McIntosh said. "Paul is a man of integrity who loves his players. I have great respect and admiration for Paul and the legacy of him and his family at the University of Wisconsin.

"I also have confidence in Jim Leonhard to guide the program for the remainder of the season. There is still a lot of season left to play and I know Jim will do a great job while the program is under his leadership."

Leonhard is in his seventh season on Wisconsin's coaching staff. This is his sixth year as defensive coordinator. During that time, he has overseen one of the best units in college football as the Badger defense led the country in total yards allowed and ranked third nationally in scoring defense over the last five seasons.

Leonhard was a three-time All-American as a safety for Wisconsin, tying the school record with 21 career interceptions. He also broke the Big Ten record with 1,347 career punt return yards. A two-time CoSIDA Academic All-American, he also was a finalist for the William V. Campbell Trophy, the prestigious National Football Foundation award referred to as the "Academic Heisman."

Stanford on Saturday, December 10, announced Troy Taylor as David Shaw's successor after Taylor's Sacramento Hornets fell 66-63 to Incarnate Word in the FCS Playoff quarterfinals. Shaw resigned on November 26 after the Cardinal finished their 3-9 season with a 35-26 loss at home to BYU. He was 96-54 in 12 seasons with a conference mark of 65-40. Shaw is the only four-time Pac-12 Coach of the Year, having led the Cardinal to three conference titles and 8 bowl games in his first 8 seasons. The program had slipped to 14-28 over the last four seasons. Shaw's 96 overall wins rank ninth in Pac-12 history while his 65 conference victories rank fifth. Stanford achieved 29 wins against top-25 opponents (ranking eighth nationally since 2011), 11 against top-10 programs and five against top-5 foes. Additionally, the Cardinal had 43 players drafted, a total ranking tied for 13th nationally and tied for the most in the Pac-12. Taylor led Sacramento State to a 30-8 record in three full seasons from 2019-2022 (school was an opt-out of 2020 season due to Covid pandemic). His teams either tied for, or won outright, the Big Sky title in each of his seasons. He was the OC and QB coach at Utah for two seasons before taking the Hornets' job. His resume of over 25 years of experience incudes mostly jobs in California at both the collegiate and high school levels in the San Francisco Bay area.

On Thursday, December 8, Western Michigan announced it had hired Lance Taylor as head coach, continuing a Louisville theme on the coaching carousel. Taylor spent the 2022 season as the Cardinals' offensive coordinator after spending three years in charge of the running game at Notre Dame. Taylor has also had stints with the Carolina Panthers, New York Jets and Stanford after starting his coaching career as a grad assistant at Alabama where was a rarely-used receiver as a player from 2000-2003. Taylor replaces former star quarterback Tim Lester who was jettisoned on November 28 after a 5-7 season. Lester had a respectable 6-year mark of 37-32, including 26-20 in MAC games. The victories include the school's second bowl win in history which just occurred last season, a 52-24 rout of Nevada in the Quick Lane Bowl. From 1996-99, the school sports hall-of-fame member (inducted 2011) passed for 11,299 yards and 89 touchdowns while setting 17 school records. This was his second trip back to his Alma mater as a coach, having held the QB coach responsibilities in 2005-06. He replaced P.J. Fleck who made the jump from the MAC to the Big Ten when it was announced on January 6, 2017 that Fleck was hired to replace Tracy Claeys at Minnesota.

UNLV on Wednesday, December 7 introduced new head football coach Barry Odom. He replaces Marcus Arroyo whom the school fired November 28 after the Rebels snapped a 6-game losing streak with a 27-22 win at home over rival Nevada. The victory lifted UNLV's final record to 5-7 after a 4-1 start. Arroyo's three-year record was just 7-23 (.233) over-all, including 5-17 in Mountain West play. Odom was the head coach at Missouri from 2016-2019 where he compiled records of 25-25 over-all and 13-19 in the SEC. He spent the past 3 seasons as the AHC/DC at Arkansas.

On Monday, December 5, the Tulsa Golden Hurricane website announced Kevin Wilson will be introduced the next day as the new head coach. Tulsa announced  the firing of Philip Montgomery on Sunday, November 27 after 8 seasons at the helm. Montgomery achieved his watermark success in his second season (2017) when the Golden Hurricane finished 10-3 with a win in the Miami Beach Bowl. Tulsa was 5-7 in 2022, but closed with an upset win at Houston. Wilson's only other head coaching experience came at Indian from 2011 to 2017 where he went 26-47 over-all and 12-37 in the conference.

On Sunday, December 4, Liberty hired Coastal Carolina's head coach Jamey Chadwell to the same position. Hugh Freeze said 'bye bye' to Liberty on November 28. and "hello" to Auburn exactly one month after signing an 8-year extension. Josh Aldridge served as Liberty's head coach in an interim capacity for the 21-19 Boca Ration Bowl loss to Toledo.  Auburn officially announced his hiring late in the afternoon on Monday, November 28. To his credit, Freeze told reporters after Saturday's loss at New Mexico State, "I've communicated with Ian (McCaw, Liberty A.D.) that if someone ever wanted to talk to us that interested us, I would tell them." This will be Freeze's second stint in the SEC after he was embarrassingly forced out at Ole Miss in 2016 as a messy trail of public relations issues and NCAA violations dating back to the Houston Nutt era came to a head when it was learned that Freeze had several calls to an escort service found on school-issued phone. The NCAA also cited numerous violations by Freeze and his staff from October 2012 to January 2016 and leveled the most serious charge of lack of institutional control. In response, Ole Miss self-imposed a 2017 bowl ban and other restrictions. The NCAA on December 1 announced its penalties which added 2018 to the bowl ban and a further reduction of scholarships. Freeze was 39-25 in five seasons, but 5-7 in 2016. At Liberty, Freeze was 34-15 in four seasons and 3-0 in bowl games.

Almost simultaneous with Liberty's hiring of Chadwell was Coastal Carolina's announcement of NC State offensive coordinator Tim Beck as the new head in Conway, South Carolina. For the 53-29 Birmingham Bowl loss against East Carolina, Coastal was be led by current defensive coordinator Chad Staggs. Beck has extensive history as an OC, including stops at Nebraska, Ohio State and Texas before spending three seasons with NC State from 2020-2022.

USF on Sunday, December 4, announced Tennessee offensive coordinator Alex Golesh as the new head coach. Golesh was a finalist for the 2022 Broyles Award for top assistant coach. The Bulls were 1-8 when they fired Jeff Scott on November 6, the day after a blowout 54-28 loss to Temple (3-6). Special teams coordinator Daniel Da Prato was named interim head coach and went 0-3. Scott was previously Clemson's co-offensive coordinator. He was just 4-26 in nearly 3 full seasons and 3 of those wins came against FCS members Howard, Florida A&M and The Citadel . He was 1-19 in American conference games. Amazingly, USF almost pulled off a major upset at Florida earlier this season, but fell 31-28. Golesh spent two seasons in Knoxville assisting Josh Heupel in leading the Volunteers' offense which led the nation in 2022 and ranked 9th in 2021. He also worked with Heupel at UCF in 2020 when the Knights ranked 2nd in total offense.

Not long after Jackson State won the SWAC Championship on Saturday, December 3, it was announced that Deion Sanders is the new head coach at Colorado. Sanders will stay on to coach the Tigers in the Celebration Bowl on December 17. Sanders found immediate success in Jackson, despite initially having to deal with the Covid pandemic, as he guided the Tigers to records of 27-5 over-all and 19-2 in the SWAC. Colorado fired Karl Dorrell on October 2 after an 0-5 start and a 8-15 mark in his 23 games in Boulder. At the time of his dismissal, the Buffaloes were one of just two winless teams in the FBS. Offensive coordinator Mike Sanford, Jr. took over as interim head coach and went 1-6. Sanford previously served as the head coach at Western Kentucky from 2017-2018, but he was fired after going 9-16 in two seasons.

This hire surprised us a bit because we would have thought that G.J. Kinne, a former Tulsa star quarterback, would have gone with his Alma Mater. Instead, Texas State announced on Friday, December 2nd that Kinne was the new guy in San Marcos. He replaces Jake Spavital who was fired on Sunday, November 27 after his four seasons with the Bobcats only produced marks of 13-35 over-all and 9-23 in the Sun Belt. The Bobcats were 4-8 in 2022. Kinne, who just turned 34 the previous day, spent the 2022 season in his first head coaching gig leading Incarnate Word to a 10-1 regular season and he will stay with the Cardinals throughout their survival in the FCS Playoffs. This will be Kinne's 7th different team in 7 seasons, including previous one-year stints as an offense assistant with UCF and Hawaii. In college, Kinne was a 3-year starter at Tulsa after transferring from Texas. He threw for 9,472 yards with 81 TD's and 32 INT's. Subsequently, he went undrafted and bounced around several NFL, Arena League and CFL clubs before landing his first coaching gig in 2017 as a grad assistant with SMU.

FAU on Thursday, December 1, announced Tom Herman as head coach. He replaces Willie Taggart who was, somewhat surprisingly, let go by FAU on Saturday night, November 26. The move came shortly after the Owls had suffered a 32-31 loss at home to Western Kentucky in overtime when the Hilltoppers successfully went for two points after a touchdown. The loss kept FAU from becoming bowl eligible at 5-7. He was 15-18 over-all at the Boca Raton school and 11-11 in Conference USA play. Taggart previously held the HC job at Western Kentucky from 2009-2012, USF from 2013 to 2016, Oregon in 2017 and Florida State from 2018 through the first 9 nine games of 2019. He was the first African-American to hold the position at each of those schools. His career record is 71-80 with 5 bowl bids in 13 seasons. He didn't coach in 3 of those 5 bowls as he had moved on to his next stop. He was 0-2 in the two bowls in which he did perform the HC duties. Herman had previous head coaching stints at Houston from 2015-2016, and Texas from 2017-2020. Herman has a career record of 54-22 over-all. In conference games, his teams were 12-4 with Houston and 22-13 with Texas. He is 5-0 in bowl games.

On Wednesday, November 30, UAB announced on its website that it had hired former "14-year NFL veteran quarterback and Super Bowl XXXV Champion Trent Dilfer" as the official successor to Bill Clark. Clark announced his 'retirement' on June 24, 2022 - before the 2022 season began - due to back issues after he had been told by doctors that he needed a spinal fusion. Clark's team was 9-4 in 2021 and his career record at UAB was 49-26. Offensive Coordinator Bryant Vincent assumed the interim duties of head coach for the 2022 season and went 7-6 with a Bahamas Bowl victory. As for Dilfer, this will be his first coaching job in any position at the collegiate level. He has been the head coach at Lipscomb Academy in Nashville since 2019. The former Fresno State QB was drafted as the 6th pick in the first round in 1994 by Tampa Bay where he stayed until 1999. He won a Super Bowl with Baltimore after taking the starting job halfway through the 2020 season.

Once in a while a school does the right thing. On Tuesday, November 29, Georgia Tech was that school when it retained Brent Key as head coach by removing the interim tag. Key took over a 1-3 program and went 4-4 down the stretch as the team just missed out on a bowl game. He now becomes the official replacement for Geoff Collins who became the third head coach to be fired in September when he was relieved of his duties on Sunday, September 25. The decision came after a 27-10 loss to UCF.  Key, a former Georgia Tech player, was the assistant head coach for Collins when he was named s his interim replacement. Ironically, Key also has an extensive past with UCF as an assistant for 11 years before moving on to Alabama from 2016-2018. Collins exited with records of 10-28 over-all and 7-19 in the ACC. He has a career mark of 25-38. Athletic Director Todd Stansbury was also let go and Frank Neville was named interim AD.

Arizona State on Sunday, November 27 announced the hiring of Kenny Dillingham as head coach, replacing Herm Edwards who was fired on September 18 after a 30-21 upset loss at home to Eastern Michigan had dropped the Sun Devils to 1-2. Running backs coach Shaun Aguano was named interim head coach and went 2-7. Edwards had records of 26-20 over-all and 17-14 in the PAC-12. The move had as much to do with over-all sentiment surrounding the coach, as it did wins and losses, after the school came under investigation for hosting recruits during a "dead period" after the Covid-19 pandemic season.

Dillingham, a 2013 ASU graduate, began coaching at age 17 when he tore his ACL at Chaparral High School in Scottsdale. After graduation, he became an offensive assistant with the Sun Devils for 2014 and 2015. He then bounced around the country with several schools including Florida State and Auburn as offensive coordinator and QB coach. He served in those capacities this season at Oregon.

Nebraska on Saturday (November 26) named former Carolina Panthers, Baylor Bears, and Temple Owls head coach Matt Rhule as the official replacement of Scott Frost who was dismissed on September 11, the day after a 45-42 loss at home to Georgia Southern dropped the 'Huskers to 1-2. It was the 8th straight loss to FBS teams, all by single digits. He left the school with records of 16-31 over-all and 10-26 in conference games. Frost was hired after leading UCF to marks of 19-7 over-all and 12-4 in American Conference play over the course of the 2016 and 2017 seasons. His career record now stands at 35-38. Mickey Joseph was named interim head coach and went 3-6 for the rest of the season.

At Baylor, Rhule's first squad went 1-11 in 2017, but he led the Bears to a 6-win improvement in 2018. For an encore, his 2019 squad went 11-3 with just one regular season loss to Oklahoma, another loss to the Sooners in the Big 12 Championship game and a Sugar Bowl bowl loss to Georgia. Unfortunately for Baylor fans, that performance caught the attention of NFL teams and Rhule was hired on January 7 as the new head coach at Carolina. At Baylor, Rhule repeated the turnaround success he had at Temple where his first two team was 2-10, but his next three seasons saw the Owls go a cumulative 26-13.

Charlotte announced the hiring of Michigan assistant head coach Francis "Biff" Poggi as its new head coach on Tuesday, November 15. The 63-year-old is 26 years older than the guy they fired earlier this season, Will Healy. Poggi has very little college coaching experience, but yet has been given much credit in Michigan's success since his arrival last season. He had previously spent the 2016 season as an analyst and the 1987 season as an assistant at The Citadel. He was the head coach for 20 years at The Gillman School from 1996 to 2015 after spending 8 as an assistant (1988-1995) and won 13 state titles in Maryland. Gillman is an all-grades, all-boys independent school in Baltimore with a high school tuition of over $34,000.

Charlotte, a team projected to go 4-8 over-all and 3-5 in CUSA this season, fired head coach Will Healy on Sunday (October 23) after a 35-14 loss at home to FIU dropped the 49ers to 1-7, 0-4. Charlotte dug itself a 35-0 hole by gifting 5 turnovers, in addition to failing to convert on three 4th-down attempts at FIU's 20-yard line or closer. Charlotte was a 14.5-point favorite in that game. Offensive line coach Pete Rossomando was named interim head coach after joining the staff from Vanderbilt following the 2020 season. Rossomando has former experience as a head coach at D2 New Haven from 2009-2013 and FCS member Central Connecticut State from 2014-2018. He was 42-13 with 2 playoff appearances (1-2) at New Haven, and 23-34 in 5 seasons (2014-2018) at CCSU, but had a 14-9 mark over his last two years and led that school to the playoffs in 2017. He resigned from the Blue Devils to accept the OL coach position with Rutgers, but lost that job after one season when Greg Schiano was hired for a second stint as head coach of the Scarlet Knights. Thus, Rossomando wound up at Vandy.

Healy was just the second head coach in the short history of the program. At the age of 34, he was hired away from Austin Peay to replace the fired Brad Lambert after the 2018 season. He was just 13-21 in 3 seasons with the Governors with records of 0-11, 8-4 and 5-6. As a player, Healy quarterbacked the 2008 Richmond team that won the FCS Championship.

Auburn made the move that had been long anticipated on Monday, October 31 when Bryan Harsin was let go. Carnell "Cadillac" Williams, who was an all-American running back at Auburn and has served as an assistant coach the previous four seasons, will serve as interim head coach for the remainder of the season.

As a player at Auburn, Williams helped lead Auburn to an undefeated season in 2004 while earning All-America honors that year. The 2005 NFL Rookie of the Year, Williams had a seven-year NFL career before entering the coaching ranks. The Auburn graduate is in his fourth season as an assistant coach where he has served as the Tigers' running backs coach.

On the same day, John Cohen, who has more than two decades as a coach and administrator in the Southeastern Conference, was named Athletics Director at Auburn. Cohen has spent the previous 14 years at Mississippi State in various capacities, most recently as the athletic director the past six years.

As for Harsin, the school said very little on its website and only offered a one paragraph release that said, "Auburn University has decided to make a change in the leadership of the Auburn University football program. President Roberts made the decision after a thorough review and evaluation of all aspects of the football program. Auburn will begin an immediate search for a coach that will return the Auburn program to a place where it is consistently competing at the highest levels and representing the winning tradition that is Auburn football."

Harsin was 9-12 over-all and 4-9 in SEC games in his short tenure. He was hired away from Boise State on December 22 , 2020 after Gus Malzahn was fired on December 13. Harsin was 69-19 with the Broncos where his teams won Mountain West conference championships in three of his seven seasons, Harsin was a backup quarterback at Boise State in the late 1990's, but played sparingly.

2022 Coaching Changes

Team	2021 Coach (Record)	2022 Coach (Record)
Akron	Tom Arth (2-7), I Oscar Rodriguez, Jr. (0-3)	Joe Moorhead (2-10)
Colorado State	Steve Addazio (3-9)	Jay Norvell (3-9)
Connecticut	Randy Edsall (0-2), I Lou Spanos (1-9)	Jim Mora (6-7)
Duke	David Cutcliffe (3-9)	Mike Elko (9-4)
FIU	Butch Davis (1-11)	Mike MacIntyre (4-8)
Florida	Dan Mullen (5-6), I Greg Knox (1-1)	Billy Napier (6-7)
Fresno State	Kalen DeBoer (9-3), B Lee Marks (1-0)	Jeff Tedford (10-4)
Georgia Southern	Chad Lunsford (1-3), I Kevin Whitley (2-6)	Clay Helton (6-7)
Hawaii	Todd Graham (6-7)	Timmy Chang (3-10)
Louisiana	Billy Napier (12-1), Michael Desormeaux (1-0)	Michael Desormeaux (6-7)
Louisiana Tech	Skip Holtz (3-9)	Sonny Cumbie (3-9)
LSU	Ed Orgeron (6-6), B Brad Davis (0-1)	Brian Kelly (10-4)
Massachusetts	Walt Bell (1-8), I Alex Miller (0-3)	Don Brown (1-11)
Miami (FLA)	Manny Diaz (7-5)	Mario Cristobal (5-7)
Nevada	Jay Norvell (8-4), B Vai Taua (0-1)	Ken Wilson (2-10)
New Mexico State	Doug Martin (2-10)	Jerry Kill (7-6)
Notre Dame	Brian Kelly (11-1)	Marcus Freeman (9-4)
Oklahoma	Lincoln Riley (10-2), B Bob Stoops (1-0)	Brent Venables (6-7)
Oregon	Mario Cristobal (10-3), B Bryan McClendon (0-1)	Dan Lanning (10-3)
Southern Methodist	Sonny Dykes (8-4)	Rhett Lashlee (7-6)
Temple	Rod Carey (3-9)	Stan Drayton (3-9)
Texas Christian	Gary Patterson (3-5), I Jerry Kill (2-2)	Sonny Dykes (13-2)
Texas Tech	Matt Wells (5-3), I Sonny Cumbie (2-3)	Joey McGuire (8-5)
Troy	Chip Lindsey (5-6), I Brandon Hall (0-1)	Jon Sumrall (12-2)
UAB	Bill Clark (9-4)	I Bryant Vincent (7-6)
USC	Clay Helton (1-1), I Donte Williams (3-7)	Lincoln Riley (11-3)
Virginia	Bronco Mendenhall (6-6)	Tony Elliott (3-7)
Virginia Tech	Justin Fuente (5-5), I J.C. Price (1-2)	Brent Pry (3-8)
Washington	Jimmy Lake (4-5), I Bob Gregory (0-3)	Kalen DeBoer (11-2)
Washington State	Nick Rolovich (4-3), I Jake Dickert (3-2), Jake Dickert (0-1)	Jake Dickert (7-6)

Bill Clark has been more than the football coach at UAB. He served as the face of the university, rescued football from the garbage heap, and resuscitated it from cancellation by rallying unprecedented community support. In his departure, he leaves a new stadium, vastly upgraded facilities, and a perennial winning program. Unfortunately, the 54-year-old had to announce his 'retirement' on Friday, June 24, due to back issues and says he has been told by doctors that he needs a spinal fusion. Clark's team was 9-4 last year and his career record at UAB is 49-26. Offensive Coordinator Bryant Vincent assumes the interim duties of head coach.

Hawaii became a late rider, and the 29th over-all, on the coaching carousel after Todd Graham resigned on Friday, January 14, amid allegations that included verbal abuse, incompetence and favoritism, from former and current players. Details were presented at a Hawaii state senate hearing earlier on Friday. A large number of players on the 2021 roster - 19 in all - have entered the transfer portal since November. The group included the teams' staring QB, as well as its leading rusher. Regardless, the administration had stood by Graham and the coach, in a statement, said he was not forced out but was stepping aside for the good of the program and his own health. A December 6 article on SFGate.com brought the allegations to light. Hawaii was 6-7 in 2021 and had secured an invitation to play Memphis in the Hawaii Bowl, but that game was canceled, reportedly due to Covid issues in the Hawaii program. However, the SGGate.com article alleged its investigation concluded that a "not insignificant contingent of players" had no desire to play another game for Graham. As one current player told SFGATE, “A lot of players want him fired, especially the starters.” Graham was 11-11 over-all in his two seasons leading the program. Over-all, he is 106-72 in a career that has also seen stints at (in order) Rice (1 season) Tulsa (4), Pittsburgh (1) and Arizona (6).

Former Hawaii record-setting QB, Timmy Chang, was announced as the school's new head coach on Saturday, January 22.  He most recently served as a receivers coach at Nevada and was going to follow Jay Norvell to Colorado State. According to Wikipedia, Chang holds NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision all-time records for total plays (2,587), passes attempted (2,436), and interceptions (80). He ranks second in total offensive yards (16,910) and career passing yards (17,072) and is eleventh in touchdown passes (117).

Stan Drayton was introduced as the new head coach at Temple on Thursday (December 16). At the time, it was the last open slot on the coaching carousel. Drayton held the titles of associate head coach and running backs coach at Texas since 2017, working under both Steve Sarkisian and Tom Herman. He was also the running game coordinator. Prior to his stint with the Longhorns, Drayton coached running backs for the Chicago Bears (2015-2016) after logging four years at Ohio State for Luke Fickell and Urban Meyer. Over-all, he has spent 29 years as an assistant, almost exclusively coaching running backs. Though the Temple post is his first as a head coach, the Owls may well have knocked this one out of the park.

Georgia 's DC Dan Lanning was named on Saturday, December11 as the new head coach at Oregon. Lanning spent the last four seasons on Kirby Smart's staff, beginning as outside linebackers coach in 2018. He had the defensive coordinator role added in 2019. Lanning replaces Mario Cristobal who left on December 6 to take the same position with the Miami Hurricanes after Miami fired Manny Diaz that same day. 

Cristobal played offensive tackle for Jimmy Johnson and Dennis Erickson 1989-1992, and coached under Butch Davis (1998-2000) and Larry Coker (2004-2006). He then became head coach at FIU from 2007-2012, replacing Don Strock, and went 27-47 before being fired. Assistant positions followed at Alabama at Oregon, where he became head coach in 2018 after Willie Taggart left for Florida State. Cristobal's team was 10-3 in 2021 with two blowout losses to Utah within a 3-week span that dropped Oregon from No. 3 in the college football playoff committee rankings to a season-ending rank of 14. The latter loss was a 38-10 setback to the Utes in the PAC-12 Championship game. In four seasons with the Ducks, Cristobal was 35-13 over-all and 23-9 in conference games with a 2-2 bowl record. WR coach Bryan McClendon was named interim head coach for the Alamo Bowl game.

Diaz led Miami to a 5-1 finish in 2021 to end the season at 7-5 and in 2nd-place in the ACC's Coastal division. He was 21-15 in 3 seasons without much to work with as the program was hampered by Covid in 2020 and consistently riddled with injuries. He was 16-9 in the ACC, but 0-2 in bowl games.

On Friday, December 10, the Virginia Cavaliers' website announced Clemson's offensive coordinator, Tony Elliott, as the new head coach in Charlottesville. Elliott spent 11 seasons at Clemson which won national titles in 2016 and 2018 and six straight ACC titles from 2015-2020.  He replaces Bronco Mendenhall who  issued his resignation as head coach on Thursday, December 2. Mendenhall was going to coach the team in its bowl game that would have been the fourth bowl appearance in-a-row for the Cavaliers, but they had to pull out of the Fenway Bowl due to Covid iussues. The coach said his motives were nothing more than wanting to take a pause after 31 straight seasons as an assistant and head coach, and spend more time with his wife. The high water mark came in 2019 when Virginia was 9-3 in the regular season and ended a 15-year losing streak to rival Virginia Tech. But that team ended its season with a blowout 62-17 loss to Clemson and a 36-28 loss to Florida in the Orange Bowl to drop to 9-5. Mendenhall is a pedestrian 36-38 at Virginia, and just 22-27 in ACC games. He has a 1-2 bowl record with the school. Mendenhall, who has career records of 135-81 overall and 7-7 in bowl games, surprisingly left BYU after the 2015 season to fill the vacancy at Virginia when Mike London resigned.

Also on Friday (December 10), Duke announced the hiring of Mike Elko as its new head coach. He replaces David Cutcliffe who was 77-97 over-all and 35-79 in the ACC in 13 seasons. Cutcliffe and Duke mutually separated on Sunday (November 28) after a third straight losing season (3-9) that included a winless ACC campaign (0-8). Elko has been Jim Fisher's defensive coordinator at Texas A&M for the last four seasons,

Nevada on Friday (December 10) named Oregon co-defensive coordinator Ken Wilson as its new head coach after Jay Norvell quit earlier in the week (Monday, December 6) to fill the same the position at Colorado State. The Ram's job became available when Steve Addazio was fired on December 2 after a woeful two-season record of 4-12, including 3-9 in the Mountain West. Meanwhile, Norvell's Nevada squad was 8-4 and he leaves Reno with a 5-year records of 33-26 overall and 23-17 in the MWC. Running backs coach Vai Taua was named interim head coach for the Wolf Pack's Quick Lane Bowl game against Western Michigan on December 27 which Nevada lost 52-24.

It was announced on the school's website on Thursday (December 9) that Mike MacIntyre is the new head coach at FIU. He was the consensus national coach of the year in 2016 after guiding Colorado to a 10-4 finish and the Pac-12 South Division Title. While with San Jose State, MacIntyre led the Spartans to the program's first ranking in the final BCS standings (No. 24) following a 10-2 mark in 2012. Each of those would be his only winning season at those schools and he has a career record of 46-65. MacIntyre spent the last two seasons as defensive coordinator at Memphis after holding the same position at Ole Miss in 2019. He's a Miami, Florida native. MacIntyre replaces Butch Davis.

On November 15, it was revealed that FIU (1-9) and Butch Davis would part ways at the end of the season. According to USA Today, the school earlier this year had posted a job opening for head coach on its own website, as well as the American Football Coaches Association website (story). He was permitted to finish out the season, but lost both remaining games to fall to 1-11. The Panthers won just 1 of their last 19 games under Davis and that was against FCS member LIU at the start of the 2021 season.

Things have officially gone full circle at Fresno State where Jeff Tedford on Wednesday (December 8) was hired for a second time to lead the Bulldogs. Tedford replaces Kalen DeBoer who replaced Tedford when Tedford took a sabbatical for health reasons after the 2019 season. DeBoer was poached by Washington (November 29) after announcing the dismissal of Jimmy Lake on November 14. Lake had been suspended for 6 games for a physical altercation with an Oregon player, and one of his own, while breaking up a skirmish during the Huskies' 26-16 loss. He was not permitted to be with the team for the following week's 35-30 loss to Arizona State and was fired the next day. Lake was the HC for less than two seasons, finishing 7-6 overall and 6-4 in the conference. Bob Gregory, the defensive coordinator in his 8th season as a Washington assistant, was named interim head coach as the team lost its last three games to finish 4-8. DeBoer was 12-6 at Fresno State after going 67-3 at Sioux Falls when it was a D3 school. That gives him an insane 79-9 mark over-all. Lee Marks was named interim head coach for the bowl season and he led the team to a 31-24 New Mexico Bowl win over UTEP.

The Oklahoma website on Monday morning, December 6 announced Clemson defensive coordinator, and former Sooners DC, Brent Venables as its new head coach. The 50-year old Venables spent 12 seasons in Norman from 1999-2011 under former head coach Bob Stoops , the last eight of which he wore the titles of assistant head coach, defensive coordinator and linebackers coach. He has spent the last 10 years at Clemson with the same responsibilities. He replaces Lincoln Riley who promptly resigned on Sunday, November 28 and headed to Los Angeles to become head coach at USC. Stoops was named interim head coach for the bowl season. Riley was 55-10 at Oklahoma while losing 2 games every season. He was 37-7 in Big 12 play and just 1-3 in bowl games. He's the first HC to leave OU for another program since 1946.

On Sunday, December 5, Louisiana promoted from within and announced Michael Desormeaux as its new head coach, effective immediately. Desormeaux has been on the staff of the Ragin' Cajuns for the past six seasons and served as co-offensive coordinator this past season.

Desormeaux replaces Billy Napier who was announced as the new head coach of Florida on Sunday (November 28), a move that became effective after Louisiana won the Sun Belt Championship game against Appalachian State on December 4. Napier was 40-12 with the Ragin' Cajuns, including 12-1 this year. Over the last three seasons, his teams were 33-5 over-all, 22-2 in the Sun Belt, and 2-0 in bowl games. Louisiana went on to defeat Marshall in the New Orleans Bowl in Desormeaux's debut as head coach as the team finished the season on a 13-game winning streak..

Dan Mullen was fired from Florida on November 21 on the heels of a 24-23 loss to Missouri. The loss dropped the Gators to 2-9 against Power 5 teams since the final 3 games of 2020. Mullen departed with records of 34-15 overall and 21-13 in the SEC. His career marks are 103-61 overall and a pedestrian 54-52 in the SEC.  Interim head coach Greg Knox became the fourth person to lead Florida in the past 8 seasons and he led the Gators to a 24-21 win over Florida State to prevent the 'Noles from becoming bowl eligible. Just a year ago, Florida played Alabama tough in the SEC Championship game, but the Gators lost virtually all of their skill players from that team and they were just 5-6 at the time of Mullen's dismissal.

Akron officially announced Joe Moorhead as its new head coach on December 4. The Oregon offensive coordinator was fresh off a second crushing loss to Utah in three weeks, falling 38-10 in the PAC-12 title game after losing 38-7 two weeks prior. Akron fired Tom Arth on November 4 after he spent just 27 games as head coach. Akron was 2-7 at the time and finished 2-10, losing its final three games under interim head coach Oscar Rodriguez, Jr. Moorhead has had two previous stints as a head coach, spending just two seasons in that position at Mississippi State where he was 14-12 over-all and 3-9 in the SEC in 2018-2019, and four seasons at FCS member Fordham where he had a sterling 38-13 record with an 11-1 mark in the Patriot League and 3 FCS playoff appearances.

On Friday, December 3, Troy named Jon Sumrall as its new head coach. The former Troy assistant (2015-2017) helped spearhead the Trojan's 24-21 upset at LSU on September 30, 2017 when he was the assistant head coach under Neal Brown. Sumrall has spent the past three seasons at Kentucky where he was recently promoted to defensive coordinator. Troy announced on Monday, November 22 that Chip Lindsey had been fired. He was 15-19 in three seasons and 5-6 this year. Defensive coordinator Brandon Hall was named interim head coach, under whom the Trojans lost their final game of the season 37-10 at Georgia State.

On Wednesday night (December 1), numerous reports surfaced that Notre Dame has promoted Brian Kelly's defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman to head coach. The official announcement came two days later. It's not who we thought it would be (Luke Fickell), but it has Cincinnati ties as Freeman joined the Irish staff this year after serving four years as defensive coordinator and linebackers coach under Fickell for the Bearcats.

It's a continuation of the chaos that began Sunday, November 28 and Monday, November 29, which may go down in history as the craziest two days in college football for head coaching changes. It all started with the Sunday, November 28th announcement that Lincoln Riley was leaving Oklahoma to go to USC, and Billy Napier was going from Louisiana to Florida. Then, it snowballed on Monday, November 29th with reports that Brian Kelly is leaving Notre Dame to go to LSU.

Kelly said goodbye to his players Tuesday morning, November 30th and then headed to Baton Rouge. The winningest coach in Notre Dame history leaves behind a team that isn't out of the running to make the College Football Playoffs. But, Kelly's departure could give that very same committee a pause for concern. In his 12 seasons at the helm of the Irish, Kelly amassed records of 92-39 over-all, and went 9-0 as a Covid year member of the ACC in 2020. The only perceived negatives could be a 5-5 bowl record that includes a 0-2 mark in the playoffs.

It was announced on October 17 that Ed Orgeron (4-3) would stay as head coach at LSU through the end of the 2021 season, but a nationwide search for his replacement was already underway. LSU finished the season 6-6 and it was announced that offensive line coach Brad Davis would lead the team in its bowl game. Orgeron's team won the national championship in 2019, but was 11-11 since then. His records at LSU were 51-20 overall and 31-17 in the SEC. For his career, Orgeron is 67-47.

Virginia Tech announced Brent Pry on Tuesday (November 30) as head coach of the Hokies where he will replace Justin Fuente who was fired with two games left to play in the regular season. Interim head coach J.C. Price led his Alma mater to a 29-24 upset win at Virginia to become bowl eligible after Fuente's 2020 team ended a 27-season bowl appearance streak. Price will be kept as associate head coach. Just when everyone was expecting Alabama OC, and former Penn State/Houston Texans HC, Bill O'Brien to be announced, Virginia Tech flipped the script and went with defense, giving Pry his first head coaching gig. He launched his coaching career as a grad assistant at Virginia Tech under Frank Beamer and Bud Foster from 1995-1997 and spent the last 8 seasons as defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at Penn State.

Fuente spent a tremendous amount of time on the hot seat and the school announced he was fired on November 16. Fuente's time in Blacksburg started out hot, going 10-4 in 2016, capturing the Coastal division title and winning the Belk Bowl. But that success was never repeated and he was just 24-23 over the last four years, including an 0-3 mark in bowl games. Not only did the bowl streak came to an end on his watch, but a 15-year winning streak over state rival Virginia ended in 2019 and his teams also endured losses to Liberty and Old Dominion, a pair of non-Power 5 schools in the state. He was 43-31 overall with the Hokies and 28-20 in the ACC. He is 69-54 in his career.

Louisiana Tech on Tuesday (November 30), named Sonny Cumbie as its new head coach. He was 1-3 as the interim head coach at Texas Tech after Matt Wells was fired mid-season. On Friday (November 26), Louisiana Tech said it will part ways with Skip Holtz after nine seasons in Ruston. Holtz was permitted to lead the Bulldogs in their last game, which they lost 35-31 at Rice to finish 3-9. His records in Ruston were 64-50 over-all and 43-27 in Conference USA.

Temple fired Rod Carey after a 3-9 season on Monday (November 29). After his inaugural team went 8-4 in the 2019 regular season, that team was clobbered 55-13 by North Carolina in the Military Bowl and the Owls proceeded to lose 15 of their next 19. He leaves with marks of 12-20 overall and 7-16 in the American Conference. Carey's over-all record is 64-50.

Also on Monday (November 29), Rhett Lashlee was announced as Sonny Dykes' replacement with SMU.  Lashlee was Miami's offensive coordinator in 2020 and 2021 after previously serving as OC under Dykes at SMU in 2018 and 2019. The day after Thanksgiving (November 26), SMU lost Dykes to Metroplex rival TCU, but Dykes was allowed to coach his teams' last game which it lost 34-31 at home to Tulsa. Dykes' SMU team lost 4 of its last 5 games to finish 8-4 and he leaves the school with records of 30-18 over-all and 18-13 in the American Conference. He is 71-63 in his career.

On Sunday (November 28), USC announced Lincoln Riley as its new head coach. He replaces Clay Helton (fired after a 1-1 start) and Donte Williams who went 3-6 in the interim role.

It didn't take long for Helton to find a new head coaching gig, though he moved across the country and out of the Power 5 to fill the vacancy at Georgia Southern. Helton became the first head coach to be fired in 2021. The announcement came on September 13, two days after a 42-28 loss at home to Stanford as a 17.5-point favorite. The Trojans had been preseason-tabbed as national champion material by the Congrove Computer Rankings at CollegeFootballPoll.com. Helton was originally named interim head coach in 2015 after Steve Sarkisian was let go five games in to the season and was later elevated to head coach. Helton's teams won 3 PAC-12 South titles and the 2017 conference championship. He was 46-24 overall and 36-13 in conference play.

Georgia Southern Director of Athletics Jared Benko on September 26 announced that they were parting ways with head coach Chad Lunsford, who had led the Eagles to a 28-21 overall record in four-plus seasons. On November 2, Georgia Southern announced Helton was the new head coach in Statesboro. Cornerbacks coach Kevin Whitley was appointed interim head coach after Lunsford's dismissal and went 2-6 after starting 1-3 under Lunsford.

On Saturday (November 27), Doug Martin led New Mexico State to a 44-27 win over UMass in what turned out to be his final game. The school announced after the game that Martin would not be retained. The only other win in 2021 came against FCS member South Carolina State. Martin was 25-74 in nine seasons with the Aggies as the school bounded from independent status to the Sun Belt and back to being an independent. It was later announced that Jerry Kill will replace Martin. The former Minnesota head coach went 2-2 as the interim head coach at TCU after Gary Patterson was fired.

Also on Saturday (November 27), Washington State removed the interim tag from Jake Dickert, the day after the Cougars won the Apple Cup rivalry game against Washington. Dickert guided the Cougars to a 3-2 finish and bowl eligibility (7-5) after Nick Rolovich and several assistants were fired on October 18 for failing to get vaccinated by the state-imposed deadline. Rolovich was 4-3 this season after a 1-3 inaugural campaign during the shortened 2020 Covid season.

Don Brown on Monday, November 22 was named the head coach at UMass for a second time, replacing Walt Bell who was fired on November 7. Bell was 2-23 in less than three full seasons in Amherst and was dismissed the day after a 35-22 loss at home to FCS Rhode Island. Alex Miller was named interim head coach and UMass lost to another FCS program in his first game, bowing 35-10 to Maine. UMass finished the season 1-11. Brown was 43-19 in his first stint from 2004-2008 when UMass was in the FCS. His 2006 team made it to the NCAA Championship, losing 28-17 to Appalachian State. Brown left in 2009 to become the defensive coordinator at Maryland and subsequently had the same role at UConn (2011-2012), Boston College (2013-2015), Michigan (2016-2020) and Arizona (2021).

UConn on November 11 announced the somewhat surprising hiring of Jim Mora as head coach to the tune of a reported $1.1 million a year in total compensation. By contrast, his contract at UCLA called for him to earn $3.5 million. Mora led the Bruins from 2012-2017 where he went 37-16 in his first 4 seasons, but just 9-14 in his last two before getting fired prior to the final game of the 2017 campaign. He had the same history in Atlanta, where he led the Falcons to a division title in his first campaign 2004 (11-5), but followed that up with campaigns of 8-8 and 7-9. In his lone season at Seattle (2009) the Seahawks were 5-9. At UConn, Mora immediately becomes an assistant so he can get acquainted with the players and his new digs, as well as get a head start on recruiting. He officially takes the reins as head coach on November 28.

After just two games of the 2021 season, Randy Edsall resigned on September 6 as the head coach of UConn and his DC, Lou Spanos, was appointed interim head coach. Under Spanos, the Huskies went 1-9 with the only victory against FCS member Yale. Edsall was hired for a second stint as head coach in December of 2016, but failed to recapture the magic of his 1999-2010 tenure when he oversaw the transition from the FCS to the FBS (classified as 1-AA and 1-A at the time). Edsall was 74-70 in his first stint, but just 6-32 since being rehired. He was lured away by Maryland after leading UConn to the Fiesta Bowl in 2010, but couldn't duplicate the success he had with the Huskies. He was fired by Maryland halfway through the 2015 season. Overall, Edsall is 96-104 as a head coach.

Texas Tech on November 8 announced that Baylor associate head coach Joey McGuire had been hired as the successor to Matt Wells and he will begin assembling a staff immediately. Sonny Cumbie served as interim head coach through the rest of the season and was 1-3. Wells was fired on October 25 after a 5-3 start at a program that was expected to finish 4-8. Wells came to the Red Raiders after a six-year stint at Utah State where was twice named conference coach of the year and finished 44-34. At Lubbock, his first two teams each won 4 games, but Texas Tech jumped out to a 4-1 start this season. Wells was 13-17 over-all in Lubbock and just 7-16 in the Big 12.

TCU on October 31 effectively fired a head coach with a 181-79 record and championships in Conference USA, the Mountain West and Big 12 (shared, 2014). Gary Patterson was asked to finish out the season and then accept being reassigned, but the man who has coached the Horned Frogs for 20 seasons + 9 games said, "No', and parted immediately. Since starting 7-0 in 2017, TCU has been a .500 ball club (25-25). Jerry Kill, Patterson's longtime friend, best man at his wedding, and an off-field assistant at TCU since 2020, took the reins as interim head coach and went 2-2. Kill was a former head coach at Minnesota before epilepsy forced him to step down and he hadn't served in an on-field capacity since 2017 when he was the OC at Rutgers.

2021 Coaching Changes

Team	2020 Coach (Record)	2021 Coach (Record)
Arizona	Kevin Sumlin (0-5), I Paul Rhoads (0-0)	Jedd Fisch (1-11)
Arkansas State	Blake Anderson (4-7)	Butch Jones (2-10)
Auburn	Guz Malzahn (6-4), I Kevin Steele (0-1)	Bryan Harsin (8-5)
Boise State	Bryan Harsin (5-2)	Andy Avalos (7-5)
Buffalo	Lance Leipold (6-1)	Maurice Linguist (4-8)
Illinois	Lovie Smith (2-5), I Rod Smith (0-1)	Bret Bielema (5-7)
Kansas	Les Miles (0-9)	Lance Leipold (2-10)
Louisiana-Monroe	Matt Viator (0-10), I Scott Stoker (0-0)	Terry Bowden (4-8)
Marshall	John 'Doc' Holliday (7-3)	Charles Huff, Jr. (7-6)
Ohio	Tom Solich (2-1)	Tim Albin (3-9)
South Alabama	Steve Campbell (4-7)	Kane Wommack (5-7)
South Carolina	Will Muschamp (2-5), I Mike Bobo (0-3)	Shane Beamer (7-6)
Southern Miss	Jay Hopson (0-1), I Scotty Walden (1-3), I Tim Billings (2-3)	Will Hall (3-9)
Tennessee	Jeremy Pruitt (3-7)	Josh Heupel (7-6)
Texas	Tom Herman (7-3)	Steve Sarkisian (5-7)
UCF	Josh Heupel (6-4)	Guz Malzahn (9-4)
Utah State	Gary Andersen (0-3), I Frank Maile (1-2)	Blake Anderson (11-3)
Vanderbilt	Derek Mason (0-8), ITodd Fitch (0-1)	Clark Lea (2-10)

On Wednesday, July 14, Frank Solich announced his immediate retirement after 16 seasons as the head coach of the Ohio Bobcats. Solich cited health issues as the reason for his decision and the school immediately promoted Solich's long-time OC Tim Albin as his replacement. Solich was 115-82 overall, 77-46 in the MAC. His career record was 173-101.

Kansas on April 30 named Lance Leipold as its new head coach, two months after Les Miles was fired. Buffalo replaced Leipold with Michigan's recently-hired  Maurice Linguist a week later on  May 7.

Leipold was 37-33 at Buffalo in 6 seasons. Over the last three season, his teams finished 24-10 and captured two MAC East titles, but lost in both conference championship games. Last year, Buffalo went 5-0 during the regular season, but lost 38-28 to Ball State in the MAC Championship game. The Bulls finished the year with a 17-10 win over Marshall in the Camellia Bowl for a second straight bowl win for Leipold. The Bulls defeated Charlotte 31-9 in the 2019 Bahamas Bowl.

Linguist, Buffalo's new head coach was just hired in January as Michigan's new defensive coordinator. He spent the 2020 season as the DB coach with the NFL's Dallas Cowboys. The 37-year-old played in the defensive backfield for Baylor from 2003-2006. He's had a different place to work almost every year since beginning his coaching career in 2007 as a graduate assistant at Baylor, but he spent two seasons with the Bulls back in 2012 and 2013 as a DB coach, co-DC and recruiting coordinator.

Miles was forced out by Kansas on March 8, and athletic director Jeff Long' agreed to depart two days later. On March 11, the school named Emmett Jones, a three-year assistant with the program, as interim head coach. Kurt Watson served as interim AD until Travis Goff was hired on April 7. Offensive coordinator Mike DeBord had been serving as 'acting' head coach ever since Miles was put on administrative leave two days prior. DeBord was among those interviewed for the interim position.  The dust-up began when USA Today uncovered previous allegations of misconduct by Miles at LSU, centered around complaints by female students. After an internal investigation at LSU was concluded in 2013, then-athletic director Joe Aleva recommended Miles be fired but the school instead reportedly banned him from communicating with, or being alone with, female students. Miles was fired 3 years later after a 2-2 start to the 2016 football season. Kansas was 0-9 last season under Miles and just 3-18 in his two seasons in Lawrence. His teams were 1-16 in Big 12 play. For his career, Miles' won-loss record is 145-73 overall.

We all thought the last college football opening in the FBS had been filled after UCF announced the hiring of Gus Malzahn on February 15. The former Auburn head coach inked a deal reportedly worth $2.3 million per year over 5 years, according to ESPN's Andrea Adelson. Malzahn will reap a buyout from Auburn of $21.7 million, half of which he has already banked, after being fired on December 13 following a 6-4 campaign. Malzahn was 68-35 overall at Auburn, and 39-27 in SEC play. In his first season in 2013, he took a 3-9 team from the previous year and went 12-2 with a division title, an SEC title, and a 34-31 loss to Florida State in the final BCS Championship game. Since then, the Tigers have won a single division title (2017) while Alabama has dominated the division and the conference. However, Malzahn was 3-5 against the Tide while everyone else in the SEC went 3-60 against Nick Saban. Defensive coordinator Kevin Steele was handed the reins as interim head coach for Auburn's 35-19 Citrus Bowl loss to Northwestern.

Tennessee announced on Wednesday, January 27th that it had plucked Josh Heupel from UCF to serve as its new head coach. The Vols had fired Jeremy Pruitt on January 18 "with cause", along with numerous assistants, for alleged NCAA violations. The dismissal "with cause" prevented Pruitt from receiving a buyout settlement, but will almost surely result in a lawsuit. Pruitt, a former Alabama assistant, was hired by Tennessee on December 7, 2017. His teams at Tennessee were 16-19 overall, 10-16 in SEC play, and 1-0 in bowl games. Since 2017, Butch Jones, Brady Hoke (interim) and Pruitt have combined to go 21-28 overall and 10-24 in the SEC.

Heupel spent 3 seasons in Orlando leading the Golden Knights to a 28-8 record over-all, a 19-5 record in the American Conference, and a 1-2 mark in bowl games. 

Former Boise State linebacker Andy Avalos (2001-2005) was named on Tuesday (January 12) as the new head coach of the Broncos, succeeding Bryan Harsin. He was also an assistant with Boise State from 2012-2018, but spent the last two seasons at Oregon as defensive coordinator under Mario Cristobal. As a player, he led the Broncos in tackles every year from 2002–2004. Harsin resigned to take the head coaching job at Auburn on December 22 after Gus Malzahn was fired on December 13. Harsin was 69-19 at Boise State where his teams won Mountain West conference championships in three of his seven seasons, Harsin was a backup quarterback at Boise State in the late 1990's, but played sparingly.

Marshall on Sunday, January 17, announced the hiring of another Nick Saban disciple, Charles Huff, as head coach of the Thundering Herd. Huff was associate head coach as running backs coach for the Tide over the past two seasons. The former Hampton walk-on (2001-2005) has also spent time as an assistant with Penn State and Mississippi State, among other institutions. He becomes the 13th Alabama assistant hired as a head coach in the past 14 years.

The opening at Marshall was created when the school declined to renew the contract of Doc Holliday (announced on Monday, January 4). Holliday had an 11-year tenure in Huntington that produced records of 85-54 over-all and 55-30 in Conference USA. The move is more than a bit surprising, given that the Thundering Herd just played in the conference championship game for the first time since 2014. Marshall began the season 7-0 but ended on a 3-game losing streak, bowing to Rice, UAB (title game) and Buffalo in the school's third straight Gasparilla Bowl. Holliday's teams were 6-2 in bowl games, losing the last two. He leaves as the second-winningest coach in school history (Bob Pruett, 94-23).

On Saturday, January 2nd, it was reported that Tom Herman had been fired from Texas -- after the school had publicly announced on December 12 he would be retained.  The only thing that happened since then was a 55-23 demolition of Colorado in the Alamo Bowl. Apparently, the wheels were turning behind the scene as reports that Alabama offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian will be hired as his replacement quickly became confirmed by the school. Sarkisian stayed with the Tide through the national championship win over Ohio State, 52-24, on January 11. Herman spent four seasons in Austin that produced records of 32-18 over-all and 22-13 in Big 12 play. His teams were 4-0 in bowl games. 'Sark' was 34-29 at Washington from 2009-2013, a  job he left to become head coach at USC (12-6). But the job with the Trojans didn't last long as he was fired five games into his second season for alcohol problems. He sough rehabilitation and resurfaced as an Alabama assistant in 2016, spent two seasons with the Atlanta Falcons, and returned to the Tide in 2019. He was 1-0 this season as a head coach when he served in that capacity for the Auburn game after Saban tested positive for Covid-19.

On Wednesday, December 23, a 24-year career assistant landed his first job as a head football coach when Jedd Fisch was announced as Kevin Sumlin 's replacement at Arizona. His coaching career includes stints with the New Jersey Red Dogs of the Arena League, before moving on to multiple NFL stops. He spent this season as the QB coach for the New England Patriots. Periodically, his career also involved stops at some of the premier college programs in the nation, including UCLA, Miami and Michigan. This is his first head coaching gig.

Arizona fired Kevin Sumlin on Saturday, December 12, the day after a 70-7 beatdown was administered by rival Arizona State for the Wildcats' 12th straight loss. Sumlin's record slouched to 9-20 in 3 seasons and 0-3 against the school's rival. Sumlin never had a losing campaign at Texas A&M, but only topped the .500 mark in SEC games one time. He had only 1 losing year in 4 seasons at Houston. His 2011 Cougars' team was 12-0 before losing to Southern Miss in the Conference USA Championship game. A week later, he resigned to take the A&M job, but was fired by the Aggies after a 7-5 season in year 6.

On Wednesday, December 23, Louisiana-Monroe announced Terry Bowden as its replacement for Matt Viator. Bowden brings a 25-year career record of 175-114-2 (.605) to the Warhawk's program, including marks of 47-17-1 at Auburn, and 35-52 at Akron. He has Akron's only bowl win in history to his credit, as well as an undefeated season at Auburn (1993). Bowden has served as an offensive analyst at Clemson for the past two seasons.

On December 7, Louisiana-Monroe announced the firing of Matt Viator with one game left in an 0-10 season. He spent 5 years with the Warhawks, going 19-39 overall and 15-24 in Sun Belt games. Defensive coordinator Scott Stoker was announced as the interim head coach for the season finale at Troy on December 17 which was ultimately canceled due to Covid issues.

Illinois on Saturday, December 19, announced former Wisconsin and Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema as their guy to replace Lovie Smith who was fired on December 13. The Fighting Illini were coming off their sixth straight loss in the rivalry series with Northwestern and headed toward their ninth straight losing season with a 2-5 record. Offensive coordinator Rod Smith was named interim head coach as preparation began for the 2020 finale at Penn State which the Illini lost 56-21. Lovie Smith's teams were 17-39 overall and a paltry 10-33 in league games in five seasons with the school with zero winning seasons and a best division finish of fourth.

Bielema was 68-24 with the Badgers from 2006-2012 and led the team to three straight Rose Bowls in his final three seasons before abruptly resigning to take the reins at Arkansas. However, he came nowhere close to repeating that same success with the Razorbacks and was fired with a 29-34 mark in five seasons.

Clark Lea late Monday, December 14, was announced as the new head coach at Vanderbilt, replacing Derek Mason (0-8) and interim head coach Todd Fitch (0-1). Lea stayed with Notre Dame for the rest of the season as its defensive coordinator. He is a Vanderbilt alumnus who played fullback from 2002-2004

Derek Mason was fired on Sunday, November 29, one day after he played a significant role in college football history. Sarah Fuller kicked off for the Commodores to begin the second half, becoming the first woman to see action for a Power 5 school in a college football game in Saturday's 41-0 loss to Missouri. Unfortunately, that was Vanderbilt's 9th straight loss and Mason departs with a record of 27-55 in nearly 7 full seasons. The high water mark was a pair of .500 regular seasons, but both led to bowl losses. The program hasn't had a winning record since the James Franklin days which ended after the 2013 campaign. Todd Fitch, the coordinator of the nation's 109th-ranked offense, takes the interim reins.

On Saturday (December 12), Arkansas State named former Tennessee head coach Butch Jones as the replacement for Blake Anderson who resigned to take the same position at Utah State. Jones had a career record of 84-54 as head coach of the Vols, Cincinnati and Central Michigan and has a 4-2 record in bowl games. He also has 2 MAC titles and 2 Big East titles. He spent the last three seasons on Nick Saban's staff at Alabama. This would seem to be an "out-of-its-league" pickup for Arkansas State and if Jones performs as expected, a Power 5 school will lure him away within 3-4 years.

Blake Anderson resigned as the head coach of the Red Wolves on December 10 to fill the vacancy at Utah State. The Aggies fired Gary Andersen two days after a 34-9 loss at Nevada on Saturday, November 7. The once beloved head coach, who was in his second tenure with the school, had fallen out of favor quickly in Logan after an 0-3 start with all of the losses by 25 points or more. Frank Maile, the assistant head coach and co-defensive coordinator was named interim head coach. He had previously served as the IHC when Matt Wells left to take the Texas Tech job at the end of the 2018 season and led Utah State to a 52-13 New Mexico Bowl win over North Texas. Gary Andersen is 63-70 in his career, including 7-9 since returning to the Aggies. He was 26-24 with the program from 2009-2012. He also had stints of 19-7 at Wisconsin (2013-2014), and 7-23 at Oregon State (2015-2017). He was 4-7 in his first-ever head coaching gig at Southern Utah.

The in-coming Blake Anderson leaves the Red Wolves with a 4-7 thud, his only losing campaign in his 7-year tenure. His teams were 51-37 overall, and 38-18 in Sun Belt play with an outright conference title in  2015 and a co-title in 2016. The Red Wolves went to bowl games in each of his first six yers, going 2-4.

Shane Beamer, son of the legendary Frank Beamer, got his first head coaching gig on Sunday (December 6) when he was announced as Will Muschamp's replacement at South Carolina. The  43-year old protege has been an Oklahoma since 2018 and this season served as assistant head coach for offense, tight ends and H-Backs, according to Soonerports.com. He also "played a role in overseeing special teams". Beamer was an assistant at South Carolina under Steve Spurrier from 2007-2010, coaching cornerbacks, linebackers and special teams.

Muschamp was fired on November 15, the day after a 59-42 loss to Ole Miss dropped South Carolina to 2-5 on the season and named Mike Bobo as his interim replacement for the remainder of the 2020 season. Bobo just joined the program this year as offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach after losing his job as head coach at Colorado State at the of a 4-8 campaign in 2019. Before leaving for Colorado State, Bobo had served as QB coach and later as OC on the Georgia staff from 2001-2014. The Muschamp tenure ends in Columbia with not much to write home about. He was 28-30 over-all, 17-22 in the SEC and a 1-2 bowl record. At Florida from 2011-2014, he was 28-21 overall and 17-15 in the SEC for career marks of 56-51 overall and 34-37 in the SEC with a 1-3 bowl record.

Indiana defensive coordinator, and former South Alabama DC from 2016-2017, Kane Wommack was announced on December 12 as the new head coach at South Alabama. The school fired Steve Campbell on December 6, the day after a 29-0 loss to Troy dropped the Jaguars to 4-7. It was the program's best mark under Campbell who was hired in 2018 to replace the architect of the program, Joey Jones. He leaves with a 9-26 record overall and a 6-18 mark in Sun Belt games. Before taking the job in Mobile, Campbell had zero losing campaigns in 19 seasons as a head coach at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College (won 2007 JUCO national title), Delta State (won 2000 D-2 title), and Central Arkansas (two FCS tournament bids).

Southern Miss and head coach Jay Hopson mutually agreed to part ways after the first game of the Covid pandemic-stricken 2020 football season. The move was announced on Labor Day Monday after the Golden Eagles fell 32-21 at home to South Alabama in the season opener on Thursday, September 3. Hopson was 28-23 in 4+ seasons in Hattiesburg, but the loss to the Jaguars was the 4th straight for Southern Miss after closing the 2019 campaign on a 3-game skid. His teams were 20-12 in Conference USA games and 1-2 in bowl games. Scotty Walden, who was serving as the co-offensive coordinator and WR coach under Hopson, was named the interim head coach and went 1-3 before hel left to take the head coaching job at Austin Peay on October 27. Then, Southern Miss turned to defensive coordinator Tim Billings as interim head coach who went 2-3 to close out the season. On December 2, Southern Miss hired Tulane OC Will Hall to become the new head coach.

2020 Coaching Changes

Team	2019 Coach (Record)	2020 Coach (Record)
Appalachian State	Eliah Drinkwitz (12-1), Shawn Clark (1-0)	Shawn Clark (9-3)
Arkansas	Chad Morris (2-8), I Barry Lunney Jr. (0-2)	Sam Pittman (3-7)
Baylor	Matt Rhule (11-3)	Dave Aranda (2-7)
Boston College	Steve Addazio (6-6), B Rich Gunnell (0-1)	Jeff Hafley (6-5)
Colorado	Mel Tucker (5-7)	Karl Dorrell (4-1)
Colorado State	Mike Bobo (4-8)	Steve Addazio (1-3)
Florida Atlantic	Lane Kiffin (10-3), B Glenn Spencer (1-0)	Willie Taggart (5-3)
Florida State	Willie Taggart (4-5), I Odell Haggins (2-2)	Mike Norvell (3-6)
Fresno State	Jeff Tedford (4-8)	Kalen DeBoer (3-3)
Hawaii	Nick Rolovich (10-5)	Todd Graham (4-4)
Memphis	Mike Norvell (12-1), Ryan Silverfield (0-1)	Ryan Silverfield (7-3)
Michigan State	Mark Dantonio (7-6)	Mel Tucker (2-5)
Mississippi	Matt Luke (4-8)	Lane Kiffin (4-5)
Mississippi State	Joe Moorehead (6-7)	Mike Leach (3-7)
Missouri	Barry Odom (6-6)	Eliah Drinkwitz (5-5)
Nevada-Las Vegas	Tony Sanchez (4-8)	Marcus Arroyo (0-6)
New Mexico	Bob Davie (2-10)	Danny Gonzales (2-5)
Old Dominion	Bobby Wilder (1-11)	Ricky Rahne (0-0)
Rutgers	Chris Ash (1-3), I Nunzio Campanile (1-7)	Greg Schiano (3-6)
San Diego State	Rocky Long (10-3)	Brady Hoke (4-4)
USF	Charlie Strong (4-8)	Jeff Scott (1-8)
UTSA	Frank Wilson (4-8)	Jeff Traylor (7-4)
Washington	Chris Petersen (8-5)	Jimmy Lake (3-1)
Washington State	Mike Leach (6-7)	Nick Rolovich (1-3)

Karl Dorrell was named head football coach for Colorado on Sunday (February 23), replacing Mel Tucker who resigned on February 11 to fill the same position at Michigan State which became available when Mark Dantonio stepped down on February 4.

After a 5-year tenure as UCLA's head coach from 2003-2007, Dorrell has spent all but one of the past 12 seasons in the NFL, mostly coaching wide receivers. That's the position he held last year with the Miami Dolphins where he had just been promoted to Assistant Head Coach on February 20.

Dorrell was 35-27 with the Bruins. He had a standout 10-2 season in 2005, but four seasons of either 7-6, 6-6 or 6-7. He was an assistant on Bill McCartney's Colorado staff in 1992 and 1993, and again under Rick Neuheisel from 1995-1998.

Tucker spent just one season (5-7) as head coach of the Buffaloes.

Dantonio had a 13-year stint at Michigan State that produced records of 115-57 overall, 69-39 in Big Ten games, and 6-6 in bowl games. He is the school's winningest head coach.

Hawaii on January 21 announced it had hired Todd Graham as head coach. He replaces Nick Rolovich who left to fill the same position at Washington State that became available when Mike Leach was lured away by Mississippi State. Graham has 12 years of head coaching experience, including six years at Arizona State in his last gig. He is 95-61 over-all, including 31-23 in conference games. He is 5-5 in bowl games.

Washington State named Rolovich as the new head coach on January 14, 5 days after Leach left for Starkville. Hawaii is coming off a 10-5 season in which it won the MWC West division title and defeated BYU in the Hawaii Bowl. Rolovich was 28-27 in 4 seasons at Hawaii with a 15-17 conference mark and a 2-1 record in bowl games.

Leach leaves Washington State after a 6-7 season, his worst in Pullman since 2014. In all, Leach spent 8 years with the Cougars who hired him 3 years after he had been fired by Texas Tech. Leach has an over-all career record of 139-90. He was 84-43 in 10 seasons with the Red Raiders where his team was co-champs of the conference in his next-to-last season (2008), but he was just 47-33 in Big 12 play. With the Cougars, Leach compiled an over-all record of 55-47 and had just a single co-divisional title in his next-to-last season (2018). His teams were 36-36 in PAC-12 play.

Mississippi State fired head coach Joe Moorehead on January 3. The move came four days after a 38-28 loss to Louisville in the Music City Bowl gave the Bulldogs a losing record. Moorehead spent just two seasons in Starkville, compiling a 14-12 record over-all, a 7-9 mark in SEC play and an 0-2 bowl record.

Baylor on January 16 named Dave Aranda as its news head coach. The LSU defensive coordinator replaces Matt Rhule who moved to the NFL's Carolina Panthers. Rhule took over a Baylor program that went 1-11 in 2017 and led the Bears to a 6-win improvement in 2018. For an encore, his 2019 squad went 11-3 with just one regular season loss to Oklahoma, another loss to the Sooners in the Big 12 Championship game and a Sugar Bowl bowl loss to Georgia. Unfortunately for Baylor fans, that performance caught the attention of NFL teams and Rhule was hired on January 7 as the new head coach at Carolina. At Baylor, Rhule repeated the turnaround success he had at Temple where his first two team was 1-11, but his next three seasons saw the Owls go a cumulative 26-13.

On January 8, Rocky Long stepped down as the head football coach at San Diego State and the administration quickly handed the reins to defensive line coach, Brady Hoke. Long inherited the program from Hoke after the 2010 season when Hoke left to take the head job at Michigan. Long went out in style with a 10-3 season that culminated in a 48-11 whipping of Central Michigan in the New Mexico Bowl. Long was 91-38 overall in 9 seasons at San Diego State with 5 divisional championships (3 outright). His teams were 51-20 in the Mountain West. Long has a career record of 146-107.

New Mexico on December 17 named former punter and safety Danny Gonzales as the successor to Bob Davie to end the ride on this season's coaching carousel. Gonzales spent the last two seasons as Herm Edwards' defensive coordinator at Arizona State. Davie's firing was announced on November 25, but he coached the final game at home versus Utah State which the Lobos lost 38-25. New Mexico was 2-10 overall and 0-8 in the conference in 2019. Davie was 35-64 overall with the Lobos, including a 17-47 mark in the conference over his 8 seasons. This was the third consecutive down year for New Mexico after Davie had gradually led them to a climb which peaked in 2016 with a 9-4 record overall and a share of first-place in the Mountain division.

Also on December 17, Fresno State named Kalen DeBoer as Jeff Tedford's successor. DeBoer was the offensive coordinator of the Bulldogs from 2017-2018 under Tedford, but spent 2019 as the OC at Indiana. resigned due to health reasons on December 6 following a 4-8 season. During a 3-year tenure with the Bulldogs, Tedford had marks of 26-14 overall and 16-8 in conference games. His first two seasons produced 1st-place finishes in the MWC Mountain division and the 2018 conference championship. Tedford replaced Tim DeRuyter after a 1-7 start to the 2016 season which saw the Bulldogs ultimately finish 1-11 with offensive coordinator Eric Kiesau serving as interim, head coach. Tedford then orchestrated an amazing turnaround for the program to a 10-4 season in his first year which culminated in a 17-14 loss at Boise State in the conference championship game.

Memphis on December 15 made Ryan Silverfield its official head coach. Silverfield had been named the interim head coach after Mike Norvell accepted the Florida State gig on December 8. Norvell coached the Tigers to a 29-24 win over Cincinnati in the American Conference championship game. He was 38-15 in four seasons at Memphis, including 24-8 in the conference. Norvell was 12-1 at Memphis this season and led the team to its 3rd straight division title. Silverfield's first game as head coach was a loss to Penn State in the Cotton Bowl.

After firing Taggart on November 3, Florida State installed defensive line coach Odell Haggins as interim head coach. The move came one day after a 27-10 loss to rival Miami at home dropped the Seminoles' record to 4-5 on the season. Haggins was 2-1 in the interim capacity. He had previously gone 2-0 in that capacity after Jimbo Fisher announced his departure prior to the final regular season game in the 2017 season.

Taggart landed at FAU on December 11, replacing Lane Kiffin who left the Owls' nest on December 7 to fill Matt Luke's vacated position with Ole Miss. Taggart was 9-12 overall at FSU and his conference record was 6-9. More disastrous was an 8-12 record vs. FBS teams and a 6-11 record vs. Power 5 Conference teams. He has a career record of 56-62 with five winning seasons and five losing seasons.

In three seasons at FAU, Kiffin was 26-13 overall and 18-6 in CUSA with a 2017 title already under his belt before whipping UAB 49-6 for the 2019 crown. He has a career record of 61-34 that includes a 28-15 mark at USC and a 7-6 record at Tennessee. He was 10-3 with FAU this year, including a 7-1 conference mark in the regular season.

FAU defensive coordinator Glenn Spencer was interim head coach for the Owls in their 52-28 romp at home over SMU in the Boca Raton Bowl.

Ole Miss showed Matt Luke the door on December 1. Luke first took the reins as the interim head coach for the 2017 season after Hugh Freeze resigned just 44 days before the 2017 opener. Luke guided the team to a 6-6 finish that year and the school removed the interim tag on November 26 to make him the next official head coach of the Rebels. Mississippi slipped to 5-7 last season, and further regressed to 4-8 this year. He was 15-21 overall, and only 6-18 in SEC games.

On December 14, Boston College announced Ohio State's co-defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley as its new head coach. Before signing on with the Buckeyes, Hafley spent 7 seasons on the NFL sidelines with Tampa Bay and San Francisco. Wide receivers coach Rich Gunnell will still handle head coaching duties for the bowl game as Hafley will remain with Ohio State through the playoffs.

Boston College fired Steve Addazio on December 1. He was 44-44 overall, but just 22-34 in the ACC. Boston College upset Pitt 26-19 in the regular season finale to finish 6-6 and become bowl eligible. It's the 6th time the Eagles have finished the regular season 6-6 (twice) or 7-5 (four times) in Addazio's 7-year tenure.

Addazio wasn't unemployed for long as Colorado State on Wednesday December 11 named him as Mike Bobo's replacement. CSU and Bobo parted ways on December 4. Bobo had 3 consecutive 7-6 seasons from 2015-2017, but the Rams regressed to 3-9 in 2018. His overall record was 28-35, including a 20-20 mark in MWC games. Bobo was hired after Jim McElwain left to take the Florida head coaching job.

As expected, Marcus Arroyo on December 11 was named the head coach at UNLV. Arroyo spent the last three seasons at Oregon in various offensive coaching capacities. He coached running backs at Oklahoma State prior to that, and also held positions with Southern Miss and Cal. UNLV announced on November 25 that the season-ending game at rival Nevada would be the last for Tony Sanchez as head coach, and the Rebels went out and won that game, 33-30 in OT. Sanchez finished his tenure with a 19-41 overall record in 5 seasons and had a conference mark of 12-27. This year's team was 4-8 overall and 2-6 in the MWC,

Shawn Clark wasn't the interim head coach for long at Appalachian State. On December 11 he was named head coach after having just been named interim head coach on Sunday December 8, the same day Eliah Drinkwitz was hired away by Missouri after just one season in Boone. Clark is a 1998 graduate of App State where he was twice named All-American at offensive guard (1996, 1998) with the Mountaineers. He served as offensive line coach and associate head coach under Drinkwitz. On December 21, Clark's first game as head coach was a 31-17 win over UAB in the New Orleans Bowl.

At Missouri, Drinkwitz replaces Barry Odom who was fired on November 30 after a 6-6 campaign brought his 4-year career mark to 25-25. The program was ruled ineligible for bowl consideration by the NCAA due to self-reported academic violations that occurred in 2015 and 2016. Odom was a linebacker at the school in the late 90s', and held a position with the program every year after that except when he coached high school ball from 2000-2002 and served as Memphis' defensive coordinator from 2012-2014 under Justin Fuente. His teams were 13-19 in SEC games. Drinkwitz spent just one year at Appalachian State, leading the Mountaineers to a 12-1 season that included a Sun Belt championship. He was hired by the Mountaineers when Scott Satterfield left Appalachian State for Louisville after the 2018 season.

USF on December 9, tabbed Clemson's co-offensive coordinator, Jeff Scott. Three years and 5 days after being fired from Texas, Charlie Strong was given the boot from USF on December 1. The Bulls were 10-2 in Strong's first season in Tampa and they reeled off 7 consecutive wins to start the 2018 campaign. However, it was a complete reversal of fortunes with a 4-14 mark in the last 18 games for a 3-year total of 21-16. He was 11-13 in American Conference games. Strong has a career FBS head coaching record of 74-53 if you include his loss to Miami in the 2004 Peach Bowl as the interim head coach of Florida.

Old Dominion on December 9 landed Penn State offensive coordinator Ricky Rahne to succeed Bobby Wilder who resigned on December 2 after a 1-11 season. Wilder was hired in 2007 to re-start a program that had been dormant since 1940 and the first team was fielded in 2009, going 9-2 as a FCS independent. ODU moved up to the FBS in 2013 and hit a high water ark in 2016 with a 10-3 season that was capped off with its only bowl appearance and victory - a 24-20 win over Eastern Michigan in the Bahamas Bowl. Overall, Wilder was 77-56.

UTSA on December 9 announced Jeff Traylor as its new head coach. Frank Wilson was fired by UTSA on December 1 after a 4-year mark of 19-29 that included a 13-19 Conference record. After leading the Roadrunners to consecutive six-win seasons that included a New Mexico Bowl appearance in 2016, the program backtracked to 7-17 over the past two seasons. UTSA was 4-8 this year. Traylor spent the last two seasons as the associate head coach at Arkansas.

Arkansas on December 8 named Sam Pittman as its new head coach, replacing Chad Morris who was fired on November 10. Arkansas had just lost 45-19 at home to Western Kentucky the previous day to drop to 2-8 on the season and extend its current losing streak to 7 games (Lunney was 0-2 as the losing streak grew to 9 in-a-row). The loss to the Hilltoppers, coupled with a 31-24 home defeat at the hands of San Jose State earlier in the season, magnified the depth of Arkansas' problems. Morris was 4-18 in his 22-game tenure. The Hogs have lost 19 consecutive SEC games. Pittman was the assistant head coach and offensive line coach for the Razorbacks from 2013-2015 under Bret Bielema. He spent the last four seasons at Georgia as offensive line coach and was named assistant head coach prior to the 2019 season. 

On December 2, Chris Petersen retired from football head coaching and took a 'leadership advisory' role with Washington after a 7-5 season. Petersen's last game on the sideline was the Las Vegas Bowl which was dubbed the "Chris Petersen Bowl" as it had him facing him fomrer team, Boise State. Washington routed the Broncos in that game, 38-7, to send raise the final 2019 season record to 8-5 and his over-all record with the Huskies to 55-26. He was 34-20 vs. PAC-12 foes and a 2-4 in bowl games at Washington. His career mark is 147-38 for a ridiculous .795 winning percentage. Defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake was immediately named as the next head coach of the Huskies.

It was announced on December 1 that Rutgers and Greg Schiano had reached an agreement for his return as head coach. He was 68-67 from 2001-2011, including 56-33 over his last 7 seasons. During that tenure, he led the Scarlet Knights to 6 bowl games and won each of the last 5. Rutgers had never won a bowl game prior to his arrival and had only played in one. He left to become the head coach of the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers but was fired after going 11-21 in two seasons. Schiano returned to the college sidelines in  2016 as the defensive coordinator of Ohio State for the next three seasons. He spent 2019 unemployed after accepting, then walking away from, the DC position with the New England Patriots.

Rutgers made the first in-season move of 2019 on September 30 when the school fired Chris Ash just four games into the season. Ash was just 8-32 in his tenure, including a 3-26 record in Big Ten play. The move was made a day after the Scarlet Knights were skunked 52-0 by Michigan. Tight ends coach Nunzio  Campanile went 1-7 as interim head coach.

2019 Coaching Changes

Team	2018 Coach (Record)	2019 Coach (Record)
Akron	Terry Bowden (4-8)	Tom Arth (0-12)
Appalachian State	Scott Satterfeld (10-3), B Mark Ivey (1-0)	Eliah Drinkwitz (12-1)
Bowling Green	Mike Jinks (1-6), I Carl Pelini (2-3)	Scot Loeffler (3-9)
Central Michigan	John Bonamego (1-11)	Jim McElwain (8-6)
Charlotte	Brad Lambert (5-7)	Will Healy (7-6)
Coastal Carolina	Joe Moglia (5-7)	Jamey Chadwell (5-7)
Colorado	Mike MacIntyre (5-6), I Kurt Roper (0-1)	Mel Tucker (5-7)
East Carolina	Scottie Montgomery (3-8), I David Blackwell (0-1)	Mike Houston (4-8)
Georgia Tech	Paul Johnson (7-6)	Geoff Collins (3-9)
Houston	Major Appelwhite (8-5)	Dana Holgorsen (4-8)
Kansas	David Beatty (3-9)	Les Miles (3-9)
Kansas State	Bill Snyder (5-7)	Chris Klieman (8-5)
Liberty	Turner Gill (6-6)	Hugh Freeze (8-5)
Louisville	Bobby Petrino (2-8), I Lorenzo Ward (0-2)	Scott Satterfeld (8-5)
Maryland	D.J. Durkin (0-0), I Matt Canada (5-7)	Mike Locksley (3-9)
Massachusetts	Mark Whipple (4-8)	Walt Bell (1-11)
Miami (FLA)	Mark Richt (7-6)	Manny Diaz (6-7)
North Carolina	Larry Fedora (2-9)	Mack Brown (7-6)
Northern Illinois	Rod Carey (8-6)	Thomas Hammock (5-7)
Ohio State	Urban Meyer (10-1), I Ryan Day (3-0)	Ryan Day (13-1)
Temple	Geoff Collins (8-4), B Ed Foley (0-1)	Manny Diaz (0-0), Rod Carey (8-5)
Texas State	Everett Withers (3-8), I Chris Woods (0-1)	Jake Spavital (3-9)
Texas Tech	Kliff Kingsbury (5-7)	Matt Wells (4-8)
Troy	Neal Brown (10-3)	Chip Lindsey (5-7)
Utah State	Matt Wells (10-2), B Frank Maile (1-0)	Gary Andersen (7-6)
West Virginia	Dana Holgorsen (8-4)	Neal Brown (5-7)
Western Kentucky	Mike Sanford (3-9)	Tyson Helton (9-4)

Former Northern Illinois running back Thomas Hammock was introduced on Friday, January 18, as the school's new head coach. Hammock has been the NFL Baltimore Ravens' running backs coach since 2014 and the team ranked 2nd in the league in rushing yards per game this past season. He previously held the same post with Wisconsin and Minnesota, as well as his alma mater. As a player in 2000, Hammock had a stellar season of 1,083 yards rushing and 16 touchdowns, and he followed that up with a 1,096-yard season in 2001.

Also on January 18, Joe Moglia stepped down from Coastal Carolina and handed the reins back over to Jamey Chadwell who went 3-9 as the interim head coach in 2017.

After being left at the altar by Manny Diaz, Temple on Friday (January 11) hired Northern Illinois head coach Rod Carey. First reported by philly.com and confirmed by multiple sources, Carey will leave DeKalb, Illinois and head to the City of Brotherly Love. Diaz was hired by Temple on December 13, but then Miami got shocked by the sudden resignation of Mark Richt on December 30 and Diaz, the Hurricanes' defensive coordinator under Richt, was immediately promoted to head coach .

Carey was 52-30 in 6 seasons at NIU, leading the Huskies to 4 MAC Championship games and winning the conference twice (2014 and 2018). He was 38-10 vs. conference foes. He replaces Geoff Collins who was announced on December 7 as Georgia Tech's replacement for Paul Johnson. Collins spent just two seasons leading the Owls and posted records of 15-10 overall and 11-5 in conference play, but was only 4-5 in non-conference games. Temple won the Gasparilla Bowl in 2017 under Collins, but assistant head coach Ed Foley served as interim head coach of the Owls when they were ripped 56-27 by Duke in this year's Independence Bowl.

Johnson announced his retirement on  November 28, stating that it would become effective after the Quick Lane Bowl game with Minnesota. Georgia Tech lost that game 34-10 and Johnson finished his career with a 189-99 record, including a mark of 83-60 with the Yellow Jackets (51-37 in conference play). Under Johnson, Georgia Tech beat Clemson in the 2009 ACC Championship game, but the title was forced to be vacated as one of the NCAA penalties enforced on the school in July, 2011.

The Hurricanes concluded a 7-6 season with a 35-3 loss to Wisconsin in the Pinstripe Bowl. Richt's first season in Miami in 2016 produced a 9-4 record and a Russell Athletic Bowl (now Camping World Bowl) win over West Virginia. Miami won its last 5 games of 2016 and the first 10 games of 2017, but has since fallen apart. The 'Canes are just 7-9 in their last 16 games. Richt leaves with a 26-13 record over-all and a 16-8 mark in the ACC. He has a career record with Georgia and Miami of 171-64.

The Troy Trojans of southeast Alabama on Friday (January 11th) presented Auburn's 2018 offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey as their new head coach. He was Troy's QB coach in 2010, then returned to high school coaching the next two seasons. He was an Auburn OA in 2013, but was hired by Todd Monken as his OC at Southern Miss for 2014-2015 before holding that same post at Arizona State for a year. Lindsey had accepted the offensive coordinator at Kansas back in December. 

At Troy, Lindsey succeeds Neal Brown whose teams won 10 or more games in each of the last 3 seasons, including 3 bowl victories. He was 35-16 in four seasons and 23-9 in Sun Belt games. His pass-first offense has been dubbed the "NASCAR Spread", though the passing game only ranked 81st in the nation this past season and accounted for only 536 more yards than the running game (2,799 to 2,263).

Brown was hired away from Troy on Friday, January 4 as Dana Holgorsen's successor at West Virginia. Holgorsen resigned on January 2 to fill the opening at Houston. The move came after his 8th season in Morgantown produced a 3-4 finish after a 5-0 start. The Houston job became available when Major Applewhite was unceremoniously let go on December 30 after his team went 1-4 down the stretch to finish 8-5. Both teams were soundly defeated in their respective bowl game with WVU bowing to Syracuse 34-18 and the Cougars getting blown out 70-14 by Army. Holgorsen was the OC and QB coach under Kevin Sumlin in 2008-2009 when Case Keenum threw for over 10,600 yards in two seasons with 88 TD passes. Holgorsen was first hired as the head coach in waiting in December 2010 and he replaced Bill Stewart the following year. In his 8 seasons as head coach, Holgorsen posted a not-so-spectacular record of 61-41 overall and 38-32 in conference play. This past year's 8-4 mark was actually his second-best season with the Mountaineers. Stewart was 9-4 in each of his 3 seasons at WVU. As for Applewhite, his first head coaching gig ends with records of 15-11 overall and 10-6 in the American Conference.

On Friday, December 14 Akron announced Tom Arth as the successor to Terry Bowden. Bowden was fired on Sunday, December 2 after a 4-8 season, the school's worst showing since going 1-11 in his inaugural year at the helm in 2012. Bowden led the Zips to their only bowl win in history in 2015 at the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. He also guided the program to the MAC Championship game last season (lost to Toledo). He leaves with records of 35-52 overall and 23-33 in the MAC. Arth is a graduate and former quarterback of John Carol University near Cleveland where he set every major passing record. As a player, he spent time in the NFL, the WFL the CFL and Arena Football but never found success. He returned to John Carroll has the head coach from 2013-2016, before spending the last two seasons as the head coach at Tennessee-Chattanooga. He was 40-8 with the Wildcats and 9-13 with the Mocs.

North Carolina State offensive coordinator Eliah Drinkwitz was announced as the new head coach at Appalachian State on Thursday, December 13. The 35-year-old succeeds Scott Satterfeld who resigned to take the same position at Louisville (announced December 3). At Louisville, Satterfeld filled the vacancy left by the firing of Bobby Petrino on November 11, two days after the Cardinals fell to 2-8 with a 54-23 loss to Syracuse. Petrino was 77-35 in nearly 5 full seasons with the Cards. This was Petrino's second stint at Louisville as he also served as head coach from 2003-2006, amassing a 41-9 record. Lorenzo Ward was named interim head coach for the final 2 games of the season which Louisville lost 52-10 to N.C. State and 56-10 to Kentucky. Satterfeld was 10-3 with Appalachian State, including a 30-19 win over Louisiana-Lafayette in the first Sun Belt Championship game which was hosted by the Mountaineers. For the 5 years he coached Appalachian State as a FBS team, Satterfeld was 47-16 overall and 34-6 in the Sun Belt. He began his stint with the Mountaineers by going 4-8 in the school's final FCS season in 2013. Appalachian State named defensive line coach Mark Ivey the interim head coach for the bowl season.

The FCS's most successful program in recent history, North Dakota State, has lost head coach Chris Klieman to Kansas State. Klieman's hiring was announced December 10th but he didn't take full control until his Bisons finished their run in the FCS playoffs where he led them to their fourth national title in his five seasons with the Fargo school (beat eastern Washington 38-24 in Frisco, Texas). Kleiman leaves the FCS tied with Jim Tressel (Youngstown State) for the most national titles at that level. Overall, NDSU has won 7 of the last 8 FCS championships. Klieman replaced Craig Bohl at NDSU when Bohl left to become head coach at Wyoming.

Klieman succeeds a legend at Kansas State after Bill Snyder announced his retirement December 2. Snyder has over 40% of all wins in the program's history. The school is 471-600-35 in its football history, but Snyder ended his 30-year reign with a record of 215-117-1. Furthermore, 19 of the school's 21 bowl appearances came under Snyder, including all 9 bowl victories. Snyder briefly retired from 2006-2008 but was called back into service after the 'Cats went 17-20 in those three seasons under Ron Prince. 2018 produced KSU's first losing regular season (5-7) since Snyder's return to the sideline. At 79, Snyder has had recent health issues. He was one of just four current head coaches inducted into the College Football Hall Of Fame. Fittingly, Kansas State plays at Bill Snyder Family Stadium after the field venue was named in his honor at the end of his 2005 season when it was thought he was heading into permanent retirement.

News of Gary Andersen returning to Utah State originally broke on Sunday, December 9 and he was officially introduced as the 'new' head coach two days later. Andersen was the Aggies' head coach from 2009-2012. When he was hired the first time around, Utah State had just finished an 11th-straight losing season and had been to 5 bowl games in its history (none since 1997). He wound up going 26-24, including 11-2 in his last season, with a 1-1 bowl record. His OC, Matt Wells, took his place and he led the Aggies to five more bowl games before he was announced as Texas Tech's new head coach on November 29. Wells left with a 44-34 record in his 6 seasons, including 10-2 this year. Utah State named assistant head coach Frank Maile as interim head coach for the New Mexico Bowl where the Aggies rolled over North Texas 52-13.

When Andersen departed Utah State in 2012, he did so to replace Bret Bielema at Wisconsin where he went 20-7 before surprisingly opting to leave for Oregon State after just two seasons. The situation with the Beavers didn't work out and he was just 7-23 when he and the school mutually agreed to part ways halfway through the 2017 season. Andersen spent the 2018 season as the assistant head coach at Utah.

At Texas Tech, Wells replaces Kliff Kingsbury who was handed his walking papers on November 25. In six seasons, Kingsbury guided the team to just 3 bowl games with the only win coming in his inaugural season in 2013 which was also his best overall season at 8-5. He amassed a 35-40 record, including 16-5 in non-conference games, but just 19-35 in the Big 12. Texas Tech finished 5-7 in 2018 after beginning the year at 5-2. Kingsbury landed on his feet when he was hired as the offensive coordinator at USC on December 4, but came out smelling even more rosy when the NFL's Arizona Cardinals tapped him as their head coach on January 8.

Liberty on Friday, December 7 introduced Hugh Freeze as its new head coach. The scandal-riddled Freeze was hired by the same athletic director, Ian McCaw, who had to resign from Baylor in 2016 amidst all of the fall-out from the massive sexual harassment and rape investigations. Freeze was forced out at Ole Miss in 2016 as a messy trail of public relations issues and NCAA violations dating back to the Houston Nutt era came to a head when it was learned that Freeze had several calls to an escort service found on school-issued phone. The NCAA also cited numerous violations by Freeze and his staff from October 2012 to January 2016 and leveled the most serious charge of lack of institutional control. In response, Ole Miss self-imposed a 2017 bowl ban and other restrictions. The NCAA on December 1 announced its penalties which added 2018 to the bowl ban and a further reduction of scholarships.Freeze was 39-25 in five seasons, but 5-7 in 2016.

Turner Gill unexpectedly retired from Liberty on Monday, December 2, citing the need to care for his ailing wife whom the Roanoke Times website (roanoke.com) reported was diagnosed with a heart ailment in 2016. Liberty completed its first season as a FBS school (Independent) with a 6-6 record. The former Nebraska star quarterback (1980-1983) was a head coach for 13 seasons - 4 with Buffalo, 2 with Kansas and 7 with Liberty. He was 72-84 overall.

Colorado on Wednesday, December 5 hired Georgia defensive coordinator Mel Tucker. He replaces Mike MacIntyre who was fired on November 18, a day after the Buffaloes lost their sixth straight game following a 5-0 start. Kurt Roper was named interim coach for the season finale at Cal which the Buffs lost 33-21 to finish 5-7. MacIntyre was 30-44 overall with the Buffaloes, but just 14-39 in PAC-12 games. 8 of those 14 league wins came in the 2016 season when MacIntyre led Colorado to the conference championship game and was named Coach of the Year by the AP.

Charlotte on Wednesday, December 5 announced Will Healy as the new coach of the 49ers. The school fired Brad Lambert on November 18. The first and only head coach of the 49ers oversaw the development of the program and its quick ascent from the FCS to the FBS. He was 5-6 in each of two seasons as an FCS Independent, but had never won more than 4 games in any of his four seasons at the FBS level until he coached the team one last time when Charlotte visited FAU in the season finale and upset the Owls 27-24 to finish his last season with a 5-7 record, including 4-4 in conference games. His overall was 22-48 and his final conference mark was 8-24. Healy, who turns 34 in January, spent the last three seasons as the head coach of Austin Peay where he was 13-21 with an 0-11 first campaign, an 8-4 second campaign and a 5-6 third campaign.

Urban Meyer on Tuesday, December 4 announced his retirement from Ohio State and presented Ryan Day as his successor. Meyer's retirement became effective after defeating Washington 28-23 in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day. While Meyer was serving a suspension at the start of the season for the lack of action taken earlier in the Zach Smith domestic abuse allegations, Day went 3-0 as interim head coach..Smith was the tight ends coach who was fired in July after a judge issued a protection order that forbade Smith from getting within 500 feet of the accuser who is now his ex-wife. Meyer says the sole reason for his retirement is a health issue he disclosed to reporters in October - an arachnoid cyst in his brain, which causes frequent headaches.

The Smith 'issue' was not the only stain on Meyer's resume during what has been an illustrious coaching career when measured in wins and losses. In fact, Zach Smith was a Graduate Assistant under Meyer at Florida in 2009 when the first instance of abuse came to light - shoving his pregnant wife against a wall.

Among the scores of arrests of Gator football players were the more agregious matters of star RB Chris Rainey texting that it's "Time to die, B----" to an ex-girlfriend, and the ultimate cancer, Aaron Hernandez.

In 2013, Hernandez was enjoying life in the NFL with New England when he was arrested in the offseason for the murder of Odin Lloyd who was dating the sister of Hernandez' fiance. In 2017, Hernandez hung himself in prison after receiving a life sentence for murder.

At Florida, Hernandez was arrested or questioned by police more than once, and he was only one of the 31 Gator players who ran afoul of the law during his tenure. Their alleged crimes included aggravated stalking, domestic violence by strangulation, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and fraudulent use of credit cards. Many were pleaded down and never went to trial.

Far fewer issues of that ilk have been reported at Ohio State where the biggest have been Coach Smith and former star running back Carlos Hyde who was suspended for 3 games for the alleged assault of a woman at bar for which the charge was later dropped.

After the announcement of Meyer's retirement, the college football universe largely glossed over or ignored the litany of 'bad things' that occurred under his management. They speak glowingly of a stellar won-loss record (187-32) and three national titles (two with Florida in the 2006 and 2008 seasons and one with Ohio State in the 2014 season). No one is wrong to tout his accomplishments, but omitting the problems that occurred under his watch are akin to once again sweeping them under the rug.

Suffice it to say, it's a clouded legacy that Meyer leaves behind.

Mike Locksley was officially announced on Tuesday, December 4 as the new head coach at Maryland. He replaces interim head coach Matt Canada who served in that capacity in place of A.J. Durkin who was suspended in August, welcomed back for a day on October 30, and then fired on October 31.  Durkin was suspended August 11, pending a review of the death of redshirt freshman Jordan McNair, an offensive lineman. McNair collapsed on May 29 while running as a punishment, and died June 13. The school's reinstatement of Durkin was met with a strong backlash from members of the student body, government officials and even some team players. In the wake of that response, the school decided it was in the best interest of the university to fire Durkin. At the time of the firing, Canada had led Maryland to a 5-3 record. However, the Terps fizzled down the stretch and finished the season 5-7. Maryland looked past the fact that Locksley was suspended as the head coach at New Mexico for punching an assistant where he also got in hot water over an age and sexual harassment lawsuit that was curiously later withdrawn. He was 1-5 as the interim head coach of Maryland when Randy Edsall was fired in 2015, and he was 2-26 at New Mexico. That's a career head coaching mark of 3-31. If we were grading hires, this one would have a tough time getting above a 'D', especially when Canada deserved to be rewarded with the full-time position.

As of Monday, December 3, Mike Houston is the new man in charge at East Carolina, faced with the task of lifting up a program that has gone 14-34 over the last 4 seasons and just 7-25 in the American Conference. Houston has been the head coach at FCS member James Madison for the previous 3 seasons, winning the 2016 national championship, losing in the 2017 national championship game, and finishing 9-4 this past season for an overall record 37-6. The Pirates fired Scottie Montgomery on November 29 after a 3-8 season and finished the season two days later with a 58-3 loss to N.C. State with defensive coordinator David Blackwell serving as the interim head coach. Montgomery was 9-26 overall and 4-20 in American conference games.

Florida State offensive coordinator Walt Bell was hired Monday, December 3 as the new head coach at UMass. On November 21, UMass announced the mutually agreed upon resignation of Mark Whipple. That action came following a 4-8 campaign in Whipple's 5th season since returning as head coach in 2014. Whipple was reprising the role he held from 1998-2003 when the Minutemen were playing at the 1-AA (now FCS) level and won the 1998 national championship. Whipple was 49-26 during that stint. However, he was only 16-44 the second time around.

Former Florida head coach Jim McElwain is the replacement for John Bonamego at Central Michigan, the school announced on Sunday, December 2. Bonamego was dismissed on November 23, following a 51-13 loss to Toledo that ended the worst season in Chippewas' history. CMU was just 1-11, and 0-8 in the MAC, sending Bonamego packing with an overall record of 22-29, including 15-17 in the conference. The Chips went bowling in each of his first three seasons (2015-2017), though he never finished better than 8-5 and lost all 3 bowl games. Still, CMU hadn't even been to a bowl game since 2012 and the school's all-time bowl,record is just 3-8. Central Michigan last won its division in 2009 when the Chips defeated Ohio in the conference champion game. Central Michigan also won MAC Championship games in 2006 and 2007 and are 3-0 in the championship format era of 1997-present. McElwain was 22-12 when he was fired halfway through his third season at Florida (2015-2017) and was 22-16 while rebuilding the Colorado State program from 2012-2014.

Scot Loeffler, a former Michigan Wolverine QB (1993-1996) who has held offensive coordinator or QB coach assistant positions at several major schools, was hired Wednesday, November 28 as the new head coach at Bowling Green. He has been the OC/QB coach on Steve Addazio's staff at Boston College since 2016. Prior to that, he spent 3 years with Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech. Mike Jinks was fired by Bowling Green on October 14 and Carl Pelini was named interim head coach for the remainder of the season. The Falcons were 1-6 overall and 0-3 in the MAC at the time of Jinks' dismissal. Pelini is a long-term assistant at multiple schools and was the former head coach of FAU where we went 5-15 in less than two full seasons from 2012-2013.

Jake Spavital was announced on Wednesday, November 28 as the new head coach of Texas State,. The West Virginia offensive coordinator gets his first head coaching job, replacing Everett Withers who was fired on November 18, a day after losing by just 5 points to heavily-favored Troy, 12-7. Unfortunately, one close call against a much better team doesn't save you when you are 7-28 after nearly 3 full seasons, and just 2-21 in the Sun Belt. Chris Woods was the interim coach for the season finale at home vs. Arkansas State which the Bobcats also lost.

Mack Brown was confirmed on Tuesday, November 27 as the new hire for a second stint at UNC. The 67-year-old will be inducted into the College Football Hall Of Fame on December 4. He resigned under pressure from Texas 5 years ago. Brown was 69-46-1 in 10 seasons at North Carolina from 1988-1997, but never won an ACC title. He replaced John Mackovic at Texas in 1998 and won Big 12 conference titles in 2005 and 2009 and played for the BCS National Championship in both of those seasons, beating USC in the first and losing to Alabama in the second. He was 158-48 at Texas.

North Carolina fired Larry Fedora on Sunday (November 25) after a 2-9 season. Fedora's Tar Heel teams were 40-25 through his first 5 campaigns (26-14 in the ACC), but was only 5-18 over the last two seasons (2-14 in the ACC). The Tar Heels won the Coastal division title in 2015 and lost 45-37 to Clemson in the ACC Championship game, and followed that loss with a 49-38 setback to Baylor in the Russell Athletic Bowl in Orlando.

Tyler Helton was named on Tuesday (November 27) as the new head coach at Western Kentucky. Helton, who spent the past season as the offensive coordinator at Tennessee, was the offensive coordinator at WKU under Jeff Brohm in 2014 and 2015. If the name Helton is familiar, yes, that is USC head coach Clay Helton's younger brother. The Hilltoppers announced the firing of Mike Sanford on November 25, a day after the team finished the 2018 season with its worst record (3-9) since Willie Taggart's first season in 2010. Sanford was the offensive coordinator at Notre Dame when he was hired away from the Irish after the 2016 season. WKU was 6-7 in his inaugural year, falling under .500 with a loss to Georgia State in the Cure Bowl.

Kansas announced November 18 that Les Miles would take over as head coach following the season. Current head coach David Beatty was told in early November that he would not be retained for 2019, but was asked to coach out the season. At the time of Miles' hiring, Beatty's record was 3-8 for the season and 6-41 over 4 seasons with a Big 12 mark of just 2-33. Les Miles was 114-34 in a little more than 11 seasons at LSU from 2005-2016, and his 2007 team won the BCS national championship. He was fired from his post in Baton Rouge four games in to the 2016 season.

2018 Coaching Changes

Team	2017 Coach (Record)	2018 Coach (Record)
Arizona	Rich Rodriguez (7-6)	Kevin Sumlin (5-7)
Arizona State	Todd Graham (7-6)	Herm Edwards (7-6)
Arkansas	Brett Bielema (4-8)	Chad Morris (2-10)
Central Florida	Scott Frost (13-0)	Josh Heupel (12-1)
Coastal Carolina	I Jamey Chadwell (3-9)	Joe Moglia (5-7)
Florida	Jim McElwain (3-4), I Randy Shannon (1-3)	Dan Mullen (10-3)
Florida State	Jimbo Fisher (5-6), I-B Odell Haggins (2-0)	Willie Taggart (5-7)
Georgia Southern	Tyson Summers (0-6), I Chad Lunsford (2-3), Chad Lunsford (1-0)	Chad Lunsford (10-3)
Kent State	Paul Haynes (2-10)	Sean Lewis (2-10)
Louisiana-Lafayette	Mark Hudspeth (5-7)	Billy Napier (7-6)
Mississippi	Hugh Freeze (5-7, 2016), I Matt Luke (6-6, 2017)	Matt Luke (5-7)
Mississippi State	Dan Mullen (8-4), B Greg Knox (1-0)	Joe Moorehead (8-5)
Nebraska	Mike Riley (4-8)	Scott Frost (4-8)
Oregon	Willie Taggart (7-5), Mario Cristobal (0-1)	Mario Cristobal (9-4)
Oregon State	Gary Andersen (1-5), I Cory Hall (0-6)	Jonathan Smith (2-10)
Rice	David Bailiff (1-11)	Mike Bloomgren (2-11)
SMU	Chad Morris (7-5), Sonny Dykes (0-1)	Sonny Dykes (5-7)
South Alabama	Joey Jones (4-8)	Steve Campbell (3-9)
Tennessee	Butch Jones (4-6), I Brady Hoke (0-2)	Jeremy Pruitt (5-7)
Texas A&M	Kevin Sumlin (7-5), B Jeff Banks (0-1)	Jimbo Fisher (9-4)
UCLA	Jim Mora (5-6), I-B Jedd Fisch (1-1)	Chip Kelly (3-9)
UTEP	Sean Kugler (0-5), I Mike Price (0-7)	Dana Dimel (1-11)

Arizona hired Kevin Sumlin on January 14 as head coach to complete a domino effect of changes that began on November 26 when he was fired by Texas A&M. The Aggies subsequently plucked Jimbo Fisher from Florida State on December 1, leading the 'Noles to hire Willie Taggart  away from Oregon on December 5 after just one season with the Ducks. Oregon filled its position from within by promoting co-offensive coordinator Mario Cristobal on December 8, just 3 days after handing him the interim tag. The Arizona job became vacant when Rich Rodriguez was fired on January 2.

Rodriguez' dismissal came in the wake of a sexual harassment claim that could not be substantiated after an outside law firm investigated the allegation. Rodriguez denied the allegation and the complainant declined multiple requests to participate in the investigation. Nonetheless, the school said it was "in the best interest of the University of Arizona and our athletics department to go in a new direction". Arizona completed a 7-6 season with a loss to Purdue in the Foster Farms Bowl. Rodriguez was 43-35 over 6 seasons with the school, but just 24-30 in PAC-12 play. His best year came in 2015 when the Wildcats won the league's south division title in 2015, but lost 51-13 to Oregon in the conference championship game before falling 38-30 to Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl to finish the year 10-4.

Sumlin was considered to be a prize catch by Texas A&M after he had led Houston to a 12-0 record in 2011 before the Cougars fell to Southern Miss in the Conference USA Championship game. He left Houston with a 35-17 record.

At Texas A&M, Sumlin was 51-26 in 6 seasons, but barely above water in SEC games at 25-23. His first team lost just 2 games, the second lost 4, and each of the last four teams have had 5 losses. The former Texas A&M assistant under R.C. Slocum in 2001 and 2002 was fired from the Aggies the day after a loss at LSU dropped the team to 7-5. Sumlin had led his teams to 9 bowl games in 10 seasons, though he didn't coach in Houston's 2012 Ticket City Bowl win or the Aggies' Belk Bowl loss in December. Tony Levine was Houston's head coach in the Ticket City Bowl win over Penn State, and Jeff Banks served as interim head coach for the Aggies' in a 55-52 loss to Wake Forest in the Belk Bowl.

Five days after Sumlin was fired from A&M, Fisher resigned from FSU and was immediately announced as the head coach of the Aggies. Florida State was just 5-6 when Fisher stepped down, but associate head coach and defensive tackles coach Odell Haggins led the team to a victory over Louisiana-Monroe the next day to get the school to a 36th straight bowl game. Haggins later led FSU to an Independence Bowl win over Southern Miss to save the 'Noles from suffering their first losing season since 1976 which was Bobby Bowden's first year at the school and his only losing campaign.

Fisher was 83-23 overall, 48-17 in the ACC, and 5-2 in bowl games and postseason playoff games. His teams won 3 straight ACC titles from 2012-2014, and the 2013 squad went 14-0 and won the last Bowl Championship Series (BCS) national title. The 2017 team was among the preseason favorites to win another national title, but lost starting QB Deondre Francois in an opening-day loss to Alabama. Florida State won only 3 of its first 9 games. 

With Fisher headed to Texas A&M, the Florida State administrators needed just 4 days to secure Willie Taggart. Oregon had just completed a turnaround 7-5 campaign after the 2016 team had sunk to 4-8 under Mark Helfrich. The former Western Kentucky quarterback, and later WKU head coach, has quickly built a reputation as a man with great recruiting strengths and the ability to rebuild programs in a hurry. While his 47-50 overall record isn't scintillating, his final year at each of the three schools he's coached have produced winning seasons and a combined mark of 24-12.

Cristobal's promotion by Oregon was somewhat surprising as his only previous head coaching experience was at FIU from 2007-2012 where he was 27-47 over-all, 20-26 in the Sun Belt, and 1-1 in bowl games. Cristobal is the third head coach of Oregon in 3 years.

Taggart is now with his 3rd different team as head coach in just under a year. On December 10, 2016, he was the head coach at USF. On the 11th of December in 2016, he was the head coach at Oregon. On December 5, 2017, Taggart moved on to FSU.

Before Arizona's announcement of firing Rodriguez, the last empty seat on the 2018 coaching carousel had been filled on Monday December 18 when Kent State hired Syracuse's Sean Lewis to replace Paul Haynes. Lewis, a Dino Babers protege, served as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach of the Orange for the last 2 seasons and also worked under Babers at Bowling Green and Eastern Illinois. Haynes was fired the day before Thanksgiving (November 23) following a 2-10 season and a 14-45 mark over 5 years at the school. He missed the first two games of 2017 while undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. Offensive coordinator Don Treadwell was acting head coach during that period.

Coastal Carolina announced on January 5th that Joe Moglia will resume his duties as head football coach in 2018 after taking a medical sabbatical during the 2017 season to fight an allergic reaction in his lungs. Jamey Chadwell served as interim head coach as the Chanticleers went 3-9 in their inaugural season in the FBS and the Sun Belt conference.

Louisiana-Lafayette hired Arizona State offensive coordinator Billy Napier as its new head coach on December 15, replacing Mark Hudspeth. The 38-year-old Napier is a former Furman quarterback who has also held assistant coaching positions at Alabama and Clemson. Hudspeth was fired on Sunday (December 3) after a 5-7 season. Hudspeth was 51-38 in 7 seasons, including 4-1 in the only bowl games the school has played in. However, NCAA sanctions for academic fraud and payments to players forced the school to vacate 22 victories from 2011-2014, including wins in the 2011 and 2013 New Orleans bowls.

Sonny Dykes was introduced as the new head coach at SMU on December 12, replacing Chad Morris. Dykes began his tenure with the Mustangs by losing 51-10 to one of the two teams that he previously led as head coach, Louisiana Tech, in the Frisco Bowl. Dykes was 22-15 in three seasons with Louisiana Tech from 2010-2012, ending his stint in Ruston with a bowl-less 9-3 campaign (the WAC only had 2 bowl spots available). He left Louisiana Tech to take over at California where he was fired on January 8, 2017 after four seasons that produced a 19-30 record with just one winning campaign.

Morris was announced as the new head coach at Arkansas on December 6. Hunter Yurachek was named the new Director of Athletics earlier in the day, leaving his Houston post where he was the Assistant Director of Athletics. Morris spent 3 seasons as the head coach at SMU, following a 4-year stint as the offensive coordinator at Clemson. He was 14-22 with the Mustangs, including an 8-16 mark in American Athletic Conference games.

Morris replaces Bret Bielema who was fired immediately after a 48-45 home loss to Missouri on Thanksgiving weekend (November 24). The loss dropped the Razorbacks to a 4-8 finish, including 1-7 in the SEC. in 5 seasons, Bielema's Arkansas teams were a pedestrian 29–34 overall, a woeful 11–29 in the SEC, and 1-2 in bowl games. Bielema left Wisconsin for the Arkansas job in December, 2012 when John L. Smith concluded a pre-arranged one-year campaign Smith stepped in when Bobby Petrino was fired after an April Fool's Day motorcycle accident uncovered an affair with a 25-year-old former Arkansas volleyball player whom Petrino hired to work in the football office. Bielema had significant success at Wisconsin, going 68-24 after replacing the program's savior, Barry Alvarez. In Madison, Bielema's teams were 37-19 in Big Ten games and 2-4 in bowl games.

Tennessee officials on December 7 confirmed the hiring of Jeremy Pruitt as its next head coach. Pruitt began his collegiate coaching career under Saban as the Director of Player Development in 2007 and worked his way up to defensive backs coach before getting his first defensive coordinator gig with Florida State for its 2013 national championship season. Then he was inexplicably off to Georgia for 2 years before returning home to 'Bama for the 2016-17 as the DC for Saban. Pruitt will reportedly stay on with the Tide through their Final Four playoff run while simultaneously handling his new UT head coaching duties. Pruitt replaces Butch Jones who was fired on November 12, the day after a 50-17 loss at Missouri dropped the Vols to 4-6 overall and 0-6 in the SEC. The Vols finished the season with two more losses after defensive line coach Brady Hoke took over in an interim capacity. Jones revitalized programs at Central Michigan and Cincinnati, leading to his hiring in Knoxville where his teams also showed improvement year-over-year until backsliding terribly in 2017. Tennessee was projected to go 9-3 overall and finish second in the SEC eastern division at 6-2.

South Alabama on December 7 plucked Steve Campbell from Central Arkansas where he was 33-15 in 4 seasons. He previously led Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College to a JUCO national title in 2007, and Delta State to the D-2 title in 2000. In 19 seasons as a head coach, Campbell is 159-53 with zero losing seasons. Campbell becomes just the second head coach in the short history of the football program which Joey Jones helped launch in 2009. Jones announced his resignation on November 20 and his 9-year stint ended with a loss at New Mexico State the following Saturday. Under Jones' guidance, South Alabama went 23-4 an a FCS independent over 3 seasons, then moved up to the FBS in 2012 where the Jaguars are now 29-46 overall, 18-29 in the Sun Belt and 0-2 bowl games. South Alabama was 4-8 this season.

UTEP on December 6 announced the hiring of Dana Dimel as head coach. Dimel was the head coach of Wyoming from 1997-1999, and Houston from 2000-2002, but has largely been an assistant coach at Kansas State for most of his career. He replaces Sean Kugler who was in the midst of his 5th season in El Paso when he resigned from his alma mater on October 1 after an 0-5 start. Kugler was 18-36 overall and 11-22 in CUSA games. Former UTEP head coach Mike Price (2004-2012) served as interim head coach for the final seven games and went 0-7. The Miners were the only FBS team to go winless in 2017.

UCF wasted no time naming a replacement for Scott Frost, announcing on December 5 that their new guy is Missouri offensive coordinator Josh Heupel.
UCF's website touts the dramatic improvement of Missouri's offense under Heuple, noting that the Tigers ranked 124^th in the nation in total offense in 2015. After Heupel arrived in 2016, the Tigers led the SEC and were 13th nationally. In 2017, Mizzou ranked No. 7 in the nation in total offense and 10th in scoring at 39.3 points per game. Heupel was the Heisman Trophy runner-up in 2000 when he led Oklahoma to an undefeated season and a national championship with an 11-2 victory over Florida State, though FSU's Chris Weinke won the Heisman.

Frost became Nebraska's next coach on December 2, immediately after UCF beat Memphis in the American Conference Championship game at UCF. Nebraska fired Mike Riley on November 25 after the 'Huskers concluded a 4-8 campaign with a 56-14 loss at home to Iowa in game that was tied 14-apeiece at the half. Riley was 19-19 overall in three seasons in Lincoln, and 12-14 in the Big Ten. Reports said Frost's hire was a done deal earlier in the week, but was kept under wraps out of respect for his current team with a pending conference championship and undefeated season on the line. the Knights won a double-overtime thriller, sealing the deal with an interception on the Tigers' potential game-tying possession. UCF named offensive coordinator Troy Walters as interim head coach for day-to-day operations while Frost tended to Nebraska matters like the early signing period, but Frost coached UCF to a 34-27 upset of Auburn in the Peach Bowl to conclude a 13-0 season.

Rice announced on December 5 that Stanford offensive coordinator Mike Bloomgren will be the next head coach of the Owls. Bloomgren had been on the Cardinal staff since 2011 and, before that, was an NFL assistant with the New York Jets from 2007-2010. Rice fired 11-year head coach David Bailiff on November 27. The program was backsliding since winning the Conference USA title in 2013 when the Owls went 10-4. Over the next four years, Rice went 8-5, 5-7, 3-9 and now 1-11. Bailiff was a cumulative 57-80 overall with a 40-48 mark in Conference USA games. By enrollment, Rice is the 5th-smallest school in the FBS with 6,740 undergrad and post-grad students (2016).

Arizona State named Herm Edwards as its next head coach on December 3. The Athletic Director, Ray Anderson, is Edwards' former agent. Reports said Edwards will keep Todd Graham's staff as dictated by Anderson. Edwards hasn't coached a down of football in any capacity since he last served as head coach of the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs from 2006-2008. His only time as a college coach was spent at San Jose State from 1987-1989 where he was in charge of the defensive backs. His all-time NFL head coaching record is 54-74. He left the New York Jets to join the Chiefs amid a tampering charge, and was fired three years later by Kansas City.

Graham was fired on November 26 by Arizona State after completing a 7-5 regular season (6-3, PAC-12) by defeating state rival Arizona. Graham and his staff stayed on for ASU's Sun Bowl game versus N.C. State, but lost 52-31. Graham's 12-year head coaching career at Rice, Tulsa, Pittsburgh and Arizona State has produced a 95-61 record. With the Sun Devils, he was 46-32 overall, 31-23 in the PAC-12, and 2-3 in bowl games.

Oregon State on November 29 inked a deal with one of its former standout players to become its next head coach. Washington offensive coordinator and quarterback coach Jonathan Smith becomes the first Oregon State grad to serve in that capacity. As a player, Smith was a walk-on who wound up starting 38 games at quarterback and, in 2000, led the Beavers to an 11-1 season that culminated with a 41-9 rout of Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl. It is the school's greatest season since joining the PAC-8/PAC-10/PAC-12 in 1968.

On October 9, Oregon State unexpectedly became the second team to make a head coaching change in the middle of the 2017 season when the school and Gary Andersen agreed to part ways with a complete release from contractual obligations. The Beavers were 1-5 after a 38-10 loss to USC in their last outing and Andersen was just 7-23 overall in Corvallis. His teams were just 3-18 in PAC-12 play. Defensive backs coach Cory Hall was given the interim head coaching tag and went 0-6.

Mississippi State announced on November 29 that it has hired Penn State offensive coordinator Joe Moorehead as the successor to Dan Mullen. On Sunday (November 26), Mullen was named the new head coach at Florida, opening the vacancy at MSU. Running backs coach and special teams coordinator Greg Knox led the Bulldogs to a win over Louisville in the TaxSlayer Bowl.

Mullen spent 9 seasons in Starkville, becoming the school's second-winningest head coach behind Jackie Sherrill. He was 69-46 overall, but just 33-39 in the SEC. His 2014 season was the only one in which the Bulldogs finished above. 500 in the SEC (6-2). He had four seasons of 4-4 finishes and four seasons below .500. But Mullen is a former Gator assistant linked to the Urban Meyer coaching tree. He was Meyer's offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach at Florida from 2005-2008, and Meyer's QB coach at Utah (2003-2004) and Bowling Green (2001-2002).

Florida fired Jim McElwain in mid-season, following Georgia's 42-7 rout of the Gators in Jacksonville on October 28. By Sunday afternoon, McElwain was out and defensive coordinator Randy Shannon was named interim head coach. Administrators said they were irked by McElwain's unsubstantiated comments that family members and players had received death threats. Another catalyst could have been the increase in empty seats at Florida Field as the result of an offense that had been stagnant since the suspension of QB Will Grier for PEDs in October of 2015 (Grier later transferred to West Virginia), or the numerous misdeeds by members of his team, or the perception the team was going backwards instead of improving. Wins shouldn't have been the biggest issue as an ESPN article written by Edward Aschoff and Mark Schlabach pointed out that McElwain had a 22-12 record and was the first coach to take his team to the SEC championship game in each of his first two seasons.

Florida was 3-4 at the time of McElwain's dismissal and the Gators went 1-3 under Shannon's interim guidance. Mullen becomes the eighth person to lead the Gators as head coach or interim coach since Steve Spurrier stepped down after the 2001 season.

Georgia Southern on November 27 removed the interim tag from Chad Lunsford's title. Georgia Southern fired Tyson Summers on October 22 after an 0-6 start on the heels of a 5-7 campaign in 2016. Lunsford has spent a total of 9 seasons with the program, including the last 5. The promotion occurred after the Eagles earned consecutive wins of 52-0 over South Alabama and 34-24 over Louisiana-Lafayette. Georgia Southern finished 2-10 with Lunsford going 2-4.

Matt Luke's season-long audition at Ole Miss paid off as the school removed the interim tag on November 26, making him the next official head coach of the Rebels. He guided the program to a 6-6 season, concluding with a 31-28 upset win over Mississippi State in the annual Egg Bowl rivalry game. It was quite an achievement considering Hugh Freeze resigned on July 20, just 44 days before Ole Miss opened the 2017 season at home versus South Alabama.

Freeze's resignation continued a messy trail of public relations issues and NCAA violations dating back to the Houston Nutt era. The final straw may have been a call to an escort service found on Freeze's school-issued phone after Nutt filed suit against Freeze and Ole Miss in federal court a week earlier for allegedly orchestrating a smear campaign against him. Nutt lost his job after the 2011 season due to a handful of NCAA violations and a woeful final two seasons. The NCAA has cited numerous violations by Freeze and his staff from October 2012 to January 2016 and leveled the most serious charge of lack of institutional control. In response, Ole Miss self-imposed a 2017 bowl ban and other restrictions. The NCAA on December 1 announced its penalties which added 2018 to the bowl ban and a further reduction of scholarships.

Freeze was 39-25 in five seasons, but 5-7 in 2016. His teams were 19-21 in the SEC and finished 5th or worse in the SEC western division in 3 of his 5 seasons. Luke had served alongside Freeze as co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach.

On November 25, UCLA announced Chip Kelly as its new head coach. Kelly replaces Jim Mora who was fired the Sunday after a 28-23 loss to USC. Mora was 3-3 versus the Trojans, winning the first three and losing the last three. His 50% mark against USC was not much different than his career PAC-12 record of 28-26. The problem was that in the last 3 years he was 10-16 in PAC-12 games, 0-3 vs. USC, and just 17-19 over-all. The Bruins became bowl eligible with a 30-27 season-ending win over California with offensive coordinator Jedd Fisch serving as interim head coach. However, Fisch was unsuccessful at guiding UCLA to a bowl win as the Bruins fell 35-17 to Kansas State in the Cactus Bowl.

Kelly was 46-7 in 4 seasons at Oregon, reaching BCS bowls each season and losing 22-19 to Auburn in the 2010 season BCS national title game. He was 33-3 in PAC-10/PAC-12 games, as opposed to Mora's 28-26 mark. Kelly left Oregon to become head coach of the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles from 2013-2015, and the San Francisco 49ers in 2016. He was 26-22 with Philly, 2-14 with the '49ers.

2017 Coaching Changes

Team	2016 Coach (Record)	2017 Coach (Record)
Baylor	I Jim Grobe (7-6)	Matt Rhule (1-11)
California	Sonny Dykes (5-7)	Justin Wilcox (5-7)
Cincinnati	Tommy Tuberville (4-8)	Luke Fickell (4-8)
Coastal Carolina	Joe Moglia (10-2)	I Jamey Chadwell (3-9)
Connecticut	Bob Diaco (3-9)	Randy Edsall (3-9)
FAU	Charlie Partridge (3-9)	Lane Kiffin (11-3)
FIU	Ron Turner (0-4), I Ron Cooper (4-4)	Butch Davis (8-5)
Fresno State	Tim DeRuyter (1-7), I Eric Kiesau (0-4)	Jeff Tedford (10-4)
Georgia State	Trent Miles (2-8), I Tim Lappano (1-1),	Shawn Elliott (7-5)
Houston	Tom Herman (9-3), Major Applewhite (0-1)	Major Applewhite (7-5)
Indiana	Kevin Wilson (6-7)	Tom Allen (5-7)
LSU	Les Miles (2-2), I Ed Orgeron (5-2), Orgeron (1-0)	Ed Orgeron (9-4)
Minnesota	Tracy Claeys (9-4)	P.J. Fleck (5-7)
Nevada	Bill Polian (5-7)	Jay Norvell (3-9)
Oklahoma	Bob Stoops (11-2)	Lincoln Riley (12-2)
Oregon	Mark Helfrich (4-8)	Willie Taggart (7-5)
Purdue	Darrell Hazell (3-3), I Gerad Parker (0-6)	Jeff Brohm (7-6)
San Jose State	Ron Caragher (4-8)	Brent Brennan (2-11)
Temple	Matt Rhule (10-3), B Ed Foley (0-1)	Geoff Collins (7-6)
Texas	Charlie Strong (5-7)	Tom Herman (7-6)
USF	Willie Taggart (10-2), B T.J. Weist (0-1)	Charlie Strong (10-2)
Western Kentucky	Jeff Brohm (10-3), B Nick Holt (1-0)	Mike Sanford, Jr. (6-7)
Western Michigan	P.J. Fleck (13-1)	Tim Lester (6-6)

Coastal Carolina made its FBS debut in 2017 without its head football coach. Joe Moglia announced on July 28 that he was taking a 5-month sabbatical to address a health issue. In his own press release, Moglia said, "For three years now, I have had a bronchial asthmatic reaction to allergies, which causes inflammation around my lungs.  The inflammation restricts the lungs, which could create a serious breathing problem." Moglia expects to be able to return by the end of the season. He appointed offensive coordinator Jamey Chadwell as interim head coach. The Chanticleers were 10-2 in a transition season in 2016.

The college football world was shocked June 7 by the announcement that 56-year-old Bob Stoops is retiring as head coach at Oklahoma, effective immediately. The reins will be handed over to 33-year-old offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley. In 18 seasons in Norman, Stoops compiled an overall record of 190-48, including a 121-29 mark in conference play. Under the direction of Stoops, the Sooners took 9 outright conference titles and 1 co-title. From 2000-2008, Stoops guided the storied program to 4 BCS Championship game appearances and won the 2000 title in just his second year at the school. As for Riley, he was anticipated to be the school's next head coach, but not this soon. Riley had just been granted a 3-year extension on his contract as offensive coordinator in May. Considered to be one of the top offensive guru's in college football, Riley won the 2015 Broyles Award as the nation's top assistant.

Cal on January 14 announced Justin Wilcox as its new head coach, replacing the fired Sonny Dykes. It's the first head coaching job for Wilcox who spent the 2015 and 2016 seasons at Wisconsin as defensive coordinator and previously worked at Cal as linebackers coach (2003-2005) under Jeff Tedford. Cal fired Dykes on January 8, forty-four days after the team finished its season at 5-7. Dykes was 19-30 overall in 4 seasons, but just 10-26 in the PAC-12. His teams never finished above .500 in conference play. In a statement posted on the school's athletics website, Director of Athletics Mike Williams said, "...Coach Dykes clearly built up our program – both on the field and in the classroom – and he leaves Cal in a stronger position than when he arrived... I understand that the timing may not be ideal – it rarely is... We believe that this change will reinvigorate the program, stimulate lagging ticket sales and renewals, and energize our donor base." Thus, it primarily appears to be a financial move, perhaps urged by high-level donors.

On January 13, Western Michigan announced its new head coach would be its own star quarterback from the late 90's, Tim Lester. From 1996-99, the school sports hall-of-fame member (inducted 2011) passed for 11,299 yards and 89 touchdowns while setting 17 school records. This is his second trip back to his alma mater as a coach, having held the QB coach responsibilities in 2005-06. He replaces P.J. Fleck who made the jump from the MAC to the Big Ten when it was announced on January 6 that Fleck was hired to replace Tracy Claeys at Minnesota. That move came just 3 days after Claeys was fired. Claeys sealed his own fate when he tweeted of his support of a players' threatened bowl game boycott when 10 players were suspended in the wake of an ugly sex scandal. The administration stood solidly in support of the decision to keep the suspensions in place, and the head coach's tweet appeared to put him publicly at odds with the administration. The players ultimately backed down when they were assured the suspended athletes would get a fair hearing and the Golden Gophers went on to defeat Washington State in the Holiday Bowl. Claeys was 11-8 overall, 2-0 in bowl games, since replacing Jerry Kill in the middle of the 2015 season. But the school simply couldn't risk looking like victories mean more than high moral standards.

Western Michigan was the story of the year among the Group of Five conferences (American, CUSA, MAC, MWC and Sun Belt) as the Broncos went undefeated in the regular season and earned a Cotton Bowl bid where they lost 24-16 to Wisconsin. Overall, Fleck was 30-22 at WMU.

12 days after the last college football head coaching vacancy had been filled, UConn decided to fire Bob Diaco. The Huskies were 3-9 this season and just 11-26 in 3 seasons under Diaco. The school made the announcement on December 26, the day after Christmas. Two days later, Randy Edsall was announced as the not-so-new hire. Edsall was the head coach of the Huskies from 1999-2010 and oversaw the transition from the FCS to the FBS (classified as 1-AA and 1-A at the time). He was lured away by Maryland after leading UConn to the Fiesta Bowl in 2010, but couldn't duplicate the success he had with the Huskies. He was fired by Maryland halfway through the 2015 season. Overall, Edsall is 96-104 as a head coach.

Former Boise State backup QB (2000-2004) and Western Kentucky QB Coach (2010), Mike Sanford, Jr. had filled what was thought to be the final head coaching vacancy when he was hired at Western Kentucky on December 14. Sanford spent the last two seasons as offensive coordinator at Notre Dame. He replaces Jeff Brohm who took the same position at Purdue (December 5).

Brohm left Western Kentucky after a 3-year run that ended with consecutive CUSA titles, a 30-10 record overall and a 2-0 mark in bowl games. At Purdue, Brohm replaces Darrell Hazell who was fired on October 16 with the team sitting at 3-3. Gerad Parker was named to the interim position, and the wide receivers coach/recruiting coordinator guided Purdue to an 0-6 finish for a 3-9 overall record.

Hazell was 1-11 in 2013, followed by 3-9 in 2014 and 2-10 in 2015 for a cumulative record of 9-33. It was a far cry from what Purdue thought they would get after Hazell led Kent State to the MAC Championship game in 2012 (lost 43-37 in overtime to Northern Illinois), an 11-3 overall record, an 8-0 regular season conference record, and a final No. 25 ranking in the BCS Standings after rising as high as No. 17. Kent State ended that campaign with its first bowl appearance (lost 17-13 to Arkansas State in the GoDaddy.com Bowl) since 1972 and only its second in school history.

After Brohm announced he was leaving Western Kentucky, the school appointed defensive coordinator Nick Holt as interim coach for the Hilltoppers' Boca Raton bowl game against Memphis on December 20 which WKU won.

Temple hired Florida defensive coordinator Geoff Collins on December 13 where he assumes the head coaching job that Matt Rhule vacated when he left for Baylor on December 6. Comments seemed to suggest Collins will not stay with Florida for its Outback Bowl game with Iowa on January 2. Rhule replaced Jim Grobe who served as acting head coach in 2016 and the Bears stumbled to a 6-6 finish after an 0-6 start, on par with expectations. Rhule was 28-23 in 4 seasons at Temple, but 20-7 over the past 2 seasons with back-to-back division titles and the 2016 American Athletic Conference title. Assistant head coach Ed Foley was named as Temple's interim head coach for its Military Bowl game (lost, 34-26 to Wake Forest) on December 27. Baylor called upon Grobe when the Bears fired Art Briles on May 25 following an external investigation by the Pepper Hamilton law firm into allegations of covering up incidents of violence and widespread sexual misconduct by his players. Briles was 65-37 overall at Baylor, including a solid 32-7 from 2013-2015.

Lane Kiffin was hired by FAU on December 12. The Alabama offensive coordinator and former head coach of the Oakland Raiders, Tennessee Vols and USC Trojans will be tasked with revitalizing a Florida Atlantic football program which has gone 9-27 over the last 3 years. But Kiffin quickly demonstarted how little he's learned about public relations, or doing the right thing, when his frist recruit was a QB dismissed by Florida State for punching a woman, and one of his first hires was Baylor offensive coordinator Kendal Briles, the son of Art Briles. Kiffin replaces Charlie Partridge who was dismissed on November 27 after a third consecutive 3-9 campaign. His Owls teams were 7-17 in Conference USA play. Kiffin's career collegiate head coaching record is 35-21, including 0-2 in bowl games. He will remain on the Crimson Tide as long as they are in the college football playoff.

After being fired from Texas, Charlie Strong landed on his feet as the new head coach at USF. The University of South Florida announced on December 11 that it hired Strong to replace Willie Taggart who resigned from the Bulls to take the same position with Oregon. Strong was fired from Texas on November 26 at the conclusion of a 5-7 campaign. His 3-year stint in Austin failed to show improvement in wins and losses, though most will agree that the program was left in much better shape than when he arrived. Strong had a 16-21 record with zero winning seasons and just 1 bowl appearance (loss). Texas plucked Strong from Louisville after he led the Cards to a 23-3 record his last 2 years and a 37-15 mark in his 4-year tenure.

Taggart needed 3 years to rebuild the South Florida football program. Now, he moves on to Oregon to replace Mark Helfrich who was fired even after getting the Ducks to the national championship game in 2014 (lost 49-20 to Ohio State). Helfrich's dismissal came on November 30 after concluding Oregon's worst season (4-8) since 1991 with a rare loss to rival Oregon State. Helfrich had been promoted from OC when Chip Kelly left for the NFL. His 4-year head coaching mark was 37-16, but just 13-12 over the last two seasons. While Helfrich's stock was dropping, Taggart's stock was rapidly rising. Taggart inherited a South Florida program in complete disarray in 2013 and, after 2 rough seasons, guided the Bulls to an 18-7 mark over the last 2 years. Overall, he was 24-25 in Tampa and 18-14 in the American Athletic Conference. Oregon is his third head coaching stop after cutting his teeth at Western Kentucky. Taggart's career head coaching record of 40-45 is a bit deceptive as we was 7-5 in his last season at WKU and 10-2 at USF. Co-offensive coordinator T.J. Weist was named interim coach for South Florida's Birmingham Bowl game which the Bulls won, 46-39 in OT over South Carolina. Weist was 3-5 as the interim head coach at UConn in 2013.

Luke Fickell, former Ohio State nose guard, longtime Buckeye assistant, and one-season interim head coach/head coach (2011) was named December 10 as Tommy Tuberville's replacement at Cincinnati. With Ohio State preparing for the Final 4 Playoffs, Fickell said he will remain with the school until its' playoff run is over. Tuberville saw the writing on the wall and gave himself a pink slip on December 4. Tuberville was expected to be fired 3 days later when his buyout contractually would've fallen from $2.4 million to $1.5 million. The fan base had directed its displeasure at Tuberville for weeks, and the chorus grew louder when the Bearcats endured a 3-game stretch near the end of the season in which they scored a total of 13 points. The 2016 squad met the lowered preseason expectations according of CollegeFootballPoll.com's Congrove Computer Rankings which warned of a 5-7 campaign and a 2-6 conference mark. The Bearcats finished 4-8 overall and 1-7 in the American Athletic Conference. Overall, Tuberville was 29-22 in four seasons at Cincinnati with 3 bowl trips that resulted in 3 blowout losses.

Houston on December 9 promoted from within and named former Texas quarterback Major Applewhite to replace Tom Herman as head coach after Herman left to accept the job with, ironically, Texas. Applewhite was serving under Herman as offensive coordinator, and since he was already on the staff, will take over immediately and lead the Cougars against San Diego State in the Las Vegas Bowl. Todd Orlando, who had been named interim coach for the bowl game, will re-assume his role of defensive coordinator. Applewhite, who holds 8 school records as QB of Texas (1998-2001), was an assistant with his alma mater from 2008-2013, including assistant head coach under Mack Brown. Herman was hired by Texas on November 26, hours after firing Charlie Strong. Herman led Houston to a 9-3 campaign in 2016 and a 22-4 mark in 2 seasons.

Jay Norvell, Charlie Strong's tight ends coach in 2015 at Texas, was announced as the new head coach at Nevada on December 9, replacing Bill Polian. His extensive resume includes NFL stops at Indianapolis and Oakland. Prior to his 1-year stay in Texas, Norvell was an assistant with Nebraska, Oklahoma and UCLA. The former Iowa defensive back (1982-1985) spent last season as the wide receivers coach at Arizona State. Nevada fired Polian on November 27 after a 5-7 season and a 23-27 four-year mark. Polian's downfall seemed to be the lack of success in the conference as the Wolf Pack were just 14-18 in the MWC.

Georgia State on December 8 hired South Carolina assistant Shawn Elliott as head coach to replace Trent Miles. Elliott was the interim head coach at South Carolina in 2015 after Steve Spurrier abruptly retired mid-season, but only managed to guide the Gamecocks to a 1-5 finish. Miles was dismissed on November 12 after a 37-23 loss to UL-Monroe dropped the Panthers to 2-8. In nearly 4 full seasons, Miles was 9-38 overall and 6-23 in the Sun Belt. He took GSU to the Cure Bowl at the end of the 2015 season and expectations were high for a repeat bowl trip in 2016. Tim Lappano was named his interim successor and, under his watch, Georgia State went 1-1.

Brent Brennan is returning to San Jose State where he was an assistant under both Dick Tomey and Mike MacIntyre from 2005-2010. Brennan was named the head coach on December 7, replacing the fired Ron Caragher. Brennan spent the last 6 seasons as the wide receivers coach at Oregon State. Caragher was fired on November 27 after a 4-8 season and 4-year marks of 19-30 overall, 14-18 in the Mountain West.

Purdue announced Jeff Brohm on December 5 as its new head coach. Brohm leaves Western Kentucky after a 3-year run that ended with consecutive CUSA titles, a 30-10 record overall and a 2-0 mark in bowl games. He replaces Darrell Hazell who was fired on October 16 with the team sitting at 3-3. Gerad Parker was named to the interim position and the wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator guided Purdue to an 0-6 finish for a 3-9 overall finish. Hazell was 1-11 in 2013, followed by 3-9 in 2014 and 2-10 in 2015 for a cumulative record of 9-33. It was a far cry from what Purdue thought they would get after Hazell led Kent State to the MAC Championship in 2012 (lost 43-37 in overtime to Northern Illinois), an 11-3 overall record, an 8-0 regular season conference record, and a final No. 25 ranking in the BCS Standings after rising as high as No. 17. Kent State ended that campaign with its first bowl appearance (lost 17-13 to Arkansas State in the GoDaddy.com Bowl) since 1972 and only its second in school history.

After Brohm announced he was leaving, Western Kentucky appointed defensive coordinator Nick Holt as interim coach for the Hilltoppers' Boca Raton bowl game against Memphis which the Hilltoppers won 51-31.

Indiana and head football coach Kevin Wilson parted ways on December 1 over "philosophical differences" and the school immediately announced that defensive coordinator Tom Allen had been promoted from within as Wilson's replacement. Wilson was 26-47 in 6 seasons with back-to-back bowl appearances in each of the last 2 seasons. The 2015 team lost to Duke in overtime in the Pinstripe Bowl.

Ed Orgeron was promoted on November 26 to head coach at LSU. The 'interim' tag was removed ion the wake of the Tigers' 5-2 finish under Orgeron who took over when Les Miles was fired on September 25 after a 2-2 start. Miles was on the cusp of dismissal at the end of the 2015 season before an outpouring of support from both fans and national media gave the school impetus to change course. Miles has a record of 141-55 in his career, including a 114-34 mark in Baton Rouge. His 2007 team won the BCS National Title game 38-24 over Ohio State. LSU returned to the BCS title game at the end of the 2011 season, losing 21-0 to Alabama. A familiar name, Ed Orgeron, steps in as interim coach. Orgeron had the interim tag at USC in 2013 after Lane Kiffin was fired and went 6-2.

FIU on November 14 announced Butch Davis as its new head coach. The 64-year old has an extensive resume that includes head coaching tenures of 6 years at Miami (51-20, 33-9 Big East) from 1995-2000 and 4 years at North Carolina (28-23, 15-17 ACC) from 2007-2010, Under his watch, UNC had to vacate 16 wins in the 2008 and 2009 seasons due to NCAA violations. He becomes the permanent successor to Ron Turner who was the first head coach to be let go in 2016 (September 24) after just 4 games. Turner's firing came in the aftermath of a 53-14 loss to Central Florida that dropped the Golden Panthers' record to 0-4. UCF had lost to 14 straight FBS opponents heading into that game. Turner was 10-30 at the Miami school. Ron Cooper, a well-traveled assistant and a former Eastern Michigan and Louisville head coach in the 90's, was named Turner's interim replacement. As a head coach at the FBS level, Cooper was 22-33 with just one winning season (7-4, Louisville, 1995).

Fresno State on November 9th announced the hiring of former Cal head coach Jeff Tedford. There, he replaces Tim DeRuyter who was relieved of his duties on October 23 after the Bulldogs had registered just 1 win in 7 games. DeRuyter was 20-6 in his first two season in the San Joaquin Valley, and a slip to 6-8 in 2014 still produced a conference championship game appearance. But the Bulldogs won just 4 of the last 20 games played under DeRuyter and Fresno State named offensive coordinator Eric Kiesau as the interim coach. Tedford previously served as the head coach at Cal from 2002-2012 where he was 82-57 overall and 50-45 in the PAC-10/PAC-12.

2016 Coaching Changes

Team	2015 Coach (Record)	2016 Coach (Record)
Ball State	Pete Lembo (3-9)	Mike Neu (4-8)
Baylor	Art Briles (10-3)	I Jim Grobe (7-6)
Bowling Green	Dino Babers (10-3), B Brian Ward (0-1)	Mike Jinks (4-8)
BYU	Bronco Mendenhall (10-3)	Kalani Sitake (9-4)
East Carolina	Ruffin McNeill (5-7)	Scottie McGomery (3-9)
Georgia	Mark Richt (9-3), B Bryan McClendon (0-1)	Kirby Smart (8-5)
Georgia Southern	Willie Fritz (8-4), B Dell McGee (1-0)	Tyson Summers (5-7)
Hawaii	Norm Chow (2-7), I Chris Naeole (1-3)	Nick Rolovich (7-7)
Illinois	Tim Beckman (6-7, 2014), I Bill Cubit (5-7), Bill Cubit (0-0)	Lovie Smith (3-9)
Iowa State	Paul Rhoads (3-9)	Matt Campbell (3-9)
Louisiana-Monroe	Todd Berry (1-9), I John Mumford (0-2)	Matt Viator (4-8)
Maryland	Randy Edsall (2-4), I Mike Locksley (1-5)	D.J. Durkin (6-7)
Memphis	Justin Fuente (9-3), B - Darrell Dickey (0-1)	Mike Norvell (8-5)
Miami (Fla.)	Al Golden (4-3), I Larry Scott (4-2)	Mark Richt (9-4)
Minnesota	Jerry Kill (4-3), I Tracy Claeys (0-2), Claeys (2-2)	Tracy Claeys (9-4)
Missouri	Gary Pinkel (5-7)	Barry Odom (4-8)
North Texas	Dan McCarney (0-5), I Mike Canales (1-6)	Seth Littrell (5-7)
Rutgers	S Kyle Flood (3-6), I Norris Wilson (1-2)	Chris Ash (2-10)
South Carolina	Steve Spurrier (2-4), I Shawn Elliott (1-5)	Will Muschamp (6-7)
Southern Miss	Todd Monken (9-5)	Jay Hopson (7-6)
Syracuse	Scott Shafer (4-8)	Dino Babers (4-8)
Texas State	Dennis Franchione (3-9)	Everett Withers (2-10)
Toledo	Matt Campbell (9-2), Jason Candle (1-0)	Jason Candle (9-4)
Tulane	Curtis Johnson (3-9)	Willie Fritz (4-8)
UCF	George O'Leary (0-8), I Danny Barrett (0-4)	Scott Frost (6-7)
USC	Steve Sarkisian (3-2), I Clay Helton (5-2), Helton (0-2)	Clay Helton (10-3)
UTSA	Larry Coker (3-9)	Frank Wilson (6-7)
Virginia	Mike London (4-8)	Bronco Mendenhall (2-10)
Virginia Tech	Frank Beamer (7-6)	Justin Fuente (10-4)
S - Rutgers head coach Kyle Flood was suspended 3 games for contacting a professor about the academic eligibility of a player.

Lovie Smith was announced on March 7 as the new head coach at Illinois. Spring football, scheduled to start March 11, will be postponed until Smith is able to complete his staff. New Illinois Athletic Director Josh Whitman, on his first official day on the job, fired Bill Cubit on March 5. Cubit was the interim head coach during the 2015 season and was named the permanent head coach on November 28, just before the Illini completed a 5-7 season with a 24-14 loss to rival Northwestern. Cubit reportedly had a 2-year deal. Cubit stepped up when the school fired Tim Beckman on August 29, a week before the season opener at home against Kent State. Beckman's dismissal was triggered by an investigation into player mistreatment which revealed he allegedly meddled in medical issues and inappropriately treated athletes who left the team but remained on scholarship. Cubit was the offensive coordinator under Beckman, and was previously the head coach at Western Michigan where he compiled a record of 51-47 from 2005-2012, and Widener College from 1992-1996 (34-18-1).

The Tampa Bay Bucs announced on January 24th that the NFL team had hired away Southern Miss head coach Todd Monken to serve as offensive coordinator. Under Monken, Southern Miss enjoyed a dramatic turnaround in 2015 with a 9-3 regular season before suffering losses in the CUSA Championship game and the Heart Of Dallas Bowl. The Golden Eagles won only 3 games the previous year, and just 1 contest in 2013. Monken leaves with a 13-25 record at the Hattiesburg school.

On March 1, Southern Miss announced Jay Hopson as Monken's successor. The Ole Miss grad spent the last 4 seasons as the head coach at Alcorn State where his teams collected a 32-17 record and consecutive SWAC titles the last two seasons. Hopson served two stints as an assistant at USM, coaching DB's from 2001-2003 and serving as defensive coordinator from 2005-2007.

After just two seasons as the head coach at James Madison, Everett Withers is leaving the Dukes to take the same position at Texas State. Withers also served as the interim replacement for Butch Davis at North Carolina after Davis was fired just weeks before the season began amid ongoing NCAA investigations. In spite of the unique circumstances, He led UNC to a 7-6 record, but was replaced at the end of the year by Larry Fedora and Withers went to Ohio State as defensive coordinator. Withers leaves James Madison with a record of 18-7, including a first-round FCS playoff loss in 2014 and a second-round loss this year. The move was announced on January 5.

The Texas State job came open when Dennis Franchione, age 64, announced his retirement from coaching on December 22. Franchione's Bobcats were just 3-9 this season, taking an expected step backward after a 7-5 campaign in 2014. It was his 5th season at the San Marcos school where he also served as head coach from 1990-1991 when it was called Southwest Texas State University. He ushered the program into the FBS in 2012. Overall, the Kansas native spent 30 seasons as a head coach at various levels, most notably at TCU, Alabama and Texas A&M. His overall career record was 213–135–2, including 39-43 at Texas State.

On January 15, UTSA named LSU assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator, Frank Wilson, to replace Larry Coker as head coach. Coker stepped down as head coach at UTSA on January 5 after building the program from scratch. The Roadrunners were 22-26 in 4 seasons as a Football Bowl Subdivision school after going 4-6 in 2011 as a Football Championship Subdivision independent. Coker, 67, was the head coach at Miami from 2001-2006 and led the Hurricanes to a national title in his first season with the school.

Pete Lembo resigned as head coach at Ball State on December 22 to become Maryland's associate head coach and special teams coordinator. Lembo was 33-29 in 5 seasons at the Muncie, Indiana school, but the Cardinals backslid to 5-7 in 2014 and just 3-9 in 2015.

On January 6, Ball State hired former student and player Mike Neu to replace Lembo. Neu spent the last 2 seasons as the quarterbacks coach of the NFL New Orleans Saints. As Ball State's quarterback from 1990-1993, Neu threw for 6,271 yards and was named MAC MVP in his senior season.

On December 20, Georgia Southern confirmed the hiring of Colorado State defensive coordinator Tyson Summers as its replacement for Willie Fritz who moved on to Tulane. The Tifton, Georgia native spent 1 year as the safeties coach at Georgia Southern in 2006. He was the DC on UCF's Fiesta Bowl winning team in 2013. Fritz was 17-7 in 2 seasons at Georgia Southern where he led the Eagles to the Sun Belt title in 2014. This year, he added the school's first-ever NCAA postseason bowl game with their berth in the 2015 GoDaddy Bowl. Georgia Southern named running backs coach Dell McGee as interim head coach for the bowl game.

Tulane announced the hiring of Fritz on December 12 where he took the reins from Curtis Johnson who was fired on November 28. Johnson's dismissal came after a loss to Tulsa dropped the Green Wave to 3-9. Johnson was 15-34 in 4 seasons, including a 7-6 mark and a New Orleans Bowl loss in 2013 that stands as the only winning season for the Green Wave since 2002.

BYU on December 19 announced Kalani Sitake as its new head coach following BYU's loss to Utah in the Las Vegas Bowl which served as the final game for Bronco Mendenhall. Sitake spent the 2015 season as the defensive coordinator at Oregon State, following 10 seasons as an assistant with Utah.

Mendenall was announced December 4 as Mike London's successor at Virginia. He leaves BYU after 11 seasons that produced a 99-43 record overall, 6-5 in bowl games. Virginia announced Mike London's resignation on November 29, though it sounded more like a firing. Athletic director Craig Littlepage said, "We expect our football program to compete for the Coastal Division title on an annual basis, which puts us in a position to win the ACC championship and be competitive nationally." London was 27-46 in 6 seasons, made just one bowl game, and had just one winning season. His teams were a paltry 14-34 in ACC games, including 0-6 vs. rival Virginia Tech.

East Carolina basically went down the street to find its new head coach. The Greenville, North Carolina school announced December 13 that it lured away Duke offensive coordinator Scottie Montgomery to replace Ruffin McNeill who was fired on November 4. The Pirates limped home with a 5-7 record in 2015 to bring McNeill's records at his alma mater to 42-34 overall, 8-8 in American Conference games the last 2 seasons, and 24-10 in Conference USA games from 2010-2013. East Carolina never won a divisional or conference championship on his watch and was just 1-3 in lower level bowl games. Montgomery was a star for Duke at wide receiver in the late 1990's.

Louisiana-Monroe announced on December 14 that it had hired McNeese State head coach Matt Viator to replace Todd Berry. The Warhawks fired Berry on November 14, following a 59-21 loss at home to Arkansas State that dropped the Warhawks' 2015 record to 1-9. Berry was 28-43 at UL-M in nearly 6 full seasons with a high water mark of 8-5 in 2012 which resulted in the program's first FBS bowl invitation (a 45-14 loss to Ohio in the Independence Bowl). However, that was his only winning season as Louisiana-Monroe was 6-6 in 2013 and 4-8 in 2014. Berry previously coached at Army (5-35) and Illinois State (24-24) for a career record of 57-102. Defensive line coach John Mumford assumed the role of interim head coach for the school's final 3 games and went 1-2. At McNeese State, Viator was 77-33 in 10 seasons with 5 FCS playoff appearances and 3 first-round wins.

On December 7, Rutgers announced Chris Ash as its new head coach. The Ohio State defensive coordinator (2014-2015) has been an FBS assistant since 2000 with the likes of Iowa State and Wisconsin, among others. Ash replaces Kyle Flood who was fired on November 29 after a season of turmoil that included a 3-game suspension of Flood and the arrests of at least 7 players. The school also fired athletics director, Julie Herrmann, and named her successor, Pat Hobbs. Rutgers was 4-8 this season with assistant Norris Wilson going 1-2 during Flood's suspension. In all, Rutgers was 27-24 overall during Flood's tenure and 12-19 in conference games.

Bowling Green on December 7 named Mike Jinks as its new head coach. The former Texas high school coach (2005-2012) spent the last two seasons at Texas Tech as RB coach and the 2015 season as associate head coach. He replaces Dino Babers who vacated the Falcons' post to fill the head coaching vacancy at Syracuse on December 5, the day after leading Bowling Green to the MAC title over Northern Illinois. Babers was 18-9 in 2 seasons at BGSU and advanced his squad to the MAC Championship each year.

Syracuse fired Scott Shafer on November 23 after going 13-23 in 3 years (6-17 in the ACC). He had been promoted from defensive coordinator when Doug Marrone left to become the head coach of the Buffalo Bills (NFL), a job which Marrone left after just 2 seasons (now assistant head coach with the Jacksonville Jaguars). After his dismissal, Shafer coached and won the final game of the season on November 28 vs. Boston College to improve his records to 14-23 overall, 7-17 in the ACC.

South Carolina announced on December 6 that Will Muschamp will be the next head coach of the Gamecocks. Muschamp spent the past season as the defensive coordinator at Auburn. Ironically, Florida fired Muschamp as head coach the morning after the Gators lost 23-20 in overtime to South Carolina. Muschamp ended his tenure in Gainesville with a 28-21 overall record, and was 17-15 in the SEC. His 2012 squad tied for the SEC's eastern division title, but couldn't play for the SEC Championship because of a tie-breaking loss to rival Georgia.

Steve Spurrier resigned as the head coach of South Carolina on October 13, a few days after a 45-24 loss at LSU left the Gamecocks with a 2-4 record. His resignation took effect immediately. Co-offensive coordinator Shawn Elliott was 1-5 after being named interim head coach for the remainder of the season.

Spurrier was 86-49 at South Carolina and his over-all collegiate coaching record of 228–89–2 includes an 11-10 record in bowl games and a 5-3 mark in SEC Championship games. The 'Ol Ball Coach began his collegiate head coaching career at Duke (1987-1989), going 20-13-1 and capturing an ACC co-championship in his final season before moving to Florida. With the Gators, Spurrier went 122-27-1 and a remarkable 87-12 in the SEC. His Florida teams lost 1 or fewer conference games in 9 of his 12 years with the school, claiming 6 conference titles and the 1996 national championship. He resigned from Florida after the 2001 season to coach the Washington Redskins in the NFL in 2002 and 2003, but left that job after achieving little success. He was hired at South Carolina in 2005 where he undeniably elevated the program's level of competitiveness, but was unable to deliver a conference title and the Gamecocks won only 1 division title during his 10 full seasons in Columbia.

Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart was announced December 6 as the new head coach at Georgia where he will replace Mark Richt. Miami introduced Richt as its new head coach on Friday (December 4). Earlier in the week (November 29), Georgia said the school and Richt had mutually agreed to end his tenure as head coach, effective after the bowl season. But on December 3, Richt informed the school that he will not coach the Bulldogs in their bowl game. Georgia promptly announced Bryan McClendon as the interim head coach and the Bulldogs beat Penn State 24-17 in the TaxSlayer Bowl. Georgia was 9-3 this year with Richt at the helm and he leaves with a 15-year record of 145–51 overall, 83–37 in the SEC. His Bulldog teams won the East division title of the SEC 5 times and won the SEC Championship in 2002 and 2005. Richt was a backup quarterback to Jim Kelly at Miami (1979-1982) and later served for several years as a Graduate Assistant, QB coach and OC under Bobby Bowden at Florida State.

On October 25, the day after Miami fell to 4-3 with a humiliating 58-0 loss at home to Clemson, Al Golden was sent packing and tight ends coach/running game coordinator Larry Scott was tasked with trying to right the ship for the rest of the season. After Scott took over, the 'Canes went 4-1 in the regular season. Despite a 20-14 loss to Washington State in the Sun Bowl, Miami still beat most preseason expectations with a final overall record of 8-5. Golden was 32-27 overall, 17-18 in the ACC. Golden was hired on December 12, 2010 to replace Randy Shannon who had gone 28-22 overall, 16-16 in the ACC.

Seth Littrell was announced December 6 as the new head coach at North Texas. It will be the first head coaching job for Littrell, the North Carolina offensive coordinator. The Mean Green fired Dan McCarney on October 12, just hours after a 66-7 home loss to FCS member Portland State on October 10 dropped UNT's record to 0-5. Interim head coaching duties were handled by offensive coordinator Mike Canales for the remainder of the season. Under Canales, the Mean Green went 1-6.

Missouri hired from within and promoted defensive coordinator Barry Odom to head coach, the school announced December 3. Odom was a star linebacker at Mizzou from 1996-1999. Before returning to Columbia for the 2015 season, Odom spent 3 years under Justin Fuente at Memphis. Odom replaces Gary Pinkel who announced his resignation on November 13, effective at the end of the season. Pinkel, the head coach of Missouri since 2001, was diagnosed with Lymphoma in May. The decision came at the end of a week in which Pinkel gave his support to members of the football team who were threatening to boycott, amid racial tensions, the upcoming game against BYU in Kansas City if the school didn't fire it's president. The president ultimately resigned. Pinkel, the winningest coach in school history, went 1-2 after the announcement and finished with a record of 118-73 in 15 seasons. His 2015 squad went 5-7 after starting 3-0. Pinkel saw the transition from the Big 12 to the SEC in 2012 and won consecutive SEC East titles in 2013 and 2014.

Memphis on Thursday (December 3) hired Arizona State offensive coordinator Mike Norvell as its new head coach to replace Justin Fuente. He has worked under Todd Graham exclusively since 2007 when he joined Graham's staff at Tulsa, and then followed him to Pittsburgh and ASU.

Virginia Tech confirmed on November 29 the hiring of Fuente to replace Frank Beamer after the bowl season. Memphis' bowl responsibilities were transferred to offensive coordinator Darrell Dickey (lost 31-10 to Auburn in Birmingham Bowl). At Fuente's request, his staff at Virginia Tech will include Bud Foster, the long-time defensive coordinator under Beamer. The former TCU offensive coordinator under Gary Patterson has served as the head coach of Memphis for the last 4 seasons where he quickly turned the program around. Fuente was 26-23 overall at Memphis, including 19-6 the last 2 years.

Beamer announced on November 1 that his 29th season at Virginia Tech will be his last as a college football head coach. At the time, 3 games remained in a 4-5 season. The Hokies closed 2-1, including a 23-20 win at rival Virginia (12th straight) on November 28 to become bowl eligible. Ironically, Beamer's 23rd straight bowl game would be the Independence Bowl which is where the streak began in 1993. Virginia Tech defeated Tulsa 55-52 in that bowl game to send Beamer out with an overall record of 280-144-4, a mark which led all active FBS head coaches. His 238 victories at Virginia Tech included wins over football powerhouses such as Alabama, LSU, Texas and Ohio State. Beamer said he is doing what he always said he would do, and has always done - respond in the best interest for Virginia Tech. In Blacksburg, he rose his Alma mater's football significance from nonexistent to major status. Before BeamerBall, the Hokies had made 6 bowl appearances and won only one. Before BeamerBall, Virginia Tech was a floundering independent playing in a largely empty small stadium. 29 years later, the school has enjoyed 23 straight bowl appearances, 11 bowl victories, a national championship game, and 7 conference championships, all while playing in a generally sold out and dramatically improved 66,000-seat stadium on a campus with some of the best and newest facilities across the whole spectrum of athletics.

Toledo on December 2 promoted offensive coordinator Jason Candle to head coach to replace Matt Campbell after Campbell filled the opening at Iowa State of the fired Paul Rhoads. Iowa State announced Campbell's hiring on November 29. Toledo's interim head coach for the upcoming bowl game will not be defensive coordinator Jon Heacock, as previously announced, since Candle was promoted from within. It was originally believed that Candle would join Campbell at Iowa State.

Rhoads was fired on November 22, the day after a 38-35 loss to Kansas State in which the Cyclones coughed up a 21-point halftime lead. Rhoads coached his teams' last regular season game at West Virginia and lost 30-6, dropping his record 32-55. His five predecessors going back to 1979 also had losing tenures. Dan McCarney (1995-2006) had the most success since Earle Bruce in the 70's. McCarney's best year was 2000 when Iowa State went 9-3 and tied the school record for wins in a season for just the 2nd time in program history. But McCarney had 7 losing campaigns in a 12-year tenure, and even Earle Bruce began with three 4-win seasons before leaving after three 8-win campaigns.

Campbell was 35-15 in 4 seasons with Toledo, including 9-2 this year. His first game as head coach of the Rockets was a 42-41 Military Bowl victory over Air Force.

Michigan defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin was confirmed on December 2 as the new head coach of Maryland. The 37-year old had previous gigs with Florida from 2010-2013 and Stanford 2007-2009. This will be his first head coaching job. Maryland gave Randy Edsall the boot on October 11, the day after a 49-28 loss to Ohio State. Rumors of his impending dismissal came to light in the days leading up to that game. Edsall was 22-34 in 4+ seasons at College Park. Offensive coordinator Mike Locksley was handed the duties of interim head coach. Locksley's prior head coaching stint at New Mexico was a certifiable disaster as he produced a 2-26 record. Locksley's Terps went 1-5, managing to win the season finale over Rutgers, to improve his record to 3-31.

Oregon offensive coordinator Scott Frost was announced December 1 as the new head coach at Central Florida. The UCF Knights are coming off a tumultuous, winless season that saw George O'Leary announce his immediate retirement on October 25 and the program finished the year with quarterbacks coach Danny Barrett as the interim replacement. O'Leary took over the Knights' program in 2004 and went 0-11 in his first year, but guided the team to an 8-4 mark the following season and the school's first-ever FBS bowl bid (Hawaii Bowl). He would go on to lead UCF to a total of 7 bowls and a 3-4 record in those games. The high water mark came in 2013 when the Knights went 12-1 and defeated Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl. Overall, he was 81-68 in Orlando and 133-101 in his career.

USC on November 30 made the announcement that most observers thought it should - Clay Helton is the head coach. Helton stepped up after Steve Sarkisian was forced to take a leave of absence to deal with personal problems after the 17-12 loss to Washington on Thursday, October 8. The following Monday (October 12), that leave became permanent with the announcement of his firing. It appeared as though public ridicule of the university left the school with no other option. Sarkisian had offseason problems which were largely dismissed in early August. Based on internal comments, Sarkisian was alleged to have shown up intoxicated at team meetings and may have been under the influence during the Washington game. Helton took over as interim coach, a position he held for the 2013 season Las Vegas Bowl win over Fresno State, and rallied the troops to a 5-2 finish and the PAC-12 South title. However, the Trojans lost to Stanford in the PAC-12 Championship, and then to Wisconsin in the Holiday Bowl to make Helton 0-2 as the official head coach.

Rutgers on November 29 said it fired Kyle Flood after a season of turmoil that included a 3-game suspension of Flood and the arrests of at least 7 players. The school also fired athletics director, Julie Herrmann, and named her successor, Pat Hobbs. Rutgers was 4-8 this season with assistant Norris Wilson going 1-2 during Flood's suspension. In all, Rutgers was 27-24 overall during his tenure and 12-19 in conference games.

Former Hawaii quarterback and assistant coach, Nick Rolovich, was announced November 27 as the new head coach of Hawaii in 2016. Rolovich has spent the past 4 seasons as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Nevada, the same positions he held under Greg McMackin at Hawaii.

On November 1, Hawaii fired Norm Chow. The Rainbow Warriors dropped to 2-7 overall, 0-5 in the Mountain West, after a 58-7 loss at home to Air Force. Assistant coach Chris Naeole was handed the interim duties for the rest of the season and went 1-3. Chow, like Beamer, is 69 years old. Hawaii was his first and only head coaching gig after years as a well-respected offensive coordinator for BYU, N.C. State, USC and others. Chow had very little to work with at Hawaii and compiled a 10-36 record (4-25, Mountain West). At least his teams were predictable as the Congrove Computer Rankings were 42-4 in projecting the outcome of Hawaii games while Chow was in charge, including 9-0 this year.

Tracy Claeys had the interim tag removed from his title on November 11 and signed a 3-year contract as head coach for Minnesota. The longtime assistant to Jerry Kill was named interim head coach after Kill announced his immediate retirement on October 28 due to health reasons. Kill deals with epileptic seizures and had a previous bout with kidney cancer in 2005. Minnesota had a record of 29-29 during his tenure. However, Tracy Claeys was the acting or interim head coach for 7 of those games and was 4-3, leaving Kill's official record at 25-26. Claeys was 0-2 in the interim capacity with losses to Michigan and Ohio State, and 1-1 after the interim tag removed.