With a plethora of all-ranked matches featuring some of the best programs in the nation, next week is meant to be the hottest week of the college football season. However, after some dismal performances in Week 6, the hottest thing in the sport might actually be the seats of several college football head coaches.
Heading out of the weekend’s action, who are the college football hot seat coaches?
5 Coaches on the College Football Hot Seat
Trent Dilfer, UAB
Trent Dilfer was an eye-opening hire by the UAB Blazers ahead of the 2023 college football season. One and a half campaigns later, it looks less eye-opening and more bone-headed as a program that had been a perennial Group of Five power in recent seasons has become one of the most troubled and unwatchable in the nation.
Coming off the back of a 71-20 shellacking at the hands of Tulane (a score that has never occurred in the history of football), Dilfer is on the college football hot seat more than anyone. Losing to Tulane is the latest in a series of miserable performances that have taken the UAB head coach to a 5-12 record. Dilfer was meant to lure some of the top quarterbacks in the country to Birmingham due to his association with Elite 11, but the Blazers started infamous former Florida quarterback Jalen Kitna on Saturday.
It’s that level of questionable decision-making, combined with the lack of results and some interesting sideline shenanigans, that puts Dilfer, the college football hot-seat coach, most at risk of being out of the job sooner rather than later.
There is legitimate discontent among UAB fans, which isn’t helped by the early success of 2022 interim head coach Bryant Vincent at Louisiana-Monroe. Dilfer could be out of a job before you even read this.
Stan Drayton, Temple
“He knows what success looks like at the highest levels of football. He also knows what it takes to be successful in this city, having spent six years of his career here.”
When Temple athletic director Arthur Johnson hired Stan Drayton ahead of the 2022 college football season, the former Texas Longhorns running back coach was expected to return the Owls somewhere close to the level they enjoyed under Matt Rhule. As a coach at multiple Philadelphia schools during his career, there was an element of romance to his hiring.
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In the midst of the 2024 college football season, the romance is well and truly dead for Drayton and the Owls. Under Rhule, the program was built on the mantra of being Temple TUFF, and Drayton’s teams simply haven’t lived up to that billing. The catastrophic manner of their Week 6 loss to UConn, fumbling on the goal line to turn a potential second win of the year into a 30-20 defeat, could prove to be the final straw.
Turning a program around is no easy feat, and it’s clear that Drayton inherited a team with plenty of work required. However, in his two full seasons before 2024, he failed to outstrip the win total of his predecessor. It certainly looks like he won’t this year. Rod Carey was fired after putting together a 12-20 record as the head coach. Drayton is 7-23 after Week 6. The head coach of the Owls may be about to get kicked out of the nest.
Ryan Walters, Purdue
Look, the Purdue Boilermakers head coach job is hard; I absolutely get that. I also completely understand that being the guy after the guy — in this case Jeff Brohm, one of the more successful coaches in program history — is also not ideal. Finally, I appreciate that head coaches have to be given time.
Imagine if Florida State had fired Mike Norvell after his first two seasons; they would never have gone to the….oh wait, perhaps Norvell isn’t the right example given his college football hot seat situation.
Anyway, Ryan Walters probably needs more time, but will he actually get it? After a sluggish start to the season, offensive coordinator Graham Harrell was relieved of his duties. Did the Boilermakers magically put up 40+ points in Week 6? Sadly not. Perhaps it wasn’t Harrell’s fault.
Meanwhile, Walters was hired on the back of his stingy Illinois defenses, and Purdue just gave up 52 to a Wisconsin offense averaging just 21.5 ahead of the game. The Boilermakers ranked dead last in the Big Ten for scoring defense, total defense, and rushing defense before getting brutalized by the Badgers.
Walters is now 5-12 overall and 3-7 in Big Ten play, and admitted after the most recent disappointment that “we’re a bad football team right now.” If a football team is truly a reflection of their head coach, a bad coach might not be in post for too much longer.
Sonny Dykes, TCU
Two years ago, Sonny Dykes led the TCU Horned Frogs to the College Football National Championship Game. His accomplishments with the Big 12 outfit during the 2022 college football season led to multiple accolades, including the AP Coach of the Year and Paul “Bear” Bryant Award. It also led to a big-money contract extension.
Now, TCU fans are wondering just how much it might cost to buy their head coach out of that contract.
Life comes at you fast, and in college football, it hits you harder than in most other jobs. Fans are fickle, and so are athletic directors and university presidents. Since capturing lightning in a bottle in 2022, Dykes has gone 8-10 overall and 4-7 in Big 12 play. Disillusioned fans have been left frustrated, which turned to something even worse after a dismal defeat to Houston in Week 6.
The Cougars had the worst scoring offense in the country until they rocked up in Fort Worth Friday night and hung 30 on Dykes’ Horned Frogs. Meanwhile, TCU has one of the worst defenses in the Big 12. There’s only so long you can have success with your offense having to carry a poor defense. Combine that with a head coach sent to the locker room because he couldn’t maintain his cool against his former employer, and you have the recipe for a coach on the college football hot seat.
Mack Brown, North Carolina
We talked about Mack Brown being on the hot seat after the defeat to the James Madison Dukes, and the reaction following that game defines his job security right now.
The North Carolina reportedly offered to walk away from the program if the players wanted him to, and the reported postgame locker room speech opened up a whole can of worms about whether he wants to remain in the game.
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The legendary coach is still dancing around after wins like a man much younger than himself, but those wins are becoming few and far between for the Tar Heels. By his own admission, the loss to JMU was an embarrassment.
The collapse to Duke wasn’t any better, and after losing to Pitt in Week 6, they’ve now lost three on the bounce. Brown might not meet the usual definition of a college football hot seat coach, but his future is as uncertain as anyone on this list.
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