We’re moving into the usually acceptable firing stage of the season, but in a year that has defied expectations, we’ve already said goodbye to multiple high-profile head coaches. Who’s next to join their former contemporaries in the unemployment center queue? These coaches on the college football hot seat are drinking in the last chance saloon, and their glass is empty.
Brian Kelly, LSU
“Fire Kelly.”
LSU Tigers fans were in little doubt on Saturday night. The Brian Kelly era has failed to deliver the return to national relevance that this storied program so desperately deserves, and it’s time to make a change. A lot of teams would kill to have a coach hold a 34-14 overall record (3-0 in bowl games) as the leader of the program, but that just doesn’t cut the mustard in Baton Rouge.
LSU fans demand more, and that sense of entitlement was buoyed this year by the hype surrounding the team. The return of Garrett Nussmeier and several defensive superstars, plus a plundering of the portal to support those players, led to national attention and media hype of a return to the College Football Playoff National Championship Game.
In Week 9, the Tigers were humbled and embarrassed by the Texas A&M Aggies on their own soil. The loss marked the third of the year for Kelly’s team, and their second successive loss for the first time since a late October/early November slump a year ago. Kelly’s buyout might cost the program, but at this rate, it’s more costly to keep him as the college football hot seat burns.
Luke Fickell, Wisconsin
In the week leading up to the 21-7 loss to the Oregon Ducks, Wisconsin Badgers AD Chris McIntosh issued a vote of confidence in head coach Luke Fickell. In it, he discusses supporting the program’s leader, adding financial investment to help the Madison-based program compete in the new era of college football. It was the second confidence vote of the year.
During the broadcast of the Week 9 defeat, which is nothing to be embarrassed about in isolation, Tim Brando criticized the media and “all these podcasters” for heaping pressure on Fickell and casting aspersions on a situation about which they know nothing, one week after a media storm about how the program facilitates (or doesn’t facilitate) NFL scouts on campus.
MORE: What is Luke Fickell’s Buyout?
The very existence of this college football hot seat column kind of plays into Brando’s narrative here. However, there is absolutely no smoke without fire, and regardless of the vocal campaigning on behalf of the head coach, the simple truth is that Fickell has failed to meet expectations at Wisconsin.
The team is now 2-6 and staring down the barrel of missing bowl eligibility in successive seasons for the first time since 1991-1992. Once a frontrunner in the old Big Ten divisional system, the Badgers are now a bottom-dweller, one of just four teams in the league without a conference win. The axe might not swing this week, but it should be a matter of when, not if.
Bill Belichick, North Carolina
At some point, the sordid pantomime that is the Bill Belichick era at the North Carolina Tar Heels has to move from this college football hot seat column to an actual parting of ways. Not necessarily because of the successive close-fought games that failed to produce a first ACC win of the 2025 college football season, but because of everything that has surrounded this hire.
You could almost overlook all the weird off-field nonsense, from Michael Lombardi’s trip to Saudi Arabia to scouting shutouts and the never-ending Jordan Hudson saga, if this looked anything like a well-run college football program full of promise. The Tar Heels played the Virginia Cavaliers hard in Week 9, but continue to fall short of any tangible results. Belichick might have support within the building, but there is none among the Tar Heels fans.
Bill O’Brien, Boston College
Another week, another defeat for the Boston College Eagles. While they put up a semblance of competitiveness against a Louisville Cardinals team that beat the Miami Hurricanes a week ago, the team has fallen to seven straight defeats in Year 2 under Bill O’Brien. The Chestnut Hill-based team is one of just three in the ACC without a conference win in the 2025 season.
While the other two head coaches from the conference on the college football hot seat, Bill Belichick and Mike Norvell, have received a vote of confidence from their respective ADs, O’Brien hasn’t been afforded the same luxury. In fact, the silence is deafening for a head coach who didn’t show confidence in his team on a late fourth down and openly admitted he didn’t know how to fix the program following their Week 8 loss.
Other College Football Hot Seat Coaches
- Mike Norvell, Florida State
- Hugh Freeze, Auburn
- Mark Stoops, Kentucky
- Dave Aranda, Baylor
- Chris Creighton, Eastern Michigan
- Jason Candle, Toledo
- Dell McGee, Georgia State
