With the season a little more than halfway over, the first firings of the year came on Sunday. East Carolina and Southern Miss moved on from their coaches, Mike Houston and Will Hall, respectively, after tough starts.
That puts the open job count in the 2024 coaching carousel at four, as both Fresno State and Utah State have operated with interim coaches this year. Last season, an NCAA-record 32 FBS jobs opened, per NCAA statistics, eight above the average of 24 over the past 15 years.
Much like many things in college sports these days, the coaching carousel remains shrouded in ambiguity. Revenue share is likely coming, which has athletic departments scrambling.
Before we break down the jobs that can and will open, it's worth noting the key factors looming here:
1. There are schools facing difficult budgetary decisions with revenue share expected to come next season. Whether those are SEC schools expected to be all in on the $23 million in revenue share or a Conference USA school attempting to grind out $1 million for its football roster, the financial choices are thorny no matter the size of the school.
2. There has never been a trickier time to fire a coach from a roster standpoint, which is why it took until Oct. 19 for the first coaches to get fired this year. (In 2022, there were five power conference jobs open by Oct. 2. There are none today.). The prospect of players redshirting and fleeing and athletic directors not being able to field a functional team has led to patience. But that's balanced by athletic directors not wanting to wait too long, as struggling coaching staffs make it hard to raise money for NIL/revenue share.
One more thought on this dynamic is that the established coaches, in many ways, have rarely had more leverage if they are successful and being courted by another high-powered school. Consider how quickly large swaths of talent can flee from a powerhouse if the coach leaves the school -- think Nick Saban's retirement last year. A school showing interest in a coach might lead to schools giving big raises out of fear for how far back a departure could set their program.
3. This is the first coaching carousel with the expanded College Football Playoff as a factor. That means a school with a marquee open job -- think Florida, the projected market setter in this carousel -- could end up handcuffed if it wanted to target a CFP coach. Could Ole Miss' losses to LSU and Kentucky, which could keep Ole Miss out of the playoff, make Lane Kiffin easier to hire for Florida? Would a Penn State CFP spot make James Franklin harder to hire? Can schools hire a powerhouse coordinator in late November and not have them full time until the season ends on Jan. 20? These are new timeline paradigms that matter more with signing day coming on Dec. 4 and the transfer portal opening on Dec. 9.
That could make retread hires more appealing for athletic directors, as there's a giant advantage for shaping a 2025 roster by having a coach take over in mid-November. The names on that list include former head coaches who are either out of work or could easily leave current roles: Bryan Harsin, Paul Chryst, Dan Mullen, Justin Fuente, Scott Frost, Pat Fitzgerald, Bill Clark, Skip Holtz, Nick Rolovich, Jimbo Fisher, David Shaw, Dana Holgorsen and Gary Patterson.
Before the year, we broke down the jobs that could come open by the end of the year. Next week, we'll update those situations and look at Group of 5 coaches who are also under pressure. But for now, what are some new ones to monitor after the first two months of the season?