8 College Football Coaches On The Hot Seat Heading Into The 2024 Season

Most college football fans enter a new season brimming with a sense of optimism and the hope that it won’t be extinguished by the time their team wraps up their first game.

Unfortunately, the nature of a campaign that ends with a single national champion being crowned means the vast majority of people are going to find themselves dealing with disappointment when everything is said and done.

That includes plenty of players, coaches, and athletic directors who will find themselves doing some soul-searching when January rolls around—and some of the people who occupy those last two positions will be faced with some pretty heavy decisions concerning the future of their programs.

There’s no way to know how the chips are going to fall by the time the 2024 college football season wraps up, but there is plenty of writing on the wall that can be read before it kicks off in an attempt to predict the fates of some head coaches who know they might not have the same job at this point next year based on how things are trending.

There’s a chance those hot seats end up cooling off in the coming months, but there are a number of notable names worth keeping an eye on based on what’s at stake this year.

Billy Napier—Florida

Billy Napier was tapped to replace Dan Mullen after the latter was fired near the end of a 2021 season where the Gators ultimately finished with a 6-6 record, and his successor hasn’t exactly dazzled since making his debut on the sidelines in 2022.

Napier heads into the 2024 season with an 11-14 record at Florida (the Gators went 6-7 in his inaugural campaign before dropping to 5-7 in his second), and it’s hard to think of any other head coach the country who’s perched atop a more scorching hot seat.

Florida has repeatedly shown it has little tolerance for mediocrity, and the fact that the Gators have what is arguably the most difficult schedule in the country this year means he’ll be fighting one heck of an uphill battle to keep his job.

Sam Pittman—Arkansas

Sam Pittman has been coaching at Arkansas since 2020, and while he finished with a 3-7 record that year, there wasn’t any rush to sound the alarm due to the fact he was a first-year head coach dealing with the fallout of the pandemic.

Arkansas fans who didn’t have much to root for during the disastrous (and mercifully short-lived) Chad Morris Era got a glimmer of hope after Pittman led the team to a 9-4 record in 2021. Unfortunately, it’s been all downhill from there, as the Razorbacks declined to 7-6 in 2022 before going 4-8 last season after going 1-7 in conference play.

Pittman did add Bobby Petrino to his staff as an offensive coordinator, but he’s also dealing with the transfer of his starting QB and RB from last year with an SEC schedule that leaves little room for error.

If Pittman isn’t able to stage a fairly drastic turnaround, he’ll probably end up being kicked to the curb.

Dave Aranda—Baylor

It’s been a decade since Baylor found itself dealing with the explosive scandal that led to the ousting of Art Briles, and while it looked like the program had returned to form after Matt Rhule led the Bears to an 11-3 record in 2019, his ill-fated decision to head to the NFL ushered the tumultuous tenure of Dave Aranda.

As was the case with Pittman, Aranda struggled after making his debut during the COVID-impacted season but bounced back from a 2-7 start to improve to 12-2 (and a Sugar Bowl win) in 2021.

However, as was the case with Pittman, things have only gotten worse, and Aranda heads into the 2024 season with a 23–25 record at Baylor after going 6-7 and 3-9 the past two years.

Aranda has made some coaching changes in the hopes of righting the ship, but if Baylor doesn’t get back to its winning ways, it’s safe to assume it will show him the door sooner rather than later.

Butch Jones—Arkansas State

Butch Jones has spent more than a decade attempting to recapture the magic that led to Tennessee poaching him from Cincinnati in 2012, and he hasn’t come close to doing that since taking over at Arkansas State in 2021.

Jones has posted a dismal 11-26 record during his three seasons helming the Red Wolves, and even though the 6-7 record he posted last season was technically an improvement over the previous one, that wasn’t hard to do when you consider they’d gone 3-9 in 2022.

If Arkansas State doesn’t end up going bowling at the end of the season, Jones will likely find himself dealing with a change of scenery.

Clark Lea—Vanderbilt

Vanderbilt fans have become accustomed to ending up in the basement of the SEC year after year, and Clark Lea hasn’t exactly forced them to reconsider those expectations since taking over in 2021.

In 2023, Lea repeated the nightmare season the Commodores endured during his first season as head coach by once again leading them to a 2-10 record while going winless in SEC play.

Lea heads into the 2024 season with a 9-27 record at Vanderbilt and will be aiming to snap the 10-game losing streak that began when they lost to Wake Forest on September 9th last year—a dubious run that has also seen the team give up at least 31 points to every school it’s played.

There’s only so much Lea can do to field a competitive team given the fairly unenviable nature of the Vanderbilt job, but there are plenty of other candidates who would be more than happy to get the chance to improve on his performance.

Justin Wilcox—Cal

At this point, Justin Wilcox is probably used to having an uncomfortably warm backside when you consider he was already on the hot seat heading into the 2023 season due to the underwhelming résumé he’s compiled since taking over at Cal in 2017.

Wilcox has posted a 36–43 record during a tenure defined by mediocrity. His best season with the Golden Bears was an 8-5 campaign with his lone bowl game win in 2019—which also marks the last time they posted a winning record under his watch.

Wilcox could possibly argue he deserves more time to adjust to Cal’s new reality as the school gears up for its first season in the ACC, but at this point, there isn’t a ton of evidence to dispute the argument he’s already shown what his ceiling is.

Tony Elliott—Virginia

Tony Elliott only has a couple of seasons under his belt at Virginia, but the school may decline to give him another one if his third looks anything like his first two.

Elliott is currently 6-16 with the Cavaliers after getting off to a 3-7 start in 2022 before following up that campaign with a 3-9 debacle in 2023.

Virginia isn’t really in a position to become a national powerhouse, and Elliott may be able to use the school’s fairly tempered expectations to his advantage in order to extend his tenure. However, it does seem like a third-consecutive three-win season could be a breaking point.

Ryan Day—Ohio State

I’m well aware I’m taking a slightly unconventional approach to the last entry on this list, but Ryan Day’s name is still worth mentioning.

It’s genuinely hard to believe Ohio State would part ways with someone who’s gone 53–8 since taking command of the Buckeyes in 2019 (he actually has 56 wins with the program if you count the three he racked up while serving as the active head coach when Urban Meyer was suspended in 2018).

Every single one of Day’s seasons has ended with Ohio State playing in a New Year’s Six bowl game, but the program is still in search of its first national championship with him at the helm (it came up short against Alabama in the title game in 2021).

Ohio State enters the season ranked at #2 in the country and seemingly has all of the pieces it needs to secure its first title since 2014. However, if the Buckeyes come up short yet again, there could be some serious discussions about whether or not Day has what it takes to get over the hump.