The college football season started with great hope or at least the possibility of greater achievements for a number of head coaches, but seasons did not go according to plan, and now coaches have to face the reality that they will soon have to look for employment in other places. Which four coaches have not yet been fired but who soon will be at the end of the regular season? Here are the four college football coaches certain to be handed a pink slip.
Kevin Sumlin, Texas A&M Aggies
The Aggies are staggering to the finish line this season. They won’t win more than eight games – if they even get there. One could say there is an outside chance that Sumlin could save his job by winning at LSU. However, even if he does that, it’s yet another very disappointing season for an Aggie team which can’t find ways to win SEC games at home. The Aggies won just one SEC home game this season and have not won a home game in their division since 2015. That is simply too many home games to lose for a program which has renovated its stadium, Kyle Field. Boosters and other people who support the A&M program are tired of a lot of repetitive patterns, and they have seen the same script play out many times before. They don’t believe that Sumlin can break through the chains of mediocrity. When it is widely felt that a coach will not turn the corner at a given program, that coach’s time is generally up.
Sumlin can use a fresh start for his career, anyway. A&M insiders have humiliated him in public, and he has been the recipient of hateful speech at points earlier this season.
Bret Bielema, Arkansas Razorbacks
The University of Arkansas fired athletic director Jeff Long on Wednesday, which guaranteed Bielema’s exit at the end of this season. Long hired Bielema to take over for interim head coach John L. Smith, who served one year in an emergency capacity after the Bobby Petrino motorcycle ride, affair, and interdepartmental scandal at Arkansas, which blew up in 2011. Long got to replace Petrino, but he will not get to replace Bielema. That will be for another person to handle, but it is easy for Bielema to go at this point. It would make no sense for a new athletic director to keep Bielema. That new AD has a clear mandate from the school to find a new coach, whoever he might be. Bielema has shown no signs that this program has an inkling of optimism for the future. He is done.
David Bailiff, Rice Owls
The Owls have gone steadily downward over the years, and it was felt by many that Bailiff should have been fired at the end of last season. Now, after another miserable and depressing season, it is clear that Bailiff’s tenure is at an end. The string has been played out and there is no ambiguity in the matter. Everyone close to the situation agrees that Rice needs to start all over again, and people in the college football industry agree.
Matt Luke, Ole Miss Rebels
The interim head coach for Ole Miss has not done a bad job after Hugh Freeze ruined his career for immoral and unethical behavior which internally damaged the Rebel program. However, turning an interim into a permanent coach demands a difficult analysis, and it is a high threshold for coaches to make the jump from interim to permanent. Interim coaches don’t coach with the same pressure or stakes of a permanent coach. There is not a long-term sense of responsibility or a long-range plan in place. Luke will be an assistant coach or maybe a head coach at a smaller school as a result of the job he did this year, but Ole Miss will want a more proven and established head coach. Luke will move somewhere else.
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