Forde-Yard Dash: The Best and Worst College Football First-Year Coaching Jobs

Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football, where Navy and Jacksonville State are the last two teams trying to recover an opponent’s fumble this season. First Quarter: Does Anyone Want to Be National Champion? Second Quarter: Dash Domino Theory, 2026 Version.

Third Quarter: Feast or Famine for First-Year Coaches

We’re on the back half of the season, well into conference play. So it’s time for an updated check-in on first-year coaches around the country to see how they’re faring. There has been a wide disparity in results to date.

Feasting

Bob Chesney (21), UCLA

Record: 7–0, 5–0 in the Big Ten. Last year at this time: 3–4, on the way to 3–9. In terms of instant impact, he’s the closest thing to Curt Cignetti since Curt Cignetti. Not even a season-ending injury to the Bruins’ starting quarterback has deterred them from their best start since 2005.

Morgan Scalley (22), Utah

Record: 7–0, 4–0 in the Big 12. Last year at this time: 5–2, on the way to 11–2. Scalley was an internal promotion after nudging program fixture Kyle Whittingham out the door (more on him below). Scalley’s hire of offensive coordinator Kevin McGiven has worked out extremely well, thanks in no small part to retaining quarterback Devon Dampier and running back Wayshawn Parker, among others. The next three games (at Cincinnati, home against BYU and at Arizona) will tell us a lot more.

JaMarcus Shephard (23), Oregon State

Record: 5–2, 3–0 in the Pac-12. Last year at this time: 0–7, on the way to 2–10. Veering outside the Power 4 conferences to note one of the better stories of 2026. The Beavers were left for dead by their old Pac-12 brethren and appeared to be fully flatlined last year. The hiring of Shephard, a former assistant under Kalen DeBoer, has been transformational. With a quarterback from FCS program Mercer, Braden Atkinson, and an electrifying freshman wide receiver from Baltimore, Jesse Legree, the Beavers have won five straight games and rank fourth nationally in scoring at 42.7 points per game. Legree made waves last week when he announced he intends to stay at Oregon State next season, despite major interest from P4 schools. Contrast the can-do ascension in Corvallis with the swoon at powerhouse rival Oregon—which played a key role in the destruction of the old Pac-12—and it feels like karma kept some receipts here.

Will Stein (24), Kentucky

Record: 7–1, 5–1 in the SEC. Last year at this time: 3–5, on the way to 5–7. Stein’s homecoming and revival of the Wildcats has been well documented, for good reason. He has the best record through eight games for any first-year coach at Kentucky since Edwin Sweetland went 9–1 in 1909, when the school was known as Kentucky State College. That was the first year the nickname “Wildcats” was applied to the school.

Eating well

James Franklin (25), Virginia Tech

Record: 6–2, 3–2 in the ACC. Last year at this time: 3–5, on the way to 3–9. He’s pretty much delivered as advertised, and immediately upgraded the program’s competitiveness. The Hokies’ victory at Clemson on Saturday was their first against the Tigers since 2007 and first in Death Valley since ’06. Tech is 18 seconds and a few inches away from undefeated, losing to Pittsburgh on a field goal that barely missed over the top of the upright and a last-minute touchdown by California. Does anyone think Franklin is aware that Penn State, which fired him last season, is 3–4?

Pete Golding (26), Mississippi

Record: 5–2, 3–2 in the SEC. Last year at this time: 6–1, on the way to 13–2. Golding has done the two most important things asked of him—kept the program operating on a high level and beat Lane Kiffin in a game that would have been intolerable to lose. The beatdown thereafter at Florida was bad but not surprising, given the emotional investment to beat LSU, and the Rebels nearly pulled off an epic comeback at Texas on Saturday. All goals remain in play for a program that had justifiably high expectations.

Alex Golesh (27), Auburn

Record: 4–3, 2–3 in the SEC. Last year at this time: 3–4, on the way to 5–7. The Tigers have been up and down, but scored what might be the most surprising win of anybody nationally this season by shocking Georgia between the hedges. Given the difficulty of the schedule, getting Auburn to seven wins for the first time since 2019 would be a fine start to Golesh’s tenure.

Auburn coach Alex Golesh led the Tigers to the most surprising win this season when they beat Georgia. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Eric Morris (28), Oklahoma State

Record: 5–2, 3–1 in the Big 12. Last year at this time: 1–6, on the way to 1–11. Morris brought everything but the last speck of Who-Hash with him from a talented North Texas team, and after a shocking upset loss to Tulsa in the opener has produced the expected upgrade. Drew Mestemaker is second nationally in passing yards and the Cowboys lead the Big 12 in scoring at 40 per game. If Oklahoma State takes care of business on the road the next two weeks, a home game against Texas Tech looms large in the Big 12 race.

Jon Sumrall (29), Florida

Record: 5–2, 3–2 in the SEC. Last year at this time: 3–4, on the way to 4–8. It’s been a season of wild mood swings: a 4–0 start highlighted by a beatdown of Mississippi; then two straight blowout losses; then a stunning upset win at Texas. That certainly beats the perma-gloom of the Billy Napier era. The Gators remain in the College Football Playoff conversation, something they last experienced this deep into the season in 2020.

Appropriate portions

Scott Frost (30), Central Florida

Record: 4–3, 2–2 in the Big 12. Last year at this time: 4–3, on the way to 5–7. The vibe around Frost 2.0 changed completely on Saturday, when the Knights took down No. 2 BYU. Frost made some brutal decisions late in regulation in terms of time and score but lived to tell about it, catching the Cougars in a hangover game and taking advantage of it. It was UCF’s first win over a top-five team in school history. Prior to that, this UCF team had lost the games it should have lost and won the games it should have won.

Tavita Pritchard (31), Stanford

Record: 4–4, 2–3 in the ACC. Last year at this time: 3–5, on the way to 4–8. The Cardinal have pulled off a couple of heartening league victories at home, over Georgia Tech and North Carolina State. They’ve also been crushed by every good team they’ve faced, losing by a combined 172 points to Miami, Duke, Wake Forest and Notre Dame. If Stanford can scrape out its first bowl bid in eight years, it would be a definitive sign of progress in the Andrew Luck–led rebuild.

Jimmy Rogers (32), Iowa State

Record: 3–4, 1–3 in the Big 12. Last year at this time: 5–2, on the way to 8–4. No P4 coach took over a more decimated roster than Rogers, who is rebuilding after nearly everyone packed and left with Matt Campbell for Penn State (see below). The results have largely been as expected, with losses to four teams with a combined record of 24–4. Rogers really won’t be judged at all on this season.

Ryan Silverfield (33), Arkansas

Record: 3–4, 1–3 in the SEC. Last year at this time: 2–5, on the way to 2–10. This looked like a meager season all along, as the Razorbacks try to ramp up their roster spending, and that has played out as expected. But the Hogs have one more SEC victory than all of last year already, winning at Vanderbilt, and they were competitive in a loss to Tennessee. They might be able to win a couple more in the final five weeks.

One plate only

Lane Kiffin (34), LSU

Record: 5–2, 3–2 in the SEC. Last year at this time: 5–3, on the way to 7–6. They didn’t pay Kiffin $13 million to lose to Kentucky, no matter how improved the Wildcats are. The loss at Ole Miss was more of a personal minefield for the coach than a problem for the program. The definitive chapters on Kiffin’s first season in Baton Rouge are yet to be written, with all aspirations still attainable. But LSU has zero margin for playoff error and three straight difficult November games to play. A 9–3 or worse record would be a disappointment, given the payroll.

LSU coach Lane Kiffin and the Tigers still have all aspirations attainable in his first season in charge. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Collin Klein (35), Kansas State

Record: 4–3, 2–3 in the Big 12. Last year at this time: 3–4, on the way to 6–6. Klein was the hero coming home to where he starred at quarterback, back when the Wildcats were a national contender. Getting back there isn’t happening this season. Despite missing Texas Tech, BYU and Utah on the schedule, the Wildcats are all but out of the running in the Big 12, An injury to quarterback Avery Johnson took the wind out of the K-State offense’s sails against defensively vulnerable Arizona State on Saturday.

Famine

Matt Campbell (36), Penn State

Record: 3–4, 0–4 in the Big Ten. Last year at this time: 3–4, on the way to 7–6. For the second straight season, the Nittany Lions are seven games in without a single victory over a P4 opponent. Last year it was a case of collapsing under high expectations; this year the large-scale transferring of Iowa State talent simply hasn’t been good enough. The true misfire here is that Penn State was gifted with the easiest schedule in the Big Ten and has done nothing with it.

Pat Fitzgerald (37), Michigan State

Record: 2–6, 0–5 in the Big Ten. Last year at this time: 3–5, on the way to 4–8. Dreams of renewed, spit-in-the-eye competitiveness from the Spartans have dissolved into a likely fifth straight losing season under three different coaches. Fitz does not have great talent and his roster has been decimated by injuries, but the Big Ten is a no excuses league. Maybe this week’s open date will allow the depleted Spartans to finish with some vigor.

Tosh Lupoi (38), California

Record: 3–5, 2–3 in the ACC. Last year at this time: 5–3, on the way to 7–6. If Cal wanted to muddle along near .500 with a bad offense, it could have kept Justin Wilcox. Instead the Golden Bears opted to bring home alum Lupoi from Dan Lanning’s Oregon staff, and the results have underwhelmed despite going to the mat to retain promising QB Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele. The last two games have been especially ugly, losing to Wake Forest and SMU by a combined 73 points. Offseason staff changes are nonnegotiable.

Kyle Whittingham (39), Michigan

Record: 4–3, 1–3 in the Big Ten. Last year at this time: 5–2, on the way to 9–4. Whitt’s Wolverines are 130th nationally in total offense and 118th in scoring, having shuffled through one highly touted quarterback and on to the next without success. There are some opportunities for big wins remaining, but to date an elite defense is going to waste. For Whittingham, starting over at age 66 in a completely foreign place might not have been the best idea, though it made sense at the time for Michigan in terms of a hire. (On the off chance Whittingham decides to be one-and-done in Ann Arbor and retire for real, one guy isn’t coming back—Jim Harbaugh. The NCAA sanctions against him will late well into his 70s.)

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