Why the ACC Is the Center of College Football’s Coaching Hot Seat

A year ago this week, the college football coaching carousel was already spinning wildly.

Virginia Tech dismissed Brent Pry on Sept. 14, 2025, after the Hokies were blown out by Old Dominion, and UCLA ushered out DeShaun Foster the same day once the Bruins dropped to 0–3. Sam Pittman (Arkansas) and Mike Gundy (Oklahoma State) were on the doorstep of being shown a pink slip over the next few weekends, too.

As 2026 college football coasts into Week 3, there have not been any dismissals in an early attempt to start their search for a replacement. This season was already expected to be a slower than normal cycle after 16 Power 4 jobs changed hands last year, so it naturally tracks that the starting gun for the industry’s annual turnover would commence a bit later.

But make no mistake, a move is coming in the not-too-distant future, and one league will be heavily in the spotlight of the coaching movement: the ACC.

One can start, of course, at Florida State after the school announced Monday it fired athletic director Michael Alford.

Without any notable scandals bubbling to the surface, canning an administrator just a few weeks into the new fall sports season is unusual. In this case, however, both inside and outside of Tallahassee, firing the AD was instead met mostly by shrugs. Not only was it widely expected after an acrimonious past year centered around the football program, but it essentially launched yet another round of increased speculation about football coach Mike Norvell’s job status.

“I have to tell you, nobody wants to win more than Mike Norvell. Except for maybe the players, me, [Board of Trustees] chairman [Peter] Collins. We want to win. Of course we want to win. College coaches are in the winning business. That’s what we’re working on,” school president Dr. Richard McCullough told reporters after the Alford move was announced.

Norvell is 39–35 overall with the Seminoles going into this week’s game at Alabama. Florida State notably upset Alabama last season but is a three-touchdown underdog to the Crimson Tide on Saturday. It was largely the Crimson Tide’s vacancy after Nick Saban retired which led the program to give Norvell a new contract. That has subsequently put Florida State in a difficult position to either pay a remarkable $51 million buyout to move on from someone who has won just seven games the last two years or keep a coach who has missed a bowl game in four of the six prior seasons.

It’s not the best position to be in for a school which has already spent nearly a half-billion dollars on facilities upgrades recently and doesn’t have the breadth or depth of deep-pocketed donors like programs it considers to be peers. McCullough isn’t wrong that he and the board want Norvell to win even more than the coach does.

The problem is the schedule does not really set up for such a turnaround. Alabama is the first of four ranked opponents between now and the team’s off week in late October, including trips to Louisville and Miami in league play which will come with national TV audiences. If Florida State is sitting at 2–5 and coming off a loss to an in-state rival expecting to contend for the College Football Playoff again, it’s possible the school will have its decision made for it. What nobody wants is a half-empty Doak Campbell Stadium in late November as the fan base checks out even further and much of the roster attempts to play out the string in a third consecutive campaign filled with underperformance.

In firing Alford this week and undergoing what is expected to be a significant restructure of the athletic department, Florida State is positioning itself to be better in an improved situation come December should it wind up in the market for a new coach.

The Seminoles may not be alone. Two other ACC teams—North Carolina and Clemson—will see if their two championship-winning coaches feel the heat turned up further after their matchups against each other.

As much as the talk in Chapel Hill, N.C., has quieted down about Bill Belichick since the Tar Heels’ season-opening win over TCU, there remain headwinds for the program beyond the forthcoming trip to Death Valley. There are four Top 25 teams, in addition to rivalry games against Duke and NC State, left on the docket. Off the field, the university announced the conclusion of an investigation Thursday over allegations of misconduct in the program. It was only recently that former general manager Michael Lombardi submitted his resignation after being caught up in fray.

North Carolina is paying Belichick an above-market salary to get above-market results, so Saturday’s contest looms large as to whether this experiment with one of the greatest NFL coaches ever has staying power at the college level. Beat the Tigers, continue the early season momentum and it’s very likely the team will be ranked next weekend. Falter on the road and face the same larger questions about Belichick with just one year and $10 million left on his deal after the season.

The game may also amount to something of an early referendum on counterpart Dabo Swinney. The program has clearly regressed the past few years, slipping from being a regular playoff contender to going just 5–7 against power-conference opposition since the start of last season. The way the Tigers looked uncompetitive against LSU in the opener didn’t help either and has only added fuel to the growing set of critics in upstate South Carolina and beyond.

Both the coach and his administration desperately want a turnaround to happen, but a loss this weekend—ahead of a stretch against Cal, Miami and Virginia Tech before the end of October—could allow the chatter about Swinney’s status to draw national attention to the program in ways few want.

Elsewhere in the ACC, the spotlight will be on Fran Brown ahead of Syracuse’s Thursday night game at Pitt. He has only three conference wins on the road since taking over in 2024 and lost a tough one against Cal at home last week after quarterback Steve Angeli threw three interceptions. An eight-figure buyout is prohibitively expensive for the school, but Brown will need to show signs of progress to a new athletic director in a season where they may be favored to win in only two more games.

Likewise, Bill O’Brien remains in a similar bit of limbo at Boston College. The Eagles don’t want to pony up a buyout for the Massachusetts native and should be 2–1 going into a home game against Virginia Tech. The problem is that the schedule, starting with the Hokies, is brutal and even doubling last season’s win total from two to four could be a challenge.

It will also be a critical stretch ahead for Dave Doeren, the winningest coach in school history at NC State. The Wolfpack looked in a daze during their Week Zero loss to Virginia and head to Vanderbilt this weekend to kick off a make-or-break run to either exceed expectations or be forced into uncomfortable conversations.

The program has been incredibly consistent under Doeren during his tenure, but the fan base has spent many an October and November unhappy with the team’s ability to break through in the conference pecking order. If they’re unable to beat a team with a true freshman at quarterback on Saturday plus at least split games against Louisville and Wake Forest, the question if NC State should make a change will resurface no matter what AD Boo Corrigan wants for the program’s long-term direction.

Another veteran, Pitt’s Pat Narduzzi, could be in a similar spot. The Panthers are off to a nice 2–0 start but have fallen back to the pack of the conference during the second half of the season the last three years. The schedule sets up nicely for eight or nine wins, but anything short of that may prompt some interesting conversations with an administration hoping to take the next step on the field.

While it would take a somewhat incredible set of circumstances for all seven coaches to get shown the door, the ACC is the epicenter of speculation.

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