Just A Minute: Crazy Coaching Landscape Only Getting Worse in College Football
Another week, another coach fired.
This time it was Matt Wells even though Texas Tech had a winning record at 5-3.
You may remember that Wells was hired from Utah State to replace Kliff Kingsbury, who was himself dismissed after the 2018 season. Kingsbury, of course, is the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals, who are just 7-0 and the last undefeated NFL team this season.
Think the Red Raiders might have a little remorse of that decision?
There may be no profession that it is more ridiculous in terms of expectations and turnover than football coach, and the colleges have gotten as bad as the pros.
We're still in October and five head coaches have been fired, with a sixth having stepped down, Randy Edsall at UConn.
The five fired coaches are owned nearly $40 million in buyouts, to which no one has any sympathy, nor should they.
Remember, these same schools all bemoaned the huge financial hits they took during the pandemic.
Among the departures is Ed Orgeron, just two years after winning the national championship in impressive fashion. He'll be leaving LSU at the end of the season, making the Tigers the equivalent to a dead team walking.
Of course in his situation there are other mitigating circumstances that the hometown fans want to ignore and overlook. Meanwhile, Washington State fired its head coach for something that was primarily not football-related, but most fans didn't know Nick Rolovich's name anyway.
Clay Helton got fired after he lost to Stanford.
Stanford.
Thanksgiving used to mean Black Friday for the shoppers and the equivalent of Black Monday for the coaches. But that's no longer the case. These programs have already surrendered their seasons regardless of what they might have meant for the players, and pretty much killed their recruiting classes as well.
So the person coming in will already be behind the eight-ball.
Brilliant.
I take it back, the colleges aren't as bad as the pros when dealing with coaches and expectations, they're worse. At least in the NFL they still let the season play out.
What we're seeing across the board now is people giving up if things aren't going well, from the players looking to transfer, to schools showing little or no patience.
It's the extra opposite message of what football and athletics should be about.
