College football coaching carousel tracker: Updates on who's in, and who's out
We've moved into the latter phase of the college football season, that time when programs are looking to shore up their leadership ahead of the early recruiting period and National Signing Day.
And hopefully correct the mistakes they've made up to now by trying to find an adequate replacement to set things right and build a brighter future.
Or unwittingly make the next and more expensive mistake they'll have to fix in the next few years around this time again.
Which schools are on that path as we approach the final act of the 2022 college football season? Here's your look at the latest coaching buzz around the country.
College football coaching carousel tracker, rumors: Who's out, who's in
Taking a turn around the college football coaching carousel
Brian Newberry: IN at Navy. The first head coaching job for the former Navy defensive coordinator, who got the promotion to replace Ken Niumatalolo. Newberry called this defense the last four years and was a semifinalist for the Broyles Award three years ago.
Zach Arnett: IN at Mississippi State. MSU promoted Arnett into the full-time head coaching position after the sudden death of Mike Leach, hoping to take some control over a tragic situation with no easy answers. Arnett was Leach's defensive coordinator the last three seasons, leading the team to top-five rankings among SEC teams in important categories, but he's a first-time head coach.
More: MSU appoints Zach Arnett to succeed Mike Leach
Kenni Burns: IN at Kent State. The former associate head coach and running backs coach at Minnesota will lead the Golden Flashes program after mentoring the Gopher's productive rushing attack, a unit that ranked 11th nationally. Burns replaces Sean Lewis, who left Kent State to run Deion Sanders' offense at Colorado.
Eric Morris: IN at North Texas. Whatever Morris lacks in experience as a head coach he makes up for with assistant tenures in the state of Texas, working at Houston and Texas Tech and amassed a 24-18 record as head coach of Incarnate Word from 2018 to 2021. He was most recently offensive coordinator at Washington State this past season.
Ryan Walters: IN at Purdue. The former Illinois defensive coordinator gets a promotion, staying inside the Big Ten after helping lead a major turnaround for the Illini defense the last few years. This past season, the unit ranked No. 1 nationally in points allowed and No. 2 in yards allowed in total.
Ken Niumatalolo: OUT at Navy. One day after the Midshipmen's overtime loss to Army, the Naval Academy announced that Niumatalolo would not return as the team's head coach next season. That, after the coach told ESPN that the school fired him minutes after the game while still in the locker room. He went 109-83 in 16 seasons at Navy but finished just 4-8 this year.
Troy Taylor: IN at Stanford. A former Cal player will now lead the Cardinal, coming off his first head coaching position at Sacramento State, going an impressive 30-8 with three Big Sky titles and playoff bids, and notably did not have any players leave the school via the college football transfer portal during his tenure.
Lance Taylor: IN at Western Michigan. Taylor lacks experience as a head coach, but he did coordinate the Louisville offense at the Power Five level, and he'll be charged with the same in helping rebuild this program that went 36-32 in six years under Tim Lester.
Kevin Wilson: IN at Tulsa. Ohio State needs a new offensive coordinator after Wilson departed to head the Golden Hurricanes after a brief tenure at Indiana where he was under .500, but his offensive acumen was bound to get him another job somewhere.
Jeff Brohm: IN at Louisville. The former Purdue coach returns to his hometown and alma mater after leading the Boilermakers to a 36-34 overall record in six years, going 17-9 the last two years and playing in the Big Ten title game in 2022, helping inspire a turnaround after that team went 9-39 in the four years before his arrival there.
Barry Odom: IN at UNLV. The 46-year-old has served as defensive coordinator at Arkansas for the last three years, and under his tutelage the team was 4th in the SEC with 18 takeaways in 2020 and fifth with 16 in 2021, but placing near the bottom of the conference in passing yards allowed and scoring defense. He's charged with building a program that went 7-23 under Marcus Arroyo and hasn't won double-digit games in a season since 1984. Odom was 25-25 over four seasons as head coach at Missouri.
Scott Satterfield: IN at Cincinnati. The former Louisville coach moves up the road to replace Luke Fickell after going 25-24 at UL and 47-16 at App State, which he helped lead from FCS to FBS. Now he'll lead Cincinnati in a similar move as it departs the Group of Five and joins the Big 12 in the near future.
Tim Beck: IN at Coastal Carolina. This is Beck's first try at leading a program after serving as the offensive coordinator at NC State. Most of Beck's offenses finished in the bottom half of their respective conferences the last several years.
Jamey Chadwell: IN at Liberty. The former Coastal coach takes over from Hugh Freeze after leading the Chanticleers to 11-win seasons in back-to-back years, and should be a benefit for the Flames' offense going forward.
Alex Golesh: IN at USF. The former Tennessee offensive coordinator should help revive the Bulls' attack after the Vols posted college football's No. 1 offense this season in production and scoring, even if he has no experience as a head coach.
G.J. Kinne: IN at Texas State. Another big offensive mastermind, Kinne led Incarnate Word to average almost 53 points per game and is charged with bringing that success to the Bobcats in the Sun Belt.
Deion Sanders: IN at Colorado. Coach Prime led Jackson State to a 26-5 record in three seasons, including an 11-0 mark in 2022, the first undefeated season in program history. Sanders proved a reliable recruiter at JSU, landing 5-star cornerback Travis Hunder, the No. 1 overall prospect in his class. Sanders is expected to be aggressive in the transfer portal this offseason and in future.
Hugh Freeze: IN at Auburn. Auburn has its man, choosing the former Ole Miss and Liberty head coach to lead the Tigers program after not being able to sign Lane Kiffin for the job. Freeze led the Rebels to a 39-25 overall record, cut to 12-25 after taking out wins that were vacated when the school relieved him for improper use of a school-issued cell phone and the NCAA discovered lack of institutional control under his watch. After a two-year absence from college football, Freeze went 34-15 at Liberty, winning at least eight games each season and going 3-0 in bowl games.
Matt Rhule: IN at Nebraska. Nebraska finally has its top target after announcing the addition of the former Temple and Baylor coach who is credited with turning around those programs on short notice and making them winners. Just what the Cornhuskers need to re-establish the school's national reputation and finally make an impact in the Big Ten. Rhule is a proven program- and culture-builder (and, more crucially, re-builder) who has been aggressive and successful on the recruiting trail and has always been well-liked by boosters, administrators, and fans.
Related: Nebraska hires Matt Rhule as new head football coach
Luke Fickell: IN at Wisconsin. UW announced that the former Cincinnati coach will lead the Badgers program after helping revive the Bearcats, leading them to the College Football Playoff, a historic first for a Group of Five school. He won AAC Coach of the Year leading UC to an 11-win season, followed by another in 2019, and winning a division title before adding two straight AAC titles and top 10 seasons. Fickell leaves Cincinnati with a 57-18 record in six seasons.
Brent Key: IN at Georgia Tech. Tech removed the interim tag it gave Key after dismissing Geoff Collins, and named him the permanent head coach after he went 4-4 to end the season, including wins over Pitt, Duke, and North Carolina. A former offensive lineman for the Ramblin' Wreck from 1997-00, Key coached offensive line at Alabama during its 2017 national title run and he spent 10 years at UCF.
Tom Herman: IN at FAU. The former Texas coach is back at the college level to lead the FAU program after spending a year with the Chicago Bears as an offensive analyst. He went 32-18 as Texas coach from 2017-20 and was 22-4 at Houston before that.
Paul Chryst: OUT at Wisconsin. Farewell to Chryst, a UW alum who played quarterback there in the 1980s, after a 2-3 start to this season and following a respectable 67-26 overall record and a 43-18 mark in Big Ten games at his alma mater. Wisconsin won 10 or more games in four of Chryst's seasons, won 72% of all games, was 6-1 in bowls, won three division championships, and finished over .500 in every year until the school's poor start this fall. The school owed Chryst around $16 million, but the two sides worked out a smaller amount that wasn't publicly revealed.
Bryan Harsin: OUT at Auburn. Auburn dismissed Harsin after fewer than two seasons and eight games into the 2022 campaign after a 41-27 loss to Arkansas and with the school undergoing a change at athletic director. Harsin leaves Auburn with a 9-12 overall record, never quite fitting in on the Plains from the get-go and even being the subject of an attempted ouster by AU boosters while he was on vacation last year. Auburn owes Harsin more than $15 million in his contract buyout.
Related: Bryan Harsin at Auburn timeline: How we got here
David Shaw: OUT at Stanford. After 12 seasons on the job, Shaw resigned his position at Stanford following a second-straight 3-9 campaign and going just 1-8 in Pac-12 play, the Cardinal's worst league showing in Shaw's tenure. Stanford regressed following Shaw's initial success, when it won three Pac-12 titles and finished with eight straight winning seasons, including five of 10-plus wins. But the school went 14-28 in the last four seasons, with a 10-23 mark in conference play and hasn't appeared in a bowl game since 2018. Stanford won two Rose Bowls under Shaw's leadership and finished in the AP top 10 in three seasons. He finishes 96-54.
Scott Frost: OUT at Nebraska. The master of losing close games, Frost was let go by Nebraska after a 16-31 campaign over five seasons, never finishing a year over the .500 mark. A quarterback on the Huskers' last national title team, Frost seemed like the perfect fit, but the program was never able to contend with the Big Ten's best. Nebraska owes Frost about $15 million.
Related: Nebraska pulls the plug on Scott Frost
Trent Dilfer: IN at UAB. An outside the box hire as the Blazers pick the former NFL quarterback and current head coach at Lipscomb Academy, a high school based in Nashville, to take the position left vacant by the retirement of respected coach Bill Clark, who resigned with a health problem. Dilfer also has experience coaching at the Elite 11 quarterback camp, a program where the top high school QBs compete each year.
Will Healy: OUT at Charlotte. Healy had plenty of momentum coming into the Charlotte position as one of the youngest coaches in college football. And while he led the 49ers to a bowl in his first season, the team went 8-18 since the start of 2020 and won just one out of eight games to start this football season.
Related: Will Healy out after 1-7 start
Biff Poggi: IN at Charlotte. The 49ers went with a veteran coaching figure in its search, picking up the 62-year-old Michigan associate head coach. A well-known high school coach, Poggi is credited with helping reform the Wolverines' program the last two years and is regarded as a good organizer and program builder.
Herm Edwards: OUT at Arizona State. ASU pulled the plug on Edwards after a 1-2 start to the 2022 season amid an NCAA investigation into the football program. He finished with a 26-20 record overall and will take home more than $8 million in a buyout to walk away from the team.
Kenny Dillingham: IN at Arizona State. The found its replacement for Edwards at the end of the season, picking the 32-year-old former Oregon offensive coordinator who becomes the youngest head coach in the Power Five. Under his tutelage, the Ducks averaged 40.2 points per game this season, the fourth-best scoring attack in college football.
Geoff Collins: OUT at Georgia Tech. It never really came together for Collins as the Yellow Jackets went just 10-28 in four seasons. Collins' best season was a 3-7 campaign in 2020 when Tech finished 12th in the ACC. But the coach will take some more than $11.3 million in buyout money as offensive line coach Brent Key takes the reins and Tech starts from scratch to find a replacement.
Karl Dorrell: OUT at Colorado. CU relieved Dorrell after a sluggish 0-5 start that included two losses to Pac-12 competition and losing four straight games by at least 25 points, the worst start to a college football season by any team since 1957. Dorrell finishes 8-15 in three seasons and takes home $8.7 million.
Willie Taggart: OUT at FAU. In three seasons, Taggart went 15-18 overall and went 5-7 in consecutive years, but has higher aspirations in the AAC in years to come.
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