Ranking every current college football job opening for the 2025 cycle

Whew... the 2025 college football season has been a bad time to be a fledgling power conference head coach, because 7.4% of the men in charge of the 67 programs spanning the Big 12, Big Ten, ACC and SEC have already been fired this season. And buddy, more are coming.

That doesn't even count Stanford, who fired their coach this offseason and swapped in an interim, former NFL head coach Frank Reich, while Oregon State and UAB also showed their head coaches to the door among non-power conference teams. Now that eight programs are on the market for a new face of the program, let's rank the current college football job openings.

Take a look at our list...

1. Penn State

Penn State Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin stands | Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images

Several programs on the list have enjoyed the college football limelight over the years but none are as historically entrenched as Penn State. With nearly 100,000 fans packing their stadium as one of the premier Big Ten powerhouses, there's a combination of fanbase, resources and tradition that puts the Nittany Lions comfortably in first place. This isn't a program recovering from a dark age, they just hit a very high ceiling in the James Franklin era that they're just hoping to burst through under the next regime.

Sure, the next coach will face the pressure James Franklin couldn't survive under, but if that's the biggest downside to this job, well, then it's a pretty prime opportunity.

2. Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech Hokies | Brian Bishop-Imagn Images

The Hokies may not be the Eastern Seaboard powerhouse of old under Frank Beamer, stuffing their dominion down the throats of hapless ACC competitors who could only marvel at the sheer spectacle of a VT home game. Lately, Tech's advantage has come back to Earth while other ACC competitors have caught up or surpassed them altogether. It's been a rough ten years.

Yet... with, again, the sheer might of their fanbase, this should be a good college football program, especially in an ACC where we know that most of the other programs can't come up with the resources or support that Tech can. The aughts aren't coming back, but there's no reason this program should go a decade without winning more than eight games in a season.

3. Arkansas

Arkansas Razorbacks interim head coach Bobby Petrino | Randy Sartin-Imagn Images

This is a football program that has fired its last FIVE head coaches since 2011, including the man currently overseeing the team. Over a 15-year span... that's once every three seasons. Guys like Chad Morris and John L. Smith didn't even last more than two years before receiving the hook. An Arkansas coach hasn't left on his own accord since Houston Nutt departed for Ole Miss in 2007.

That's to say: this job is good — in the SEC, with some resources and history. However, it may bring high-level SEC expectations from a mid to lower-level club in the conference. It's a job more on par with Kentucky that takes itself as seriously as, say, Auburn or LSU. For what it's worth, Arkansas hasn't won double-digit games since firing current interim head coach Bobby Petrino after his scandals in 2011 on the heels of a 11-2 year.

4. Oklahoma State

Oklahoma State Cowboys coach Mike Gundy | William Purnell-Imagn Images

In the 2010s decade, Mike Gundy led Oklahoma State to six seasons out of ten where the Cowboys achieved double-digit victories, and then added two more in the early 2020s. Then the NIL and transfer portal changes hit like a tidal wave and the Pokes bounced off the wagon with a 3-9 season last year and a pitiful 1-5 start so far this year that already got their head coach fired.

Perhaps, after T. Boone Pickens' death in 2019, this job has receded a bit in terms of, well, resources. Gundy didn't do great with the 2025 group but he admitted to everyone before the Oregon game that this year's team didn't have the talent, or the big bucks, to contend with a team like the Ducks. So OSU is in their worst spot in decades and with questions about how much financial support they can plunge into the roster? Not a great combo in 2025.

However, we know the fans in Stillwater are passionate and will show up when the wins do return in a wide open Big 12.

5. Stanford

Stanford Cardinal general manager Andrew Luck (center) celebrates — Stanford Cardinal general manager Andrew Luck raises his fist in triumph | Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

Stanford over UCLA? By what historic data point could you come to that conclusion? Not many, good sir, but this is a projection into the future. This pair of California athletics powerhouses drew themselves into terrible travel scheduling for the foreseeable future with recent conference migrations, but the Cardinal have more organizational alignment plus less expectation.

At the end of the day, you want to keep your job in college football, right? Or move on to a better one. Well, at Stanford, you can go 6-6 or 7-5 in the ACC and turn heads and keep your gig or catch some eyes from other, bigger football brands. Plus, Andrew Luck feels like a reliable voice at the helm of the program, and there was recent news of a $50 million donation to the program. Count me in on that as an aspiring power conference head football coach.

6. UCLA

UCLA Bruins new offensive coordinator Jerry Neuheisel | Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images

As a prospect, the UCLA program looks five stars on the surface. They're a historical athletic powerhouse whose alumni base is littered with former Olympic gold medalists. They play in the Rose Bowl for goodness's sake. They're in Los Angeles. They're one of the two biggest college sports brands in California!

However, whenever you turn on a UCLA game, lately, you're looking at strange matchups in front of sparse crowds. The new Big Ten travel schedule is brutal on the west coast clubs, and the outsized stadium really dims the vibe of Bruins games that aren't primetime showdowns — and there have been few of those. This is a job with pretty lofty expectations given how rutterless this grand program really feels in the modern age.

7. Oregon State

Oregon State Beavers head coach Trent Bray | Craig Strobeck-Imagn Images

Is now the best time for Oregon State to hire a head football coach? Likely not. But neither was two years ago when the Beavers were hand-locked with Washington State entering a complete abyss. Two seasons later and we can see the future with the quasi-power conference future of the re-growing Pac-12 thanks to the Mountain West additions.

So, Oregon State could be positioned as one of the stronger forces in the new fifth-best conference in America, which ain't a bad spot in this CFP day and age. But a few seasons ago, OSU was a 10-win power conference team and now they're 0-7 without a head coach or real conference in 2025. It's no man's land.

8. UAB

UAB Blazers head coach Trent Dilfer | Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images

The Blazers aren't a program of intense history, but they did enjoy some successful years under the previous Bill Clark administration. However, under the recently-fired former NFL star Trent Dilfer, the program stumbled to a 9-21 record through 30 games, greasing the wheels for Dilfer's midseason exit.

Seeing as UAB is the only true Group of Five program on the list, they almost fall to the back by default. But after 2.5 unfruitful years with Dilfer, UAB may be smart to start shopping around for head coaching candidates now before other lower-conference jobs start opening up after the season.