In a typical year, Florida might have been the most attractive college football job opening. In 2025, there could be a real debate as to whether it was even a top-five opening in one of the busiest coaching carousels ever.
With the dust settled on 34 coaching changes, The Athletic spoke to more than 25 FBS head coaches, assistants coaches and staffers and asked for their thoughts, opinions and takeaways on a hectic/fascinating coaching carousel. Coaches were granted anonymity for candor in their responses. (Read how coaches view Lane Kiffin’s national championship chances at LSU here.)
What was the most underrated hire of the cycle?
Eight people answered Kyle Whittingham, who stepped down at Utah and replaced Sherrone Moore at Michigan. It’s clear that Whittingham made a strong impression during his two-decade tenure at Utah, where he won a Sugar Bowl and two Pac-12 titles and helped guide the program from the Mountain West to a consistent winner in the Power 4.
Pac-12 assistant: Kyle Whittingham at Michigan. That place is another one where you’re going to have everything you need. … You have that brand and he’s a proven winner. He’s done a tremendous job with a lot less. That was a Group of 5 program (at Utah).
Big 12 head coach: Kyle Whittingham. All he does is win. That guy is a proven winner. The only risk with him is he’s only been at Utah. So can it translate? He’s never coached five-stars. … Can you create that buy-in in today’s day and age?
Penn State coach Matt Campbell also received a good amount of praise from his coaching peers, and the man he’s replacing in Happy Valley — Virginia Tech coach James Franklin — did, too. Campbell was named by six coaches, Franklin by five.
Group of 6 assistant: Matt Campbell. Getting the Midwest style of football, does a great job from a cultural standpoint. They really maximize the most out of what they had, and they’ll have a much better roster at Penn State.
Sun Belt assistant: James Franklin. He is an absolute monster in recruiting. He will — and has gotten — things going there. He’s a 24/7 grinder and is able to connect with people. If they wouldn’t have gotten him, they would’ve been dead in the water.
Other coaches who received multiple mentions were Florida’s Jon Sumrall, UCLA’s Bob Chesney and UConn’s Jason Candle.
American assistant 1: Sumrall will do a hell of a job at Florida. He’s a good football coach and I think he fits there.
Big Ten assistant 2: I’m going with Bob Chesney at UCLA. I think the culture, details and all that stuff — I’ve heard nothing but good things about Chesney so far.
American head coach 2: Candle at UConn. He did it well for a long time at Toledo.
Which hire surprised you the most, good or bad?
Pac-12 assistant: Penn State. Matt Campbell. He’s a media darling, but we’re going to see. When you look at it, are there any conference championships there? Now, going into the situation they’re in where (Franklin) got fired for not winning enough. That’s a different beast there.
SEC head coach: Not good or bad, I thought the Ryan Silverfield hire at Arkansas was a little surprising. The other one is Alex Golesh going to Auburn. The two best resourced jobs in the American right now are Memphis and South Florida and neither of them played for a conference title.
Big Ten assistant 5: Golesh at Auburn was surprising, but not in a good way. I know coaches in that league who thought they should be mopping the floor with them and they would be losing.
Big 12 assistant 1: Golesh to Auburn. I saw him more as an Arkansas guy. I didn’t see him getting Auburn unless they got desperate, which they might have.
Big 12 head coach: I was kind of shocked Auburn hired Golesh, but I also think it’s good. It was shocking, but he’ll turn Auburn into Josh Heupel Tennessee. I was shocked how many people were going after Sumrall because it was the same thing as Billy (Napier).
American head coach 2: Sumrall going to Florida. I think it’s a good hire but it’s a similar path to the last guy there.
American assistant 2: Jimmy Rogers at Iowa State. He wasn’t at South Dakota State super long. Only one year at Washington State, and didn’t do anything there that said he could get a P4 job.
Big Ten assistant 1: Jimmy Rogers did a great job at South Dakota State, but there wasn’t much proof of concept with him at Washington State.
Big 12 assistant 3: Jimmy Rogers getting Iowa State after one year at Washington State, where I thought (he) didn’t do that good a job. That seemed weird to me
Big Ten assistant 4: Tulane promoting Will Hall I don’t get. He’s a really good dude, but that’s a really good job. He did not do a good job at Southern Miss.
American assistant 1: Will Hall at Tulane. I think he’s a good football coach and he did very well at the lower levels. I thought he was gonna be really successful at Southern Miss, but they (Tulane) just played in the Playoff and you hired him?
G6 assistant: Tavita Pritchard going to Stanford is a shocker.
MAC head coach: The Stanford hire.
Big Ten assistant coach 6: UCLA. I thought they would go get a bigger name from the West Coach than the guy from JMU. He’s never been out there before.
Mountain West head coach: Chesney to UCLA, where he’ll have to recruit totally different places than where he worked before.
New UCLA coach Bob Chesney led James Madison to the Playoff in his second season. (Brien Aho / Getty Images)
Are athletic directors influenced by Kirk Herbstreit and ‘College GameDay’ when hiring/firing?
ACC analyst: I doubt ADs pay that much attention to TV, and the ones that do won’t be employed long.
American head coach 1: Yes, because ADs are weak as hell.
ACC assistant: No. It’s a results-driven industry. If you win, everything takes care of itself. And if you lose, everything takes care of itself. I do think the media in general can push things one way or the other.
Big 12 assistant 1: A hundred percent. You have to basically be a lawyer/fundraiser as an AD right now, but they have to appeal to such a large donor base and the donor base has that opinion. If you don’t listen to that, you don’t know what the temperature of your donor base is.
Big 12 head coach: Yes. I don’t know if it’s them specifically, but the media controls the narrative, the narrative gets heard by the donors and the donors affect the ADs. So it may not be direct, but through influence, but 100 percent those huge voices have an effect.
SEC assistant: Whatever is said on “Gameday” is like gold because now more than ever the fan support matters more than anything else. The fan support is paying the bills. It always has, but even more so now. You’ve got to keep those guys happy and they get their information from those guys on “College GameDay.” If Kirk Herbstreit said some guy is doing a really good job, they’re going to believe it. If they say he’s not doing a good job, they’re going to believe it. Right, wrong or indifferent, whatever is said they’re going to believe it.
How much does agent Jimmy Sexton control the sport?
G6 assistant: When Clint (Dowdle) left (CAA), it balanced things a little bit, but Jimmy has so much influence over the sport. But, probably not as much as people think. People like to say that he has this huge grip on the sport. I don’t think it’s really like that, but people inside the sport do listen to him.
Big Ten assistant 1: A lot. I’ve run into a lot with some jobs because I’m not a Jimmy Sexton guy.
American head coach 2: It’d be naive to say he doesn’t have influence. I think he’s an excellent negotiator. I don’t know if he exudes as much power as some think, though.
American head coach 3: 70-80 percent of it just because the SEC coaching movement sets the pace. Jimmy has now wiggled his way into the Big Ten, too.
Mountain West head coach: I think quite a bit. I almost find it concerning as I’ve learned more about how he brokers deals and has input on your staff.
Big 12 head coach: Not as much as he used to because I think WME and Clint Dowdle have balanced it out. … There’s enough Clint (clients) out there now that I think it’s probably still 60-40 Jimmy because Jimmy still has Kirby Smart and some of the other guys. I think Jimmy is still prevalent in the SEC. That’s the better way to put it. I think Jimmy controls the SEC.
If every coaching job opened tomorrow, which one would you want?
Texas was mentioned by 10 coaches. The appeal is simple.
Big 12 assistant 1: Most money. Most resources. Best location for recruiting.
American head coach 2: Perfect mix there: financial resources, tradition, high academic school and a thriving metropolitan area and the best state for high school football.
Georgia and Ohio State were brought up second-most.
American head coach 3: Georgia. The recruiting base is great. They have a little more money than they let on.
Sun Belt assistant: Ohio State. In the SEC everybody beats each other up. I think the Big Ten is an easier path to win it.
Mountain West head coach: Ohio State. It has really good high school football in-state, they have great tradition and it’s the best job in the best conference.
Notre Dame and LSU were mentioned three times apiece.
Big Ten assistant 3: (Notre Dame’s) got the tradition. Just with them being independent and the things they can do from that standpoint, I think that’s the one. You can make your own schedule. You’re still going to be respected as a powerhouse. They’re going to be in the Playoff conversation every year. The revenue they can make from making the Playoff, they don’t have to share it with anyone.
Big Ten assistant 4: (LSU is) the one college in the state. Great fan base. They’ll pay whatever and do whatever.
Big 12 assistant 2: LSU is the best job in America when it comes to winning a championship. Selfishly, nothing as a head coach rivals LSU.
Did Curt Cignetti take three years off a new coach’s runway?
Big 12 head coach: Kind of. People don’t realize he killed it and did a phenomenal job, but he also had more support from the university than they’ve ever had. I think it does potentially shorten the runway, but only to admins’ advantages because they don’t hype up their NIL even though they do have good NIL. But I also think the runway for coaches is going to become longer because you need more money to pay your players.
Big Ten assistant 2: Not necessarily, but I think that shows you now that you can do it anywhere. Going from the worst team in college football to doing that — if you have the right blueprint. I don’t think it gives people more pressure. I think it shows you the reality of what can happen (if you hire the right guy).
SEC assistant: It didn’t help in terms of elongating people’s careers, I know that.
Big 12 personnel staffer: He certainly screwed up the barometer. They are the true outlier in the history of outliers. I say this as someone who works in personnel; it’d always been, “Well, they have the best players,” but you can’t say that about Indiana. They didn’t have better players than the teams they beat on their pathway to the title — Oregon, Alabama, Ohio State, Miami.
Big Ten assistant 5: Yeah. Forget the five-year plan. He did it in two years and he inherited a worse situation than you. You’ve got two years now to prove it.
What’s your prediction for how the coaching carousel will change in the next five years?
American head coach 2: I think it’ll be very active each year, but I think there’ll be contracts with some subtle changes in how they’re structured. Per-year income will increase, and buyout will be decreased to protect athletic directors and the school from a PR perspective.
CUSA head coach: I almost feel like we might start seeing shorter contracts like in the NFL. Three years and triggers if you win so many games. … There’s gotta be some smaller contracts.
Big 12 head coach: I don’t think (schools are) gonna fire as fast because they know they’re going to lose their entire team. And I think you’re going to see more coaches jump from Power 4 to Power 4 because you can take your whole team with you. I think you’re going to see more lateral-esque moves than you ever have.
Big Ten assistant 1: I think more coaches will want to go to the NFL.
Big Ten assistant 3: I think it could potentially be a lot like the NFL. Just kind of wait until the coaches are done, let them get done coaching their team, so you won’t have a situation like Ole Miss/LSU.
ACC analyst: The carousel will get much younger. … (Until) about two years ago, the glut of money in college sports went into facilities and staffs. Except for the top 20-25 revenue programs, it is now all (rightly) in players. So the jobs will be more entry-level oriented with one or two older analysts. Staffs will get younger, schools will hire younger, and it will look more like the NFL. … They’ll actually be hiring people who have been a head coach or a coordinator
SEC head coach: The appetite for paying buyouts (will be) cyclical, like we saw a couple of years ago when the only P4 jobs open were West Virginia, North Carolina and UCF, so I think we’re going to see some years where we have lower turnover. … Because what really needs to matter is, can you pay your roster $40 million? The new number in our sport right now is $40 million.
