Coaching Carousel Rumblings: The latest scuttle surrounding the six current Power 5 openings

It’s Rivalry Week, which also means is officially Silly Season. 

The last two months have simply been an appetizer for crazy, as the coaching carousel main course will be served once many teams’ seasons are over after Thanksgiving Weekend. 

Currently, six Power 5 jobs are open. 

Nebraska, Wisconsin, Georgia Tech, Arizona State, Colorado and Auburn. 

Here’s the latest rumors and scuttle at each spot:

Auburn

For now, Auburn’s first, second and third choice for head coach is Lane Kiffin, Lane Kiffin, Lane Kiffin. 

At least that’s the conventional wisdom within coaching circles. 

However, what if new athletics director John Cohen is using the Portal King has the ultimate smokescreen? Could we see another midnight surprise like Brian Kelly bolting South Bend and Notre Dame for LSU?

Perhaps, but most insiders, including those at On3’s Auburn Live, continue to report that Kiffin is the top target for the job. 

Ole Miss plays Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl on Thanksgiving, so news could come as quickly as Black Friday. 

After the Rebels were trucked at Arkansas on Saturday, Kiffin did address his looming candidacy for the Tigers’ opening.

“I’m very happy here. Very happy here and appreciative of the leadership here. I love being here. There’s a lot of people coming back (next year), a lot of good guys coming back. Very excited about the future,” he said. 

“Like I said, I love being here. I mean, I don’t want to look to next year already with a regular season game (remaining), but this is not one of those years where you say we’re gonna lose all these guys. There’s a lot of people coming back and a lot of new guys offensively, especially. So, very excited about the future.”

He added that “doesn’t know that stuff out there about No. 1 (candidate) stuff.”

“Maybe if they watched the first half I wouldn’t be No. 1 anymore then,” he said. 

In no surprise, there was a report Saturday that that Kiffin has a sitting raise and extension with Ole Miss that would raise his salary from $7.5 million to $9 million annually.

If Kiffin does turn down the job — or Auburn opts to look elsewhere — this one could turn in any number of directions, as Hugh Freeze, a candidate I’ve raised doubts about being a real candidate for the Tigers anyways, appears out.

The Auburn job is the domino job on the market. Depending on who the Tigers hire will have reverberations across the sport.  

Wisconsin

After rallying down multiple scores to beat Nebraska 15-14 on Saturday, Badgers interim head coach Jim Leonhard is close to promoting the former All-Big Ten Wisconsin safety to their full-time head coach, per Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel beat writer Jeff Potrykus.

Proud of this team. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/UtDz3DSTNm

— Wisconsin Football (@BadgerFootball) November 19, 2022

Notably, Wisconsin posted its job opening online Saturday after the win — where the Badgers became bowl eligible.

Leonard became Wisconsin’s interim coach on Oct. 2, going 4-2 down the stretch with the Battle for the Axe against Minnesota still to play. 

Leonhard hasn’t done anything spectacular to win the job, but he also hasn’t done anything to totally screw up his seemingly inevitable promotion, either. 

Wisconsin’s best players, including star tailback Braelon Allen, have publicly endorsed Leonhard for the job, too — something that carries far more weight in 2022 with the transfer portal window set to open on Dec. 5. 

Arizona State

The Sun Devils fired Herm Edwards more than two months ago, and then simply hit pause on their search for a new head coach. 

Evidently, they finally found the remote. 

Arizona State’s search has begun in earnest now after the school hired the executive firm Korn Ferry last week to assist the school in finding a new coach. 

That’s at least Step 1. It remains unclear who is leading ASU’s search, though, as embattled athletics director Ray Anderson is still employed but hardly empowered. The looming NCAA penalties further complicate ASU’s opening, too.

Still, among insiders, the expectation is Arizona State should have a new coach sometime within the next week to 10 days.

For now, it seems unlikely that interim Shaun Aguano, who has plenty of internal support, especially among the Sun Devils’ skeleton coaching staff, will earn the job outright. 

ASU is 2-4 under Aguano, with three of the losses coming to current Top 25 teams. The former Arizona high school head coach has continued to build support within the local prep ranks, too, attending high school games across the state every week. 

“Maybe I’m speaking for him, but you got the perfect candidate. I mean Shaun has done a great job taking over this program and leading it in the direction we’re in,” said interim DC Donnie Henderson, who endorsed Aguano for the job to ArizonaSports.com.

“You got the guy running it right now. You got a local guy that knows the people in the Valley and knows all the high school coaches in this Valley and that wants the job.”

Nebraska 

All is quiet in Lincoln right now. 

While local insiders dubbed former Carolina Panthers head coach Matt Rhule as the frontrunner for the Nebraska opening last week, AD Trev Alberts hasn’t made a move. 

Is Rhule, who has $40 million guaranteed coming his way whether he coaches or not, waiting on another opportunity? Could he, as The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman reported, “Do TV for a year or two and see where they are at Texas, Texas A&M?”

Is Rhule a smokescreen candidate for Alberts to wait on the likes of Lance Leipold, Jeff Monken or Chris Klieman?

“We’re not going to rush a hire just to make a hire,” Alberts said on a monthly radio appearance last Wednesday. 

The absence of information has certainly seemed to torment Cornhuskers Nation, who saw Alberts make the first move of the 2022 coaching carousel only to move diligently, but slowly after firing Scott Frost. 

Rhule’s name will continue to float in circles around Nebraska, but considering the pace of the search, ruling out Leipold, who still makes all the sense in the world for NU, Monken, Dave Doreen or otherwise would be foolish. 

Georgia Tech 

New athletics director J Batt has clearly learned a lesson or two from his former boss Greg Byrne at Alabama, as the Yellow Jackets are running one of the more clandestine searches, per industry insiders. 

Since taking the job in mid-October, Batt has had roughly a month to survey the landscape. 

He’s also had plenty of time to evaluate interim head coach Brent Key, an alum who keeps making his case to take over the program on a permeant basis after upsetting No. 13 North Carolina with a third-string quarterback on Saturday. 

The Bees are 4-3 under Key — more wins than Geoff Collins ever had in an entire season at Tech — and local high school coaches continue to speak on the former o-lineman’s case to be the next head coach. 

Still, while Batt has kept the search under wraps, the consensus among the coaching community is that the job will go to someone other than Brent Key. 

Colorado 

There’s little to report out of Boulder right now, where former Virginia and BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall remains the name mentioned most among insiders. 

Others possibly in contention include Tom Herman, who like Rhule at Nebraska, may not even want the job, Tennessee offensive coordinator Alex Golesh and Baylor offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes. 

As of last week, some with knowledge of Colorado’s search believed it was set to wrap up by the end of Thanksgiving weekend. 

Perhaps that remains the case. 

If not, the longer this thing goes gives a darkhorse candidate like Illinois defensive coordinator Ryan Walters, a beloved CU alum, a real shot.