Hot Seat: ESPN names 8 college football coaches that need to win now or else

The college football coaching carousel has finally wound down with the departure of Jim Harbaugh and subsequent elevation of Sherrone Moore to the head coaching job at Michigan. So when might the cycle start up again? To answer that question it’s important to know who’s on the hot seat.

ESPN attempted to answer that question on Wednesday, posting its coaching hot seat rankings at this juncture.

The WorldWide Leader listed eight current Power Five head coaches who are on the hot seat enough to be worth monitoring going forward into the 2024 season. Let’s take a look at them below.

Sam Pittman, Arkansas

Some thought Pittman might be done for following the 2023 season, but a late win over Florida certainly helped his case. And Pittman was able to do enough to convince his administration that it was worth keeping him around for another year. Now we find out if Pittman’s staff overhaul can help him execute a turnaround.

Bobby Petrino is the headliner staff change, returning to Arkansas to take over as offensive coordinator. He’ll have to help resuscitate Pittman’s career in Fayetteville, which so far has produced just a 23-25 record in four years.

Dave Aranda, Baylor

Aranda burst onto the scene at Baylor, winning 12 games and the Sugar Bowl in his second season in charge in 2021. But the success has faded quickly from there, as the Bears dropped to 6-7 in 2022 and then 3-9 in 2023. With the trajectory pointed the wrong direction, Aranda needs a bounce-back season in a hurry.

Like a few of the coaches on this list, he’ll be looking for that turnaround while breaking in new playcallers. Aranda is expected to resume playcalling duties defensively, while new offensive coordinator Jake Spavital was brought in to provide a spark on the other side. ESPN projects that Aranda likely needs six or seven wins in 2024 to keep his job.

Billy Napier, Florida

The Florida coach has had back-to-back losing seasons, though the first one produced a bowl appearance. That’s not going to cut it long-term at Florida, where the expectation is to compete for championships on a fairly regular basis.

Napier has shaken up his defensive staff in hopes that it will produce a better outcome after being stung by historically poor play on that side of the ball the last two years. He’s also brought in a special teams coordinator from the NFL to try to fix issues there. But the bottom line is he has to find a way to win more games… and he’ll have to do so against arguably the nation’s toughest 2024 schedule.

Chip Kelly, UCLA

The first three coaches ESPN listed as firmly on the hot seat. The remaining five are names worth keeping an eye on when it comes to the hot seat. With that distinction in mind, Kelly is next on the list. It took a while to get the success rolling at UCLA, and it’s proven tough to maintain, as well.

After three straight years failing to top four wins, UCLA has now reached the eight-win mark in three straight years. But there hasn’t been that real breakthrough season that fans are looking for. ESPN believes Kelly might need to win eight or nine games to keep his job going into 2025.

Clark Lea, Vanderbilt

The Commodores have always been a program struggling to claw its way out of the SEC basement, with some fair success at various points. It hasn’t yet come under Lea, who has spent three seasons in charge at this point and racked up a 9-27 record.

Because the program is beginning to invest more into infrastructure and the things needed to compete at a higher level in recruiting, more will be asked of Lea in terms of on-field results. A five-win campaign in 2022 was nice. The 2-10 campaigns that sandwiched it? Not so much. Lea needs more of the former as he gets deeper into his tenure.

Ryan Day, Ohio State

ESPN even admits it won’t put Day, who is 56-8 overall at Ohio State, “squarely on the hot seat.” But he’s on the list, which says something about how tenuous his job status might actually be, despite the impressive amount of overall winning done under his watch so far.

And the real crux of the issue is that Ohio State is falling behind its biggest rival, Michigan. The Wolverines have made three straight playoff appearances and won a national title, and they’ve had to go through the Buckeyes to do it. That doesn’t sit well in Columbus, which means Day needs to do something to flip the narrative in 2024, whether that’s beating Michigan or making a deep playoff run.

Kalani Sitake, BYU

BYU had a nice three-year run of high-level success under Sitake before struggling with the transition to the Big 12 Conference in 2023. After winning 21 games total in 2020 and 2021, BYU won just 13 in 2022 and 2023.

Sitake has some strong backing in BYU, but he probably needs to begin to show that the program can be competitive in the Big 12 on a regular basis to feel completely secure. ESPN notes that winning some early in 2024 would be a nice start after ending 2023 with five straight losses.

Pat Narduzzi, Pittsburgh

Narduzzi has done very well at Pittsburgh and maintained a pretty high level of winning for a long time. But that wasn’t the case in 2023, when the program finished just 3-9, by far the worst year of Narduzzi’s tenure. A conference title in 2021 feels long removed.

ESPN pointed to an incident in which Narduzzi had to apologize for comments he made after an ugly loss to Notre Dame questioning his team’s talent as something that might have folks a little on edge. The WorldWide Leader also notes that the current athletics director at Pittsburgh did not hire Narduzzi, which can sometimes be an important factor.

So there you have it, eight coaches who are on the hot seat or close enough to it to be well worth watching come this fall. All are sure to generate plenty of discussion as they either turn things around or get set to fire up the coaching carousel for the 2024 cycle.