Hot Seat Win Totals: What must Scott Frost, Bryan Harsin, others do to keep their jobs in 2022?

After one of the wildest coaching carousels ever in 2021 — with 30 changes including new head coaches at blueblood programs like Southern Cal, LSU, Florida, Miami, Oklahoma and Notre Dame — history says the 2022 cycle should slow down precipitously. Still, hot seat season starts anew.

But college football’s history hasn’t included the transfer portal, NIL and billion dollar TV deals. 

The landscape is different now.

There will inevitably be more churn and burn again this fall, even if the coaching turnover isn’t as significant compared to last season. Several major Power 5 jobs could be up for grabs, including Nebraska, Auburn and Georgia Tech. 

Discussing coaches getting fired and families getting uprooted isn’t fun, but it’s unfortunately part of the deal. So respectfully, what must some coaches even do to save their jobs this fall? Is it even possible in some situations?

Let’s dive in…

Scott Frost, Nebraska 

The Cornhuskers were the best 3-9 team in college football history a year ago, losing eight one-score games and finishing with a Big Ten point-differential (allowed vs. scored 239 each) of zero. 

That’s almost impossible to pull off, yet somehow, Nebraska’s Prodigal Son did just that. 

Nebraska found every conceivable way to lose a game last season, culminating in four painful years for Scott Frost back home. He hasn’t made a bowl game, saw his salary get slashed by more than $1 million this offseason and has come under the fire by the NCAA. He’s just 15-29 at Nebraska, and with patience running thin in Lincoln, this is a make-or-break year for Frost.  

With pressure mounting, the 47-year-old former Cornhuskers star completely overhauled his offensive coaching staff this offseason, hiring a new receivers coach (Mickey Joseph), runnings back coach (Bryan Applewhite), offensive line coach (Donovan Raiola) and offensive coordinator (Mark Whipple). Perhaps more importantly, Frost actually hired a special teams coordinator for the first time at Nebraska, tabbing former LSU assistant Bill Busch to fix a unit that cost the Huskers multiple wins the last few seasons. The Cornhuskers also added 15 transfers, including a new quarterback in Texas transfer Casey Thompson. 

So what will it take for Frost to keep his job? His buyout drops to just $7.5 million on Oct. 1, so he’s staring at an hourglass just to start the season. 

With seven home games and no Ohio State on the slate, Nebraska’s schedule is more forgiving this year. But Frost better not lose a Week 0 opener in Ireland against Northwestern on Saturday.

He needs to find a way to beat at least one of Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota — three schools he’s a combined 1-10 against.

Frost has failed to meet even basic expectations at his alma mater, and now entering a pivotal season on a simmering seat, the Cornhuskers are actually expected to be one of the better teams in the Big Ten West his year. That only ups the ante for Frost.

With a preseason win total is set at 7.5, anything short of seven or eight wins looks like a must for Frost to be back in 2023. If Nebraska stumbles early, he may not even make it to Halloween.

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Bryan Harsin, Auburn

At SEC Media Days this summer, Harsin delivered a loud and thunderous message aimed at a group of influential Auburn boosters who attempted a shameless and gross coup to get the former Boise State coach fired after a shaky Year 1 on the Plains. 

“And it didn’t work,” Harsin proclaimed. 

Let’s revisit those remarks in December.

Harsin has certainly rallied the troops at Auburn this offseason, turning to a pair of former BSU staffers for coordinator roles and doing a better job connecting with his players. Recruiting is on the uptick, and folks love his podcast, too!

But Harsin can’t combat the reality that Auburn’s top two rivals exist in a different neighborhood right now, which is why those same insurrectionists still want Harsin gone. The Tigers’ thin roster, brutal 2022 schedule and general dysfunction around the program (i.e., an AD with an expiring contract this year) maintain that possibility, too.

There are plenty of opportunities on the schedule for Harsin to secure a statement win (or several). The Tigers have five straight home games to start the year, and a clean sweep — which would include wins over Penn State and LSU — would certainly engender Harsin some legitimate goodwill. But the Tigers started 6-2 last season before the wheels fell off and they lost five straight to end the year.

If Auburn can somehow manage its way to eight wins, Harsin deserves to stick around for another season. 

Herm Edwards, Arizona State

It’s actually remarkable Herm Edwards still has his job with the Sun Devils, as the football program is in utter turmoil with zero recruiting juice (their 2023 class ranks last in the Pac-12) and squarely in the NCAA’s crosshairs. 

Arizona State has seen staffers and players alike bolt Tempe with haste this offseason due to the investigation over brazen recruiting violations committed during the shortened 2020 COVID season. ASU has a skeleton coaching staff and saw a spring exodus of talent that included starting quarterback Jayden Daniels (LSU), top wideouts Ricky Pearsall (Florida) and LV Bunkely-Shelton (Oklahoma), defensive tackle Jermayne Lole (Louisville) and linebacker Eric Gentry (USC). 

And yet, Edwards remains employed — largely thanks to his longstanding relationship with his former agent and now ASU boss in athletics director Ray Anderson. 

The two are tethered at the hip, and with the NCAA taking its sweet time to address the alleged penalties, 2022 is setting up for another limbo season for Edwards and the Sun Devils. There were some offseason rumblings that the 68-year-old coach could choose to retire after this year, so that remains a potential outcome here, too. 

Arizona State is a fringe bowl team with a non-conference schedule that includes a road trip to Oklahoma State and several cupcakes. Former Florida quarterback Emory Jones is the guy replacing Daniels, so at least there’s experience at the position stepping in.

On the surface, a six or seven-win season could be enough for Edwards to stick around if he wants to, but unlike anyone else on this list, what happens between the lines on Saturdays is almost less important than what’s happening off the field at ASU — portal loss, terrible recruiting, low program morale and looming sanctions. 

Geoff Collins, Georgia Tech

No coach, not even Frost or Harsin, enters 2022 facing a bigger uphill battle at keeping their job than Geoff Collins.

To whit, entering Year 4 in the 404, Collins:

• Is just 9-25 — the worst record of any Tech coach in over 120 years
• Has a completely new-look staff with eight new assistant coaches
• Lost 12 players to the portal including star tailback Jahmyr Gibbs to Alabama
• Has zero signees from his first recruiting class projected as starters
• Lost six straight games to end 2021 with an upcoming schedule that looks designed to get him fired (five preseason Top 25 teams, with non-conference games against Ole Miss, UCF and Georgia).

Collins was a great defensive coordinator at Mississippi State and Florida, but the self-proclaimed Minister of Mayhem has been a disaster at Tech. His bravado and vision didn’t take, and now he’s playing with a roster that’s worse than every ACC school not named Duke.

The Yellow Jackets could opt for a change at athletics director before making a move on Collins, who would be owed $10.6 million if he’s fired anytime in 2022.

Still, unless Georgia Tech makes a bowl game this year — an unfathomable outcome when you consider Collins would have to double the team’s win total and he’s never even won back-to-back games in a single season — Tech will be in the market for a new coach this offseason.

Others Worth Mentioning:

It’s unclear if Dino Babers, whose AD has publicly said that the Syracuse head coach is “not on the hot seat,” and Florida State’s Mike Norvell are in imminent danger of losing their jobs, but both ACC coaches need to show real progress this fall if they want to ensure they remain employed for 2023.

The Orange have three consecutive losing seasons, and Babers is just 5-21 in conference play since his wild-outlier 10-3 year in 2018. Meanwhile, the Seminoles are just 8-13 under Norvell — with zero wins in September the last two seasons. Norvell received a one-year contract extension this offseason, but it would really behoove FSU’s coach of starting 2022 strong — no easy task after a Week 0 cupcake with a visit to New Orleans to face LSU and a road game at Louisville. The Seminoles also have a brutal month in the middle of the season, with three Top 25 opponents (at NC State, Clemson and at Miami) on the slate.