Pete Thamel updates where the college football coaching carousel stands

Midway through the 2024 college football season, and the coaching carousel has been quiet. That hasn’t kept rumors from sparking, though, and ESPN insider Pete Thamel shared an update on where the coaching carousel stands.

During an episode of the College GameDay Podcast, Thamel broke down the situations at several schools, including ones that most people came into the season expecting to open up, like Florida, coached by Billy Napier, and Baylor, coached by Dave Aranda.

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“From the big picture in this coaching carousel, what we’ve expected to happen is trending towards happening,” Pete Thamel said. “I think the Florida job is still expected to open. Billy Napier maybe had a chance on Saturday to turn that. Few chances, quite frankly, and it just didn’t happen. The Baylor job is obviously still trending towards opening.”

Billy Napier is in year three at Florida. While there, he’s put up a 3-3 record in 2024, he has a record of 14-17 over the course of his time there. However, a close loss at Tennessee starts a difficult stretch in the back half of the season. Meanwhile, Dave Aranda is in year five at Baylor, having taken the Bears to a 12-win and Big 12 conference championship in his second season. However, after going 3-9 in 2023, Baylor is now 2-4 on the 2024 season.

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Thamel also shared an update on Mack Brown at North Carolina and Ryan Walters at Purdue. Those are both challenging situations right now that look like they could become active on the coaching carousel.

“The two that probably weren’t discussed heavily going into the season that have emerged as possibilities now are North Carolina and Purdue,” Thamel said. “North Carolina seems more certain. They’ve lost four in a row. They gave up 70 to James Madison. Mack Brown just seems a little bit rattled. I do think they’ll hold hands on that exit. That’s not going to be like a fiery escort you out of the office with security dismissal, like we saw with Robert Saleh and the Jets, but it just seems like that’s trending to some kind of ending. It would be a surprise to me, and to you probably, if Mack Brown is the coach at North Carolina next year.”

Mack Brown is one of the most successful active coaches, having won a national championship during his time at Texas. He’s now in the sixth season of his second tenure at North Carolina and has made a bowl game in each of his first five seasons in this stint. Overall, his record with the Tar Heels is 110-77-1. With 285 wins, he is the leader among active coaches in wins.

“I think the other thing we’re seeing with these big leagues now is,” Thamel said. “Inevitably, you grow to 18 in the Big Ten, somebody is coming in 18th…I think there’s a certain visceral reaction to finishing at the bottom of these leagues because they’re so big now. I think one of the interesting litmuses will be Purdue. They’ve really struggled in year two under Ryan Walters. It would cost more than $9 million to buy him out, nevermind the rest of the staff and everything that would go with it. I think they need a strong finish or he’s going to end up in the crosshairs too.”

Thamel also noted that offensive coordinator Graham Harrell has already been fired at Purdue. It’s a clearly difficult job that has a difficult situation overall, given the resources the program has compared to its peers. DeShaun Foster at UCLA is in a similar situation, though Thamel feels he’s safe.