Ted Hyman, CBS Sports
The job security of college football players has never been more tenuous. The coaching carousel has already reached a record pace as we approach the midway point of the 2025 football season. Brian Kelly, the FBS’s 12th head coach to be fired this year became the 10th in-season firing on Sunday. This is the highest number of firings in-season before November since 1978 in the FBS. The eight Power Conference coaches who were dismissed surpassed the four fired last year and are now close to the high of 9 in 2022. The pressure is constant. The emotional pulse of fans and boosters is increasingly shaping administrative decisions. Their influence can change a coach’s destiny with a single match. Kelly’s and Penn State James Franklin’s jobs were lost because of this volatility. It is growing and it is real. Think about the progress we’ve made with Ohio State’s Ryan Day. Day was rated “3” in our hot seats rankings at the beginning of last season. This rating means that “pressure is increasing.” We would have guessed that after a loss to Michigan in the regular season and the drama that ensued, Day’s hot seat rating was somewhere around four. Day is untouchable, and Ohio State could win consecutive national championships.
In this November update of job security, a panel of six CBS Sports experts rated the still-standing coaches on a 0–5 scale. The composite score provides a more accurate picture of job stability across sports. Current Snapshot – Hugh Freeze from Auburn and Luke Fickell from Wisconsin are the only coaches to have received the dreaded “5.00” rating. This is the highest score in the country, and signifies that the coach must win or lose their job. Mike Norvell of Florida State and Tim Beck of Coastal Carolina are both close behind with 4.83. Dave Aranda, Mike Locksley and Frank Reich from Stanford are also above the 4.0 mark. This means that they should “start improving right now.” Brent Venables, Oklahoma’s head coach, is among the 25 coaches in the “3-3.99” range. This means “pressure is increasing.” Any rating in the twos is a sign that “all is well for now”. Some interesting names have also risen, including Texas Steve Sarkisian’s, Kansas State Chris Kleiman’s and Rutgers Greg Schiano’s. This range includes 24 coaches. Mark Carney of Kent State was removed from the interim category on Thursday, and now occupies this tier. 88 coaches are rated between 0 to 1.99, which is considered “safe and secure”.Just like Day’s rating last year, the ratings of any coach can fluctuate dramatically week to weeks. This late-season snapshot helps us track the most precarious positions in college football — and anticipate the next moves on the carousel.
The table is alphabetized by school. Each coach’s current win-loss record and number of years leading that team before 2025 are listed.
2025-10-30 14:01:38
