Florida has fired its coach as has Colorado State.
One of the previews of the week’s games talked about Wisconsin making Luke Fickell coach against Ohio State before firing him, but they’ve got Oregon, Washington, Indiana, Illinois and Minnesota left on the schedule, and may not be favored in any of those games. How long will Wisconsin take before pulling the plug on Fickell?
Florida State’s AD has said they’ll wait until the end of the season to make a decision about their coach, so he’s skating on thin ice.
Both Florida State and Wisconsin have told their coaches they’ll be evaluated at the end of the season.
But LSU fired Brian Kelly today. Another big buyout, probably around $54 Million.
This argues the LSU job is better than PSU, but I disagree. PSU has just as much money and probably more well-to-do alumni plus it is a bigger state. They could swap coaches. That would be interesting.
Brian Kelly became one of the first coaches to walk away from the Notre Dame job, often considered the best gig in football, for LSU, and now he’s got a $54 million goodbye handshake from them.
You have to win yesterday in the SEC.
Hopefully this free link will work, but the WSJ’s sports/humor columnist has a good take on the college coaching scene.
I often wonder what defines “best gig”.
Being well-paid in Chicagoland is a pretty good life. For the assistant that aren’t using private jets having O’Hare for recruiting visits is much nicer than having layovers. For spouses living in Chicagoland is more palatable than Starkville, Mississippi.
The biggest downside from living in Chicagoland is the weather as even the cost of living isn’t awful when compared to California, Seattle, Coral Gables, etc.
For prestige of the job Northwestern isn’t there. Neither is being BMOC(big man on campus) or the absolute power that the Alabama coach wields, but on the other hand I’m sure the stress level is better.
In the SEC outside Austin, Nashville, and maybe Lexington most of the college towns are pretty marginal and some I’m sure are downright awful in livability rankings. I’ve never heard any good stat about Baton Rouge.
Best thing I’ve ever heard about living in Baton Rouge came from a person I shared an office with when I was working on my MBA. He interviewed with and got a job with a company in their Baton Rouge office. They told him there are no stray dogs or cats in Baton Rouge, the gators keep the stray animal population under control.
Nebraska has given Matt Rhule a 2 year extension, so that probably takes him out of the running for the Penn State (and other) head coach jobs now open.
Mike Nolan
I’m skeptical about Rhule. His win vs. us at home wasn’t strong. A kickoff return was all that saved him from a loss.
We aren’t as bad as advertised, but still nothing he has done at Nebraska is very impressive.
I’m OK with Rhule, he seems to be making progress, which is more than Nebraska can say about most of the post-Solich coaches, except for Pelini.
The Coaching carousel has become a blood sport earlier than normal this year. After LSU fired its coach, the Governor of Louisiana, who basically controls the members of the LSU Board of Regents, since he appoints them all, said that the LSU AD, who in addition to giving Kelly a $50 Million contract also gave a $75 million contract to Jimbo Fischer at Texas A&M before he took the LSU AD job–his successor quickly dumped Fischer and ate the buyout–would have absolutely no say in the naming of the new football coach at LSU.
The AD got the hint and resigned today.
Oh, and Rhule’s new contract (a 2 year extension) include a $1 million raise each time Nebraska makes the Playoffs. His buyout goes up to $15 million, still something I could see Penn State swallowing if they wanted Rhule badly enough, but they’re apparently pivoting to someone else.
Auburn has fired Hugh Freeze.
Gosh, there are a whole bunch of folks out there for State Penn to consider, and a whole pile of decent assistants as well.
When the dust clears, it looks like the SEC and ACC will be quite different.
Go B1GCats
rsl