University football coaches received a full cycle of the four -year recruitment class to prove their value, except major embezzlement, not so long ago.
These days have been over.
In today’s ecosystem, when first -year signatories rarely remain in the same program for four years and what was once considered embezzlement is now inapplicable, coach staff are lucky to obtain two full years if the program does not meet expectations.
Consider the following names that enter the 2025 season on the proverbial hot seat. It is a group who includes a coach under three years old kidnapped to reach a conference championship match behind a winner of the Heisman trophy; Another coach under the age of two withdrawn from a championship title and a snob of university football playoffs; And a third party who barely had time to settle in his new house.
– Hugh freeze, Auburn
After its improper release of Ole Miss, Freeze rehabilitated its image sufficiently in a mandate of 34-15 in Liberty to return to the dry in 2023.
Auburn Brass obtained the bank on Freeze by recovering the magic it introduced almost a decade previously in Oxford, when the rebels reached the six New Year bowls in 2014 and 2015 and flirted with the This last campaign.
Instead, the Tigers more closely looked like the last team of Ole Miss who finished 5-7 in 2016. Auburn lost seven games in each of the first two freeze seasons. His 14 total losses already exceeding the 12 predecessor Bryan Harsin accumulated before his evidence halfway through the 2022 campaign.
Perhaps worse, Freeze did it using an offensively anemic football brand.
Ole Miss de Freeze teams were celebrated for their explosiveness, which Auburn resumed in an upheaval of 43-41 from Texas A&M last November. But in the seven losses of the Tigers in 2024, they no longer scored by 17 points only once, including the setbacks of the house at the start of the season from 21-14 to Cal and 24-14 at Arkansas.
The Golden Bears and Sam Pittman Sam Pittman of the Razorbacks entered the hot seat in 2025.
-LINCOLN Riley, USC
Another head coach praised his offensive chops, Riley’s superb introduction to the USC at the end of November 2021 seemed to be a Christmas present at the start of Trojans fans. Remaking that only one PAC-10/12 championship since 2008, the USC boosters want to return to their domination of the aughts.
Riley, having resulted in Oklahoma with four consecutive appearances of qualifying series from 2017 to 2020, seemed to be the man to use this glory. And, throughout his initial regular season, he validated this confidence.
But by being physically dominated by UTAH to lose the PAC-12 championship, again by Tulane in the Cotton Bowl, it has become obvious that the winner of Heisman, Caleb Williams, masked a certain number of shortcomings of the program. These gaps could not be masked in a disappointing 2023.
Replacing Alex Grinch to the defensive coordinator with Anton Lynn of the Crosstown UCLA rival was a huge step in the right direction while the USC moved to the Big Ten, but the Trojans spray in attack without Williams relegated them to a 7-6 finish in 2024.
The good news for Riley and USC is that five of the six defeats last season were decided by less than a touchdown, which suggests that Trojan horses are close to Big Ten.
– Mike Norvell, Florida State
Even in the hot friendly media climate of 2025, it seems reactionary to place the management of an entire program on a game. However, the non -presentation of Florida State – literally with a multitude of seated players, and figuratively, as in the final score 63-3 – against Georgia in the orange Bowl threw a dark cloud on the seminols.
For some, this result justified the unprecedented decision of the committee on the playoffs to exclude a champion of conference of an undefeated field. He also settled the table for a dark in 2024. The 2-10 finish of Florida was not just worse than the Nadir under the predecessor of Norvell, Willie Taggart; It was the worst that a Seminole team finished since the 1973 team went without a victory.
Florida State welcomes a talented transfers harvest which includes the quarter-Arrière Tommy Castellanos (Boston College); Large receptors Duce Robinson (USC), Malik Benson (Oregon) and Squirrel White (Tennessee); And the defensive winger James Williams (Nebraska). Norvell will need the influx of experience to pay immediate dividends to stay in Tallahassee – and that means immediate in the most literal sense.
A week 1 match with Alabama has been looming as the most important game for the Florida State Norvell era since it was trampled on in the Orange Bowl.
– Brent Brennan, Arizona
Although the restructured transfer portal can offer an instant recovery of the program, because the state of Florida seeks in 2025, it can also condemn a program from the start. Brent Brennan faced such a scenario in his return to the coach of his Alma Mater, Arizona.
Brennan achieved much less with his mandate in San Jose State, a lasting rider whom he led to a Mountain West Conference championship and repeated seizures. Competition with the competition of the Big 12 conference with less proved to be more difficult, because the exodus of transfers following Jedd Fisch leaving for Washington after the Arizona 1123 campaign in 2023 left the Wildcats decimated in the trenches.
The lack of depth of Arizona on one or the other line has left the Wildcats unable to capitalize on the last season of their attack by joining the friends Noah Fifita in the quarter-back and in the first round of the draft of the NFL Tetairoa McMillan at the broad receiver.
Fifita’s return in 2025 and Arizona with a more veteran program on the rest of the list could help Brennan restore the excitement that UA lost after a dizzying decline in one of the best seasons in the history of the program.
– field level media
