College football Head Coach ‘Hot Seat Review’ at midseason

A week ago, our ‘Hot Seat Review’ only looked at college football head and assistant coaches in the SEC. In that post, we said assistants at three SEC schools were vulnerable. For two of them, South Carolina and Missouri, nothing has changed. At the third school – what a difference a week makes. In one game, Jimbo Fisher’s position in College Station became much stronger and his Coordinators are no longer at risk.

This week, our ‘Hot Seat Review’ has seven head coaches from five different conferences. Several head coaches, rumored as having their jobs in jeopardy, are not included in this list. The primary reason is where these other guys coach. The football programs at some schools are so devoid of rational hope, no losing record is bad enough to fire their coach.

Two examples of such dismal programs are U Mass and New Mexico State. Now in his third season at U Mass, Walt Bell’s teams have won two games. In their last game, a win over U Conn defined the Minutemen as ‘not the worst team’ in college football. Bell’s team has a chance to win three more games this season and whether they do or not, should not affect his position in Amherst.

Another example of a school where expectations should never be high is New Mexico State. Doug Martin has coached nine seasons at NMSU. His teams have won 24 games. The two coaches before him in Las Cruces, Darrell Walker and Hal Mumme, won a total of 21 games over eight seasons. Doug Martin’s 2017 Aggies team won seven games with a bowl win. That should have qualified Martin for a lifetime contract.

The earlier ‘SEC Hot Seats’ post is available here.