As CBS Sports does every summer, a new 'Hot Seat' ranking was recently released. Boldly, a panel of CBS staff rated all 136 FBS head coaches. Rated and ranked in six categories, no SEC football coach made the 'Win or Be Fired' designation. Only one of the 136 coaches was given that status.
The CBS panel rated the coaches from 0 to 5, with five being the 'Win or Be Fired' category. Votes from the panel were averaged, and a whopping 28 FBS coaches were rated 'Untouchable'. Two of the 28 were SEC football coaches, Kirby Smart and Steve Sarkisian.
The next, most secure category was labeled 'Safe and Secure'. Sixty FBS coaches made up that group, with six of them being SEC coaches. The most safe and secure in the SEC were Lane Kiffin, Shane Beamer, Josh Heupel, and Eli Drinkwitz, followed by Mike Elko and Clark Lea.
Among the 23 coaches grouped as 'All Good ... For Now' was Alabama's Kalen Deboer.
Under Pressure SEC Football Coaches
The next category was defined as 'Pressure Is Mounting' and while only 16 FBS coaches made the group, four are SEC coaches. Not surprisingly, Florida's Billy Napier, Kentucky's Mark Stoops, and Mississippi State's Jeff Lebby were included. In a small surprise, so did LSU's Brian Kelly.
The most tenuous situation for SEC football coaches is the category, 'Start Improving Now'. According to the CBS panel, the most vulnerable of the SEC's trio is Oklahoma's Brent Venables, followed by Arkansas coach Sam Pittman and Auburn's Hugh Freeze.
Like defining beauty, 'improving now' is subject to perception and interpretation. With a 30-31, five-season record at Arkansas, one win above last season's 7-6 record might be enough for Pittman. Venables is 22-17 in three seasons, and maybe moving from 6-7 to 7-6 would give him one more year. At Auburn, Freeze is 11-14, after last season's 5-7. The threshold for Freeze to get a fourth season at Auburn is probably seven wins.
The CBS panel did not consider high buyouts as providing more job security. But in a squeezed financial environment, buyouts will be a factor. For example, Mark Stoops has a current $37.5M buyout. The Kentucky Wildcats site, A Sea of Blue, stated that Stoops is "too expensive to fire." That number is probably close to two seasons of player payroll for Big Blue basketball.
The CBS panel did a credible job, even with some vagueness in some categories. This time next year, my crimson-tinted view is that Kalen DeBoer will have moved up to Safe and Secure, while Josh Heupel will drop to All Good ... For Now.
Note: Head Coach records provided by Sports Reference