UPFRONT

Brian Kelly's Firing Proves Nobody's Job Is Safe Anymore

Brian Kelly is out at LSU.

Less than 24 hours after a humiliating 49-25 loss to Texas A&M, he's gone. But here's what makes this different: Kelly didn't just get fired. He first got into a heated confrontation with his boss.

Athletic director Scott Woodward wanted Kelly to fire offensive coordinator Joe Sloan. Kelly pushed back—hard. He wanted to make different staff changes. The conversation escalated. Threats about Kelly's $53 million buyout came up. By Sunday night, Kelly was done.

But here's the bigger story.

Kelly has two Division II national championships. He took Cincinnati to the College Football Playoff. He took Notre Dame to two national championship games. At LSU, he won 10 games in each of his first two seasons. He won 9 last year. He's on pace for 8 this season.

That's not a bad coach. That's a really good coach who didn't meet championship-or-bust expectations.

And now LSU is about to spend $100 million to replace him with someone who might be better. Lane Kiffin? Marcus Freeman? Brent Key? Nobody knows for sure.

This is the new reality of college football. Win championships or get fired. It doesn't matter what your résumé looks like. It doesn't matter if you're winning 8-10 games a year. If you're not competing for titles, you're gone.

The message is clear: Nobody's safe. Not even the really good coaches.

We take a deeper look here.

WEEK 10 COACHES HOT SEAT RANKINGS

Week 10 Hot Seat Rankings: The Carousel Is Spinning Out of Control

The coaching changes are piling up.

We're only at Week 10 and jobs are opening everywhere: Penn State, LSU, Florida, Oklahoma State, Arkansas, Virginia Tech, UCLA, Stanford. And more could be coming. If elite coaches with championship résumés are getting fired, then nobody is safe.

So who's next?

Here's a quick look at our Week 10 Top 10 Coaches Hot Seat Rankings:

1. Mike Norvell (Florida State) - The buyout is massive, but the seat is molten. FSU went from Top 10 to getting embarrassed by Stanford. A full program assessment is coming.

2. Jonathan Smith (Michigan State) - Five straight losses. Today's college football doesn't tolerate slow rebuilds, and Smith wasn't hired by the current AD or president. That's a death sentence.

3. Bill Belichick (North Carolina) - Exit strategy conversations are already happening. In October. Of his first season. The NFL legend can't fix the dysfunction in Chapel Hill.

4. Jeff Choate (Nevada) - Still winless in conference play. The local beat writer rated his hot seat a "0" on a scale of 0-10 because of his $2.7 million buyout. The money is keeping him employed for now.

5. Hugh Freeze (Auburn) - Finally won an SEC game. Great. He's 1-4 in the conference. If they don't win out, the talk of a coaching change will get loud. Fast.

6. Luke Fickell (Wisconsin) - Back-to-back shutouts for the first time since 1977. The AD committed to keeping him and investing in NIL, but fans aren't buying it. Betting markets still have him as a top candidate to get fired.

7. Justin Wilcox (Cal) - Nine years. No winning seasons since 2019. The buyout is nearly $11 million, but Cal has some of the wealthiest alumni in college football. If they want him gone, they'll find the money.

8. Derek Mason (Middle Tennessee) - 4-14 overall. 2-9 in CUSA. At some point, you have to cut your losses and try something new.

9. Shane Beamer (South Carolina) - After winning SEC Coach of the Year in 2024 and nearly making the playoff, the Gamecocks are 3-5 and dead last in SEC offensive output. The goodwill from last season is evaporating fast.

10. Sonny Cumbie (Louisiana Tech) - Started the season as the clear #1 hottest seat. The team is 4-3, but the offense - his specialty - is still broken. In Year 4, you either show real improvement or the program shows you the door.

Top 10 Analysis here.

Where does your coach rank? Check out our full 136 FBS Coaches Hot Seat Rankings. 

BUBBLING UNDER

The national media isn't paying attention to these coaches yet.

But they should be.

These aren't the names dominating the hot seat conversation. They're not in our Top 10. But the signs are there if you know where to look.

The pattern is always the same:

A fanbase that's lost patience. An administration that's running out of excuses. Contract situations that look unmovable until suddenly they're not. And in some cases, coaches who are well-liked enough by insiders that they keep getting one more chance even when the results say they shouldn't.

Some of these situations will resolve themselves quietly. A negotiated buyout. A coach who leaves for another job. A sudden turnaround that buys another year.

Others are going to explode into the national conversation the moment things go south.

The difference between "bubbling under" and "Top 10 hot seat" is usually just two or three bad losses.

Here are two to watch.

Mark Stoops (Kentucky) - The Contract That Won't Die

The buyout is $40.5 million.

And it's due in a lump sum within 60 days of his firing. Which means Kentucky football is trapped. The fans know exactly who to blame: Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart.

This is the second time Barnhart has handcuffed this program with an unmovable contract.

First, it was John Calipari in basketball.

Now, it's Mark Stoops in football.

Both times, the same pattern played out:

• Early success leads to massive extension

• Performance declines

• The program is trapped watching the slide in slow motion

• Fans screaming for change

• The athletic department is paralyzed by the math

The Stoops contract isn't just expensive; it's also a bad deal. It's structured to be escape-proof.

Most schools can spread buyout payments over several years to soften the blow.

Kentucky can't.

The contract Barnhart negotiated requires the full $40.5 million as a lump sum within 60 days. That's more money than Kentucky's proposed stadium improvements. That's a check so large it would cripple the athletic department's budget for years.

Stoops has lost 14 of his last 16 SEC games. Kroger Field is half-empty for home games. The fanbase is furious.

But the math doesn't care about fan anger.

And Stoops? He's not going anywhere voluntarily.

When a Lexington radio station reported that he'd approached Barnhart to negotiate a reduced buyout, Stoops called it "crap." He said there's "zero percent chance I'm walking away."

Why would he walk away from $9 million a year?

He knows Kentucky can't afford to fire him. He knows Barnhart created a contract that makes him functionally unfireable. So he'll keep coaching, keep collecting checks, and keep losing SEC games while the program slowly bleeds out.

The irony is brutal: keeping Stoops might cost MORE than firing him.

Think about the hidden costs:

• Empty seats mean lost ticket revenue

• Donors stop contributing when they see no path forward

• Top recruits look elsewhere when they see a lame-duck coach

• Transfer portal talent avoids a sinking ship

• Competitive losses compound year after year

By the time Barnhart finally admits this isn't working, the damage to the program could exceed the buyout itself.

But Barnhart seems determined to ride this out. He called last year's 4-8 season a "one-year blip." He said he'd need to see "two or three more years" of similar results before considering a change.

Translation: I negotiated this unmovable contract, so now we're all going to pretend everything is fine.

Stoops isn't in our Top 10 because the buyout makes firing him functionally impossible.

• Not because his seat isn't hot.

• Not because Kentucky fans aren't furious.

• Not because he hasn't earned it with 14 losses in his last 16 SEC games.

But because Mitch Barnhart created a contract that turned Mark Stoops into college football's most expensive permanent employee.

If Kentucky finishes 3-9 or 4-8 again? If Kroger Field attendance craters? If donors start withholding money in protest?

Then we'll see how long Barnhart can keep pretending the contract he created isn't strangling the program to death.

The buyout says Stoops is safe.

The scoreboard says otherwise.

Dave Aranda (Baylor) - The Coach Everyone Likes Too Much To Fire

Dave Aranda's seat at Baylor was scorching hot at the start of the 2024 season.

Then he pulled off one of the remarkable mid-season turnarounds in college football. The Bears started 2-4. His job was hanging by a thread. Then Baylor rattled off six straight wins, finished 8-5, and suddenly Aranda wasn't getting fired anymore.

He had coached himself to safety.

Or so everyone thought.

Fast forward to 2025, and the pattern is repeating itself.

Aranda is now 35-34 overall at Baylor and 23-27 in conference play over six seasons. His one brilliant year, the 12-2 Big 12 Championship season in 2021, was mainly built with Matt Rhule's leftover roster.

Since then? The Bears are 21-25 overall and 14-19 in Big 12 play.

Three of his six seasons have finished below .500. The defense, supposedly his specialty as one of the best defensive coordinators in the country, ranks 118th nationally in scoring defense. They're allowing 31.4 points per game.

And here's the brutal part: Aranda IS the defensive coordinator now. He took over play-calling duties himself to try to fix it.

It hasn't worked.

But here's why Aranda keeps surviving: everyone in college football likes him.

The buyout is estimated at $12 million. Not Kentucky money. Not prohibitively expensive. Baylor could afford to move on if it wanted to.

But Athletic Director Mack Rhoades doesn't want to.

Aranda is respected across the industry. He's considered one of the brightest defensive minds in football. He's well-liked by coaches, administrators, and media members. He says the right things. He does things the right way.

This creates a situation in which Baylor keeps giving him chances even though the results don't justify them.

The numbers tell a different story from the reputation.

The defense, Aranda's specialty, is a disaster. Since 2022, the Bears have allowed 28.9 points per game. They're 112th in rushing defense, 106th in total defense, 123rd in sacks, and 111th in tackles for loss.

If Aranda were just the defensive coordinator, he'd already be fired.

But because he's the head coach who won a Big 12 Championship four years ago, and because everyone in college football genuinely likes and respects him, Baylor keeps finding reasons to bring him back.

The contract runs through 2029. Rhoades extended Aranda after that magical 2021 season, convinced he'd found his guy.

Now? McLane Stadium is half-empty. Fans are furious. And the defense keeps getting shredded by offenses that looked mediocre against everyone else.

Here's what keeps Aranda employed:

Timing matters in college football. When Aranda's seat got hottest in 2024, he strung together just enough wins at just the right moment. The losses early in the season? They looked better in retrospect when Colorado, BYU, and Iowa State all became conference contenders.

Baylor also has legitimate offensive talent returning for 2025:

• QB Sawyer Robertson (3,071 yards, 28 TDs in 2024)

• RB Bryson Washington

• WR Josh Cameron

• Nine of eleven offensive starters are back

The offense ranked 6th nationally with 440.1 yards per game. Offensive coordinator Jake Spavital is doing excellent work.

Which creates an interesting problem: the offense is elite, but the defense is so bad it doesn't matter.

And yet, the industry consensus remains: Aranda deserves another chance.

It's not just Rhoades. It's media members who cover the team. It's coaches around the country who respect what Aranda did at LSU and Wisconsin before coming to Baylor. It's the belief that someone that smart about defense can't possibly stay this bad at it forever.

But eventually, results matter more than reputation.

The problem? Aranda's running out of cards to play. He's already cycled through multiple coordinators. He took over defensive play-calling himself. Nothing has worked.

Aranda isn't in our Top 10 yet because he keeps finding ways to buy himself time.

The buyout is manageable. The results are bad. But the goodwill he's built with decision-makers keeps saving him.

But 2025 might be different.

The stands are empty. The defense is historically bad. And at some point, even Athletic Directors who genuinely like their coach have to admit it's not working.

If Baylor starts poorly again? If the defense continues giving up 40 points to mediocre offenses? If fan apathy turns into open revolt?

This time, there might not be a late-season winning streak to save him.

And even being well-liked only buys you so many chances.

The buyout isn't the problem anymore.

The results are.

THAT’S A WRAP

The pressure is real.

And it's only going to intensify as we head into the final stretch of the season.

Some of these coaches will survive. Others won't. But every single one of them knows that the next few weeks will determine their future.

This Friday, we'll be back with game previews that matter for the hot seat rankings.

Which coaches are facing must-win games this weekend? Who's got a schedule that could save their job or end it? What results would completely reshape these rankings?

We'll break down the games that will move coaches up or down the list.

Because in November, every game is an audition.

And some of these coaches are running out of time to prove they deserve another one.

See you Friday.