College Football Hot Seat: Buyouts, Replacements, & Rumors For 2024

It’s never been more apparent that college football is a huge business worth billions of dollars. 

In the sport’s history, it’s probably never been more important to have the right staff in place than right now. Athletic directors are not afraid to fire their way out of a bad season, even if the decision will cost tens of millions of dollars.

Welcome to the 2024 hot seat season, where a new crop of coaches will inevitably be paid handsomely to go far, far away from their current jobs. 

It’s a curious time for the coaching carousel, as nearly one-quarter of all FBS jobs have turned over in the last 12 months. Many new head coaches are still in their first or second year on the job – still, in other words, in that early buffer zone of safety.

Here are a few head coaches who may be on the hot seat. 

Dave Aranda – Baylor

Dave Aranda entered the 2024 season as one of the most clear Hot Seat candidates. He may finish the year that way, too, as Baylor may ultimately move on from him no matter what at this point.

But Baylor fans should feel pretty satisfied with the job Aranda has done. In a deep Big 12 with loads of competitive teams, the Bears have acquitted themselves well. Sawyer Robertson has quietly become one of the better quarterbacks in the Big 12. The team never quit on Aranda.

Whether or not Aranda is back in Waco in 2025 remains to be seen, but there are plenty of fireable coaches who turned in worse seasons than the head man at Baylor.

Dave Aranda Buyout: Aranda’s private-school buyout is unknown. Reports from local media and college football insiders have estimated it was between $24-30 million if fired after last season. If accurate, that means his post-2024 buyout would be around $18-25 million.

Dave Aranda Replacement: Baylor didn’t promote then-associate head coach Joey McGuire when Matt Rhule left for the NFL. But McGuire did remain on Aranda’s staff for two seasons before taking the Texas Tech job. He’s the obvious aim-high candidate. If they can’t land McGuire, other candidates might include Jon Sumrall, Billy Napier, Blake Anderson, and Barry Odom.

Trent Dilfer – UAB

NFL journeyman quarterback Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl in his only season as the quarterback of the Baltimore Ravens. After he was done playing, he leveraged his resume, wit, and self-deprecating charm into a long-running gig as an ESPN analyst.

Dilfer joined the coaching ranks in 2019, taking the job at a private K-12 prep school in Nashville called Lipscomb Academy. 

After a 7-6 rookie campaign, Dilfer won 37 games from 2020-22. He also continued to make high-profile media appearances on The Ryen Russillo Podcast and elsewhere, gaining national publicity that is virtually unprecedented for a prep coach. 

That publicity helped him leverage directly to an FBS coaching job, where he jumped on with UAB in 2023. 

But Dilfer’s tenure in Birmingham was bad in 2023 and has been worse this season. The Blazers won at least six games in seven consecutive seasons from 2014-22. Dilfer went 4-8 in his inaugural season and has yet to beat an FBS opponent this year.

The fan base has quickly turned on him, partly thanks to unusual side comments and media interactions that have exacerbated the on-field results.

It’s tough to jump to the top of the college football hot seat conversation as a second-year G5 coach, but Dilfer has done it.

Trent Dilfer Buyout: Trent Dilfer doesn’t have a structured buyout. If fired without cause, he will be owed the remaining balance of his five-year contract. At the end of November, that will be approximately $4.1 million. 

Trent Dilfer Replacement: The obvious choice here is UL Monroe coach Bryant Vincent, who was hired as UAB offensive coordinator in 2018 and served as the interim head coach for 2022 after Bill Clark left the Blazers for health reasons. 

UAB athletic director Mark Ingram opted to hire Dilfer instead of keeping Vincent, who worked as the New Mexico OC in 2023 before being hired by Monroe for this season. 

Since Monroe is historically a hard place to win, Vincent could parlay a strong 2024 season with the Warhawks into a better G5 job with more resources.

Billy Napier – Florida

With hiring culture-obsessed Napier, Florida committed to a long-term, methodical rebuild with significant roster turnover, inconsistent on-field performances, and a lot of growing pains.

All of that has happened, though it’s still hard to accept for a program interested in competing for national championships, not Gasparilla Bowl contention.

Now in his third year, Napier is facing loads of two-deep questions, recruiting issues, and one of the hardest schedules in college football history.

Billy Napier Buyout: Under contract through the 2028 season, Napier is due 85% of the remaining contract if fired without cause. If he’s fired at the end of the 2024 season, he’d be due approximately $26 million.

Billy Napier Replacement: If athletic director Scott Stricklin is allowed to make a third hire after missing on Dan Mullen and Napier, he’d presumably gauge the interest of big fish like Dan Lanning or Lane Kiffin. Eli Drinkwitz could also be an option, as could Chadwell and Willie Fritz.

Sam Pittman – Arkansas

After winning the 2021 Outback Bowl to cap the program’s first nine-win season since 2011, Arkansas was 11-14 across the following two seasons, including 4-12 in SEC games.

Pittman’s staff is still recruiting at a respectable level — top 30 classes from 2020-24, including four top 125 recruits in the 2024 class — but that’s irrelevant when embarrassing losses start piling up on the field. Arkansas lost to Liberty at home as a 14-point favorite in 2022. 

In 2023, it lost to BYU, Mississippi State, and Auburn – all at home, all as a favorite. The Auburn game was a 38-point blowout. 

Arkansas has been quite competitive against good teams this season with Taylen Green in at quarterback and Bobby Petrino back as offensive coordinator, but that may not matter if Pittman delivers a third straight year of bad results. 

The Week 6 win against Tennessee has cooled the situation in Fayetteville … for now. 

Sam Pittman Buyout: Pittman’s contract is complex with deferred guaranteed bonuses and a winning-percentage clause. Simply put, if Pittman is fired after the 2024 season, he’ll be due somewhere around $10 million. 

Sam Pittman Replacement: UTSA head coach and former Arkansas assistant Jeff Traylor is the obvious candidate. His success in San Antonio suggests he wasn’t the problem during the dreadful Chad Morris era.

If Jamey Chadwell is available, he could be an option, as could Gus Malzahn and Jon Sumrall. 

Mike Norvell – Florida State

Norvell is fresh off an outstanding 2023 season that would have seen the Seminoles make the four-team playoff, if not for the injury to quarterback Jordan Travis. 

This year, though, the Seminoles are off to a disastrous start after loads of turnover from last year’s excellent team. 

Personally, I think it would be an egregious mistake to consider removing an established coach like Norvell, all because the expectations in Tallahassee went up last year. But this is college football, where ambition pushes fan bases and athletic directors to do ridiculous things practically every week.

It’s hard to imagine FSU boosters ponying up tens of millions to sack a coach who was wildly successful just 10 months ago, but weirder things have happened.

Amusingly, a move against Norvell would mirror Texas A&M’s dismissal of Jimbo Fisher, shortly after he narrowly missed the playoff field in College Station in 2020. 

Fisher was, of course, the former head coach at Florida State.

Mike Norvell Buyout: Like Napier, Norvell is reportedly owed 85% of his remaining contract balance if he’s fired without cause. If true, that means his buyout after 2024 would be about $62.4 million.

Mike Norvell Replacement: Jamey Chadwell has been successful virtually everywhere he’s gone, which has mainly centered around the southeastern portion of the country. That makes him a good geographic fit for FSU, and he runs a fun style of offense that would be popular in Tallahassee and the ACC writ large. 

If FSU makes an ill-advised move, expect Chadwell’s name to be on the shortlist. 

Kenni Burns – Kent State

Lots of programs talk about starting from scratch. When former Kent State head coach Sean Lewis left for Colorado after 2022, and the Golden Flashes’ top talent became transfer portal spoils for other programs, Kent State really had to start from scratch.

That would be a tall task for anyone, but former Minnesota assistant Kenni Burns got the gig. Burns is a good coach, but the results have been dreadful for Kent State so far. Since the start of 2023, Kent State has yet to beat an FBS opponent. This season, it lost to FCS St. Francis (Pa.) and is a candidate for 0-12. 

Burns isn’t the problem here, which is why Kent State labeled 2023 as “Year Zero” and handed him a one-year extension. But if Burns is 1-23 with zero FBS wins after two seasons, Kent State may consider what kind of other moves it can make. 

Kenni Burns Buyout: Kent State will reportedly owe Burns about $1.51 million if he’s fired without cause after 2024. 

Kenni Burns Replacement: Youngstown State head coach Doug Phillips is an interesting candidate. Like Kent State, Youngstown was down bad when Phillips arrived in 2020, but the record improved in 2021, 2022, and again in 2023. The Penguins actually made the FCS playoffs in 2023, which is no small feat in the rugged Missouri Valley. Phillips is a 1991 graduate of Toledo, so he knows the MAC well and could be a positive addition to Kent State in the event of an upward Ohio move.

Mike Neu – Ball State

Neu has been afforded a lot of latitude in Muncie because he’s a former Ball State player, and the program expectations in the MAC are generally low. In 2020, he delivered Ball State’s only conference championship since the 1990s, which earned him a fair amount of goodwill. 

That goodwill may run out soon. Neu is now in his ninth season at Ball State, and the Cardinals have won fewer than 40% of their games over that time span. After a funky Covid year that produced a lot of weird results – Ball State finished 7-1 – the wins have ticked down every year since. That includes a 4-8 record in 2023.

In 2024, Ball State started the year by giving up 60 points to two different opponents in September. Looking at the remaining schedule, the Cardinals may struggle to earn more than three wins. Neu has been a devoted alumnus, but the administration may feel it’s time to move on. 

Mike Neu Buyout: Around $750,000. With Neu near the end of the five-year extension he signed after the 2020 MAC championship, Ball State only owes him about one full year of damages. His annual salary is around $680,000.

Mike Neu Replacement: Notre Dame’s Mike Denbrock is one of the best offensive coordinators in college football. He’s a hot name in coaching circles who will inevitably get a good job in the coming years. 

Denbrock could find fast success in a winnable conference by leveraging any potential local recruiting connections in Indiana and the surrounding Midwest. However, Ball State would need to make him a competitive financial offer. Denbrock will almost surely have other potential offers on the table. 

Neal Brown – West Virginia

Neal Brown has had six years at West Virginia to solve the West Virginia football riddle. 

Many of the things that have gone wrong in Morgantown have nothing to do with Brown – particularly poor quarterback decisions and some larger university issues. But the fact remains that WVU rarely wins a game worth caring about. The Mountaineers beat the bad teams and lose big to the good ones.

West Virginia fans are growing increasingly frustrated with the marriage. A separation may not be far away, if WVU can afford the buyout. 

Neal Brown Buyout: West Virginia will owe Brown just under $10 million if he’s dismissed after the 2024 season. It’s a notable figure, since he was just extended in the spring of 2024. 

Neal Brown Replacement: Jimbo Fisher feels like a retread, but it does make a lot of sense for West Virginia. He’s a native son from Clarksburg, and he’s quite financially settled after the insane payout of the Texas A&M contract. 

Some portions of the WVU fan base still have unrealistic goals that date back to the Big East days of the mid-2000s, but Fisher can rest easy that even the wildest expectations in Morgantown probably don’t touch some of the things that happened at Florida State or Texas A&M.

Mike Houston (Fired) – East Carolina

East Carolina fired Mike Houston following its Week 8 blowout loss to Army. 

Houston had been the head coach in Greenville ever since it beat in-state rival Charlotte to the punch in 2018, hiring him away from then-FCS juggernaut James Madison. 

Mike Houston Buyout: East Carolina owes Mike Houston about $3.1 million after firing him in Week 8. 

Mike Houston Replacement: If ECU wants to hire another successful FCS head coach in the Carolina region, East Tennessee State head coach Tre Lamb is one name they might consider. Lamb would immediately be one of the youngest head coaches in FBS college football, but he’s shown high-level success at both ETSU and Gardner-Webb before that.

Will Hall (Fired) – Southern Miss

Will Hall was fired by Southern Miss on Sunday, Oct. 20. He was 14-30 in his time as head coach of the Golden Eagles.

It’s likely that Southern Miss decided to make the move in the immediate aftermath of East Carolina’s dismissal of Houston. If the new coach sweepstakes is kicking off, Southern Miss knew there was no need to prolong the inevitable.

Will Hall Buyout: Hall’s buyout is 100% of his remaining contract, though his four-year deal expires on Dec. 31. Southern Miss owes him the balance of the deal – roughly $900,000.

Will Hall Replacement: Current defensive coordinator Ron Roberts was rumored to be a candidate before Hall was hired and could be in the mix again.

Mike Bloomgren (Fired) – Rice

Mike Bloomgren was hired ahead of the 2018 season. Following Week 9 of this year, he had compiled a 24-52 record at Rice.

Undoubtedly, the Owls have institutional challenges. It’s a tough place to win. But with the AAC fielding a deeply top-heavy conference this year, Rice’s continued struggles became too much for the administration. 

Mike Bloomgren Buyout: Rice is a private school, so Bloomgren’s contract details aren’t as publicly available as some other coaches. That said, Bloomgren’s current buyout is believed to be somewhere in the $900,000 range, making this a relatively cheap decision for Rice.

Mike Bloomgren Replacement: SMU OC Casey Woods. Denbrock probably makes the most sense in terms of pure school-to-school translation, given the academic rigor at Notre Dame and Rice. But Denbrock is going to have so many offers over the next two years that a move to Rice feels unlikely. 

Clemson OC Garrett Riley would surely love to get back to Texas, but he, too, will likely field more interesting offers than Rice head coach.

Woods fits the mold that Rice followed with Denbrock – an up-and-coming coordinator in his early 40s. Unlike Denbrock, Woods has relevant professional experience in Texas and the surrounding area.

Brian Bohannon (Fired) – Kennesaw State

Brian Bohannon is the only coach Kennesaw State has ever had. The former Georgia wide receiver came to help build out the program in 2013, coached the first season in 2015, and helped transition the Owls to FBS this season.

Bohannon delivered a weeknight win against Liberty in Week 9, which is likely the biggest win in the history of the program. But the Liberty game was the only bright spot in a transitional FBS season full of losses – including to UT Martin, an FCS team and former peer program. 

In my estimation, very little of this lies at the feet of Bohannon. For most of its existence, Kennesaw has looked down the street to other Georgia heavyweights and fancied itself a program on the rise. 

That may be true one day, but it’s not right now. The reality is that Kennesaw never won a game beyond the second round of the FCS playoffs and had two sub-.500 seasons at the FCS level before transitioning to FBS. If Bohannon failed to meet expectations in Year 1 at the FBS level, the problem was with the expectations, not Bohannon. 

Kennesaw has a long road to climb before it’s anywhere close to successful FBS transitions like conference mates Jacksonville State and Sam Houston. After helping found and build the program, Bohannon deserved better than a sloppy dismissal near the end of a long transitional year.