What coaches will be facing HIGH expectations in the upcoming season...

[fishinabarrel]

So if Jim Harbaugh loses the next 2 times to Ohio State, doesn't win a B10 title, and doesn't reach the playoffs over the next 2 seasons, you don't think he will be on the hot seat?

Again, I think he probably beats OSU over the next two seasons and likely makes the playoffs as B10 champs, so it is likely a moot point anyway.

It is a well known fact that Michigan will never again beat Ohio State

 

[7Samurai13]

So if Jim Harbaugh loses the next 2 times to Ohio State, doesn't win a B10 title, and doesn't reach the playoffs over the next 2 seasons, you don't think he will be on the hot seat?

Again, I think he probably beats OSU over the next two seasons and likely makes the playoffs as B10 champs, so it is likely a moot point anyway.

You must be putting a lot of weight on the 2018 season because this season doesn't line up very well for Harbaugh. Losing a lot of talent, despite what some Michigan fans here will tell you, and Ohio State looks to be set up for a big year. You more than likely have Speight under center who is a game manager and not a QB who will put the team on his back and lead you to a win. He is losing probably his top two targets in Darboh and Butt. Your run game isn't strong enough to overcome Speight's short comings. Then in 2018 you would be having a first year starter at QB and you never know what you get when that happens. 2019 might really be the first year to have really high expectations.

 

[jon2tanman]

Clay Helton is REALLY safe IMO. USC doesn't want to change head coaches again (how many have they had the past 5-6 seasons?). Plus, with Oregon having trouble getting back to the Chip Kelly success, and Stanford taking a step back recently, the Pac 12 is pretty weak. On top of that, I don't think USC meets Washington unless both teams make it to the Pac 12 championship game? (I could be wrong on that)

Clay Helton would have to SERIOUSLY drop the ball next season in order to be in any danger of getting on the hot seat in next 2 seasons IMO. I just don't see it happening.

Did you really say the pac-12 is weak? lol
UW and USC are playoff contenders. Stanford could be a top 15 team. Wazzu, Utah, Colorado, and whoregon could also be ranked.

 

[Deep Creek]

Neither have a "successful track record" in the NCAA yet in terms of championships as a head coach.

Damn you are too sensible to be a Michigan homer. That is very refreshing. I would also ask a favor of you.

Would you explain your statement to some of your fellow TSUN supporters? Too many of them think Jimmy Jam is the cat's meow of college football coaching and has won many conference championships during his tenures at Stanford and Michigan.

 

[Deep Creek]

Not sure high expectations, but some Aggies are already starting to sharpen their pitchforks. Sumlin may have the hottest seat in the nation right now.

Not a coach, but the AD of LSU better watch his back if Coach O flops

The "oil patch" aggies around here aren't happy with Sumlin at all. They don't think they are getting their money's worth in terms of what they are paying coaches.

But, many of these "oil patch" aggies live in a low rent dream world IMHO. They seem to think A&M should win a natty in each sport every year.

 

[Lance Armstrong]

The "oil patch" aggies around here aren't happy with Sumlin at all. They don't think they are getting their money's worth in terms of what they are paying coaches.

But, many of these "oil patch" aggies live in a low rent dream world IMHO. They seem to think A&M should win a natty in each sport every year.

Honestly last season was the year Sumlin should've won big. Easy schedule, SEC was down, and they had the best player in college football along with a veteran QB. NFL talent all over the field, and they still do the November flop. The worst thing to happen to sumlin is if Chad Morris at SMU shows major improvement, then Sumlin will be fired.

 

[outofyourmind]

If that Kansas Coach doesn't build on those 2 wins from last year, they'll can his ass.
And will be paying off about 6 Xcoaches at the same time.

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[trojanfan12]

I thought he was the Wrong Hire. His playing of Browne only confirmed it to me. I will give him Credit for Adaptability and His ability to Transfer his Energy to players. I just worry his Talent Evaluation will not get better. Using Games to find the most important players is not how one wins NCs...

It's kind of a crappy thing to do, but I think that at least part of the reason he started Browne was to keep him from transferring before or during the season. It wasn't really that Browne played so poorly, it's that he just couldn't make the plays Darnold can. He doesn't have the athleticism. There were so many plays last year that would have been sacks with Browne, but ended up being positive plays because Darnold is a better athlete. Had Darnold gotten hurt, Browne wouldn't be a bad option as back up.

Also, Browne had stuck with the program through Kessler coming back for his senior season and had earned his shot. Darnold hadn't played a down and you never know how a kid who hasn't played will react when you throw him right into the fire against a team like Alabama. Browne wasn't exactly experienced, but he'd been around for a few years and had taken live snaps.

They knew Darnold was probably going to be good, but no one knew he would be THAT good.

The thing that has me thinking he's the right guy is how much the players love the guy and how they reacted to being 1-3. They held a players only meeting where they basically took ownership and said "we wanted him, the AD hired him and we're about to cost him his job."

 

[trojanfan12]

Surprised nobody has mentioned Ed Orgeron.

LSU fired a successful coach and hired a coach who has a losing record as a SEC coach. At Ole Miss, he was a good recruiter(maybe we know why now), but just a terrible coach.

Now he is expected to somehow be the guy who gets LSU over the hump? And they will probably start the season in the top10 adding even more pressure.

I don't think he'll get 3 years like most coaches would at a new job unless he finds immediate success of the playoff kind, or at least ended the 6 in a row losing streak to Alabama. Wouldn't be shocked at all if he was fired after 1 year, especially if they think they can get some new upcoming coach to replace him.

Even as the official HC, he still seems like an interim coach.

Bonus: If you want to count the LSU AD as a coach, put him on the bubble as well. Talk about a guy who can't seem to make a correct decision on anything. Maybe AD gets fired and new AD decides to replace Orgeron.

Ed O is a great recruiter and a great motivator. Everyone loves the guy too. Heck, even with things ending badly at USC, it's virtually impossible to find anyone who will say anything negative about him. USC would bring him back in a heartbeat (I think Sark actually tried) as just about anything other than HC.

But, he struggles with X's and O's and in game adjustments. When he was interim at USC and turned the team around, everyone (myself included) jumped on the "Hire Ed O" bandwagon. However, as the season went on, his deficiencies became pretty clear, ending with him being badly out coached by Mora in the UCLA game.

If he has top notch assistants who can cover his weaknesses, he and LSU will be fine. If not, they will win their games against lower tier teams and the middle/bottom of the SEC. But they will come up short against top teams with good coaches.

 

[Codaxx]

Ed O is a great recruiter and a great motivator. Everyone loves the guy too. Heck, even with things ending badly at USC, it's virtually impossible to find anyone who will say anything negative about him. USC would bring him back in a heartbeat (I think Sark actually tried) as just about anything other than HC.

But, he struggles with X's and O's and in game adjustments. When he was interim at USC and turned the team around, everyone (myself included) jumped on the "Hire Ed O" bandwagon. However, as the season went on, his deficiencies became pretty clear, ending with him being badly out coached by Mora in the UCLA game.

If he has top notch assistants who can cover his weaknesses, he and LSU will be fine. If not, they will win their games against lower tier teams and the middle/bottom of the SEC. But they will come up short against top teams with good coaches.

The problem with that is its fleeting. Having assistants cover your ass is not a long term strategy. Top assistants will leave. That will put a lot of pressure on your hires. Miss on one and the whole thing implodes

 

[Olyduck]

 

[Olyduck]

 

[Olyduck]

 

[Olyduck]

 

[trojanfan12]

The problem with that is its fleeting. Having assistants cover your ass is not a long term strategy. Top assistants will leave. That will put a lot of pressure on your hires. Miss on one and the whole thing implodes

Yes and no. The best head coaches aren't necessarily in charge of anything, but they influence everything and they hire assistants who can cover their weaknesses. For example, Pete Carroll is a defensive coach, so he has always made sure to hire the best OC's he could find.

Having said that, however, I do agree that it's hard to keep that up because top assistants do move on to HC positions in college or they go coordinate in the NFL. Eventually, it catches up because there aren't very good one's available or a guy ends up not being as good as everyone thought. In those cases, the HC has to be smart enough to move on from him quickly.

If Ed O hasn't become better at X's and O's and/or in game adjustments, but has top notch assistants, his teams can perform well enough to allow the occasional down period if he has to replace coordinators and ends up missing on one. But if he goes more than a couple of seasons like that, his seat will get very warm, very quickly.

If he doesn't have top notch assistants, his stay at LSU could be a very short one.

 

[WizardHawk]

Both sides on whether or not to include USC have valid points.

There certainly is no other west coast team that comes close to meeting the criteria of this particular thread. There are for sure coaches on the hotseat (Like both in the state of Arizona) or at least should be, but Shaw and Petersen are pretty safe even if their teams bomb, ducks and bears have new coaches that will be given time to build, beavers and WSU are small schools that would put up with just about anything, Utah and colorado aren't in a position to fire anyone either even with a down year.

UCLA should put Mora under more pressure. He's carrying on the same under performing teams Neuheisel did with lots of injury excuses for not getting his teams into winning position, but it seems their school is fine with that status. He's the next most likely under pressure for not living up to expectations, but those expectations at this point aren't nearly high enough to be in contention for a playoff berth or anything close. Coming in second in the south and going to one of the top 4 Pac bowl tie ins would be just fine.

USC should always be expected to win simply because of the talent pool they have, even when they have struggled with shitty coaching. Now that they are fully out from under the sanctions and have a full team and have had all those spots filled for a few years they are seeing the rewards of it.

Helton exceeded all expectations last year and put together a head turning recruiting class this winter. The reward? Expectations will now be very high. Very VERY high. But would he be fired for having a 7-5 kind of season? No. Might be grumbling around the campus and on radio talk shows/internet, but there is little chance he would be fired for a bad season at this time. Not after landing that class. He would be given a pass and a chance to keep building his brand as long as he can keep bringing in that top talent. He likely has at least 2-3 full seasons of get out of jail free cards before the school would have no choice but to fire him.

Is there some weird scenario where they finish with only 4 wins or something, maybe it looks like he loses his locker room or embarrasses the university in some way? Sure, but those are far fetched and not in the spirit of this particular question.

Helton will for sure be given time to solidify his tenure, even if there are issues with results this season.

 

[Goldbug]

David Boren loves Bob Stoops.
It doesn't matter what record Bob has, or what the fans think/want, he isn't going anywhere.
It's not like the Big XII is tough enough to blow Oklahoma up unless something catastrophic happens like Mayfield goes down. But I don't see it going on for years.

Sadly so very true. Boren must be thinking "Just one damn time with a sheep and it's my luck Stoops caught me and took a picture".

 

[USCDoom]

Helton exceeded all expectations last year and put together a head turning recruiting class this winter. The reward? Expectations will now be very high. Very VERY high. But would he be fired for having a 7-5 kind of season? No.

Show me 5 Losses?

Western Michigan
Stanford
Texas
At California
At Washington State
Oregon State
Utah
At Notre Dame
At Arizona State
Arizona
At Colorado
UCLA

Lets Say they lose to
Stanford
Texas
Notre Dame
Utah
UCLA

That is a Firing Offense IMO.

 

[WizardHawk]

Show me 5 Losses?

Western Michigan
Stanford
Texas
At California
At Washington State
Oregon State
Utah
At Notre Dame
At Arizona State
Arizona
At Colorado
UCLA

Lets Say they lose to
Stanford
Texas
Notre Dame
Utah
UCLA

That is a Firing Offense IMO.

Not many second year coaches would be fired for 5 losses after that recruiting class. You can gloss over that, but that's the key here. Yes, USC recruits itself, but they flipped and landed several kids that put the ! on that class that his staff made the difference on. It's not a small thing.

5 losses and a so-so recruiting class might earn a ticket out of town, but he's not being fired for mediocrity with such a bright future looming with that staff's recruiting.

 

[Olyduck]

Show me 5 Losses?

Western Michigan
Stanford
Texas
At California
At Washington State
Oregon State
Utah
At Notre Dame
At Arizona State
Arizona
At Colorado
UCLA

Lets Say they lose to
Stanford
Texas
Notre Dame
Utah
UCLA

That is a Firing Offense IMO.

That's not how USC works. usually its the game you never see coming that they lose. Cal or Oregon State