Last season, we didn’t see a head coach firing until deep into October. In 2025, patience is wearing thin, with the Virginia Tech Hokies and UCLA Bruins making staffing changes following the previous week’s action. Now, attention turns to who goes next. We shouldn’t have long to wait, as our college football hot seat showcases several head coaches on borrowed time after Week 4.
Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State
Mike Gundy is the second-longest tenured head coach in college football, and since arriving in Stillwater, he has established a certain level of success for the Oklahoma State Cowboys. That historical performance has kept him free of pressure during low times, but after a disappointing 2024 campaign, he started his 21st campaign under higher scrutiny than ever before.
I’ve said it before in this college football hot seat segment, but Gundy has dined out on that success for too long. The shellacking at the hands of the Oregon Ducks in Week 2 was embarrassing, demonstrating the inability to progress the team forward or learn from the mistakes of the 2024 campaign. The Cowboys’ head coach was too busy bemoaning financial inequality to internalise the search for why his team is so bad.
There can be no such excuses for the Week 4 loss to the Tulsa Golden Hurricane. Oklahoma State was humbled and humiliated by a program that has had difficulties in recent years but is demonstrating the potency of having a genuine leader. It was the Cowboys’ first loss to Tulsa in Stillwater since 1951, and they paid the Golden Hurricane $300,000 for the privilege.
In his postseason press conference, Gundy deflected repeated questions about his job security, saying his job is to get the team ready to go next time out. The problem with that defense is that Oklahoma State hasn’t been “ready to go” for the last 15 games. The program can’t afford to keep allowing former glories to cloud judgment on its present reality. It’s time for meaningful change.
Trent Dilfer, UAB
Nobody expected the UAB Blazers to beat the Tennessee Volunteers in Week 4. Trent Dilfer’s appearance on the college football hot seat isn’t about one result against a clearly superior program. It’s more so about a never-ending pattern of on-field failings combined with a lack of discipline that is indicative of the tone set by the head coach during his tenure with the team.
The loss was the 19th of his 28-game head coaching career, and his overall record is far from expectations after an impressive stint as a high school coach. The Blazers have only six FBS wins in three seasons with Dilfer at the helm.
UAB defender just stomped on the foot of Tennessee’s kicker
What the heck is going on here. Watching too much Cobra Kai? pic.twitter.com/MA2Gm2Orby
— Trey Wallace (@TreyWallace_) September 20, 2025
In a further example of the sort of shenanigans associated with a once proud program under the current head coach, Sirad Bryant produced a shocking display of unsportsmanlike behavior, stomping on kicker Max Gilbert’s foot and taunting other Vols players. That sort of tone is set from the top of the program down, and UAB fans deserve much better than that.
Luke Fickell, Wisconsin
Luke Fickell received the dreaded “vote of confidence” in the wake of a dismal Wisconsin Badger loss to the Maryland Terrapins, which saw boos and “Fire Fickell” chants reverberate around Madison. Athletic Director Chris McIntosh told reporters that “it’s a time for our people to come together. I think it’s a time for me to express my support.”
Perhaps Fickell does have McIntosh’s support, or maybe he’s just trying to calm passions around a program that is used to competing in the Big Ten but is currently not even remotely a contender in the conference.
The defeat to the Terrapins, a team buoyed by a true freshman quarterback at a time when the Badgers don’t have that level of playmaker, underlined that realization. The Badgers hadn’t lost to Maryland in four previous meetings between the two teams.
The loss took Fickell to 15-15 as the Wisconsin head coach. He’s just three defeats away from his entire loss tally in his time with the Cincinnati Bearcats, with 45 games difference. The Badgers are staring down the barrel of successive losing seasons for the first time since Barry Alvarez led them to back-to-back 5-6 campaigns at the start of his tenure, over 20 years ago.
Trent Bray, Oregon State
Trent Bray inherited an undesirable situation at the Oregon State Beavers last season, and he earned himself the opportunity to prove himself amongst conference realignment turbulence and with a roster that had been decimated by the departure of the previous regime. He even engineered a 4-1 start with a Power Four win. However, he’s since gone 1-9, including 0-3 in 2025.
That’s how we started the write-up on Bray a week ago, and the Oregon State head coach remains on the college football hot seat after an emphatic loss in the bitter rivalry game with the Oregon Ducks. The Beavers move to 5-11 under their current head coach, and have yet to taste victory in the 2025 college football season following the 41-7 defeat on the road in Eugene.
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Bray praised the first-half effort from his team (they were 21-7 down at the half) in the post-game press conference, before admitting that the Beavers “let go of the rope” in the second half. The final 30 minutes of the game were littered with miscues, special teams mishaps, and lapses in the secondary, with the latter particularly problematics for the program.
Bray is a former linebacker and defensive savant as a coach, but under his watch, Oregon State has been abysmal on that side of the ball, increasing the temperature on his college football hot seat. The Beavers have given up more than 30 points in their last five games. Heading into Week 4, the unit ranked 108th in the country by PFSN’s College DEFi metric (69.4 score, D+ grade).
Billy Napier, Florida
After losing to the in-state rival Miami Hurricanes in Week 4, the Florida Gators slipped to a 1-3 record, the worst start to a campaign since 1986. A whole generation of football fans in Gainesville has not known it as bad as it is right now.
Head coach Billy Napier was considered on the hot seat prior to the game, and there’s nothing we saw on Saturday night to change that.
When you’re the head coach and offensive play caller, and the offense is inefficient and uninspiring despite having a quarterback brimming with athletic upside, you should be under pressure and questioned. D.J. Lagway is a young passer in need of development, but he’s being woefully mismanaged by his own head coach. Napier is failing him, week in and week out.
They had just 32 yards in the first half of their defeat to Miami, a pitiful performance. They’ve failed to score over 20 points against any non-FCS opponent this season. An offseason of hope, fuelled by four consecutive wins where they scored 24+ points to end the season, has given way to the grim reality that this program is going nowhere for as long as Napier is the head coach.
