We’ve already had as many head coach firings through five weeks of the 2025 college football season as in the previous campaign. Yet, it still feels like so many more are to come before we reach the end of November. The thermostat on the college football hot seat has reached bubbling point, and the head coaches listed below have scorched pants heading out of Week 5.
Sam Pittman, Arkansas
“If I was the fans I’d be mad at me too. Hell, I’m mad at me, to be perfectly honest.”
Sam Pittman was in a reflective mood in the post-game conference after the Arkansas Razorbacks’ shellacking by the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, a matchup that could possibly be his last as head coach. There has been a growing consternation from the fanbase that, while a likeable character in a world of vipers, he lacks the gumption to allow this team to compete in the SEC.
There is a feeling that Pittman is set in his ways, unable to adapt in a world of increasing innovation. The promise of the 2021 campaign, where the Razorbacks went 9-4 with an Outback Bowl win and an AP high of eighth, feels as far removed from where the program is now as the double-digit win seasons at the end of the Bobby Petrino era.
If the Week 4 loss to the Memphis Tigers was a watershed moment, the embarrassment at the hands of the Fighting Irish was likely the confirmation required that it’s time for the program to take a different direction. There’s too much talent on this football team to be belittled by a fake punt down 29 points in the opening moments of the third quarter. Being likable simply doesn’t cut the mustard when the college football hot seat calls.
Hugh Freeze, Auburn
Hugh Freeze talks a good game. His ability to communicate is second to none, using his snake oil salesman routine to woo media members, boosters, and recruits.
Yet, at some point, you have to translate top-tier recruiting classes into tangible on-field results. After the Week 5 loss to the Texas A&M Aggies, that win-based accountability starts to add up dramatically against him.
Since arriving on the Plains, Freeze has compiled a 14-16 overall record. Within that, he’s 5-13 against the SEC. He’s led the Tigers to one win in 11 attempts against ranked teams. After Saturday’s loss, he’s now 0-6 against ranked teams on the road. The man meant to be a quarterback whisperer presides over an offense that can’t score points with any regularity.
In Cam Coleman and Eric Singleton Jr., Auburn has two of the best pass catchers in the country. They’re simply wasted with Jackson Arnold running the offense, and Freeze has no answers. It’s all well and good capturing high-value recruits, but in this transfer portal era, you have to be able to keep them. Auburn might be best served by losing its head coach.
Derek Mason, Middle Tennessee
This college football hot seat anointment might be a little premature, given that Derek Mason is only 17 games into his tenure as the Middle Tennessee head coach. Still, at some point, the Blue Raiders will need to evaluate whether their second-year head coach can take this program in the right direction.
There was a lot of excitement around his hiring, but that is quickly dissipating due to a bleak future.
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A 3-9 record in Year 1 can be passed off as a transitional season between head coaches. However, nothing appears to have changed five games into the 2025 college football season. The Blue Raiders are 4-13 under Mason, and it’s difficult to see where the next win is coming from.
Rick Stockstill was fired after a 4-8 campaign that would actually be a positive result based on the first five games of the 2025 college football season.
Trent Dilfer, UAB
The UAB Blazers were on a bye in Week 5, giving Trent Dilfer some relief from the pressures of the college football hot seat. Nonetheless, he remains there until he proves he doesn’t deserve to be questioned. Here’s what we wrote about the head coach following the Week 4 defeat to the Tennessee Volunteers:
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.
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.
Billy Napier, Florida
Billy Napier is another head coach getting a break from the relentless scrutiny of their performance with a Week 5 bye. However, there is a legitimate sense of it being when, not if, the Florida Gators decide to cut bait. A long-time member of the college football hot seat club, here’s what we wrote about Napier a week ago:
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.
