CFB’s Coaching Carousel Is Heating Up — But Coaches Aren’t The Only Ones At Risk

So much for a quiet coaching carousel. After a chaotic cycle last offseason, industry sources expected a slower carousel this offseason. But with Baylor, Maryland and NC State all making changes in the past week, the carousel is already threatening to spin out of control again. These are a few coaches who remain on the hot seat heading into the back half of the season: The Main Event: Are College Football GMs Being Held Accountable? As I was reporting a story last week on Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood and the impact his contract might have on college football, one other interesting nugget came up in my conversations with front-office staffers: Are general managers going to be held more accountable for bad spending? The evolution of college football front offices has been swift. Gone are the days of goodie bags and karaoke. It’s been replaced with conversations around cold hard cash with agents who’ve been negotiating these deals for years. The broader sentiment in all of this is schools are spending more than ever to build rosters. That kind of effort necessitates support. But when the investments made don’t bring success, that falls on someone. Head coaches have often been the fall guys for these decisions because, at the end of the day, they’ve been the ones calling the shots on roster construction. That has changed with more supercharged front office staffs. “It highlights how strictly GM’s will be evaluated moving forward,” one Power Four general manager told me in reference to the Underwood saga. “There’s a real cost to having money on the sidelines, and if you have too much of it, there will likely be consequences.” That sentiment permeated my conversations last week with staffers across the Power Four and in the recruiting world. In so many words, with a more NFL-style approach to roster construction, general managers are more responsible for the teams that are being trotted out on Saturdays. As I wrote last week: Think in an NFL context. General managers oversee draft picks, roster construction, etc. When those results don’t bring success, there’s accountability. College football could be due for its own reckoning. How soon might we see this kind of reckoning? Well, it’s already happening. NC State announced the firing of head coach Dave Doeren on Saturday after more than 13 years in charge. It was later reported that Wolfpack general manager Andy Vaughn had also been relieved of his duties. “You can’t stop spending the money if that’s what the market dictates,” said a second Power Four general manager. “It’s on you as the person spending the money and being held accountable for who you’re spending it on. Sometimes you have to walk away and get your ego out of the way.” To be clear, every front office setup is unique. At Indiana, head coach Curt Cignetti essentially operates as his own general manager. Andrew Luck, meanwhile, oversees everything involving the Stanford football program in a more NFL-style approach. That makes it harder to cast broad aspersions about the current state of the market and how front office staffers might be held accountable for poor investments, but the pressure is ratcheting up — particularly as the money grows larger. “If you draft your quarterback at 16 overall and you think that he’s going to be the guy, you better put him in a position to succeed,” Rivals national recruiting analyst Sam Spiegelman told me. “… The truth is, high school quarterback recruits are not all always ready to play right out of high school. That takes an extremely gifted quarterback to be able to come in and make an impact from Friday nights and then onto Saturdays. But when you have a million-plus dollar price tag attached to your name coming out of high school, the pressure is certainly on.” Best Deal I Saw This Week Apparel contracts have become popular fodder in the business world of college sports, but who doesn’t love a great collaboration? Georgia and Nike announced a new line that’s being released in conjunction with rapper Outkast and integrates a number of Bulldog football players into its advertising. The entire collection comes out on Wednesday. Best Quote I Saw This Week OK, it might not be the “best” quote I saw this week, but it’s definitely the one that stopped me in my tracks the quickest. Michigan head coach Kyle Whittingham was asked about the potential of changing offensive coordinators as play-caller Jason Beck is under intense scrutiny after a six-point effort against Indiana on Saturday. “Right now, it’s not time to panic,” Whittingham said on Monday. “We’re a play away from being 6-1 or 7-0.” Listen, I’m not here to call out coaching decisions or things of that nature, but the suggestion that Michigan has narrowly missed on being 7-0 this season feels like a complete inability to read the room in Ann Arbor at the moment. Whittingham is an amazing coach and one who will assuredly be in the Hall of Fame one day. This just wasn’t one of his better sound bites.