OK, let’s establish right off the top that as we strive to both entertain and inform here at The Athletic, this particular thought exercise leans much harder toward the former.

The idea: Project the head coach for each Power 4 school, plus Notre Dame, in 2030. A truly impossible task but, when you dive headlong down the rabbit hole, also a pretty fun one.

In college football years, five seasons from now might as well be a lifetime. I mean, somebody I know thought Auburn made a better hire with Bryan Harsin in 2021 than Tennessee did with Josh Heupel.

Heading into 2026, the average tenure of the 68 Power 4 head coaches is 4.75 seasons. Yes, that includes 15 just-hired coaches, but if you remove from the sample set Kirk Ferentz, who is about to coach his 28th season at Iowa, that average drops to just under 4.5 seasons.

Go back to 2021, and you’ll find 19 power conference head coaches in the same place they started that season.

Only 13 P4 coaches (19 percent) are set to enter the upcoming season in at least their seventh year with their current school. Among those are Florida State’s Mike Norvell, Baylor’s Dave Aranda and Maryland’s Mike Locksley, who have maybe the three hottest seats in the country.

We’re five years and two hires removed from LSU firing Ed Orgeron less than two full seasons after winning the 2019 national title. Brian Kelly, Orgeron’s replacement, didn’t last four full seasons. Now Lane Kiffin, whose four previous college head coaching tenures averaged three and a half seasons, takes over in Baton Rouge.

Kiffin’s career is a study on how the trajectory of a coach can rapidly rise and fall, another reason why projecting five seasons out is so difficult.

How about this: Five seasons before Ryan Day replaced Urban Meyer as head coach at Ohio State, he was the offensive coordinator for a 7-6 Boston College team.

Life comes at you fast in college football, though with the cost of paying players rising, some schools are showing a little more patience with their head coaches. With that in mind, we have most of this year’s new hires making it to 2030.

Putting this puzzle together required answering a series of questions, each more difficult than the next: Will this coach do well enough in the next four seasons to keep the job he has? Will he do well enough to get a better job? What is a better job in 2030?

We considered previous ties to schools and, to some small extent, the athletic director who might be hiring the next coach. But those AD positions are also becoming more volatile.

We included some coaches who probably wouldn’t get much more than a glance for a head coaching job this year but who have already built up some buzz in the industry.

And, because it was fun, we made some choices just to get a rise out of you.

ACCBoston College

Current: Bill O’Brien (Year 3)
2030: Kyle Flood, Texas offensive coordinator

Flood’s tenure as Rutgers head coach came to a messy end with NCAA violations, but if the Longhorns can establish themselves as consistent national title contenders, he should get a second chance as a head coach in the Northeast.

Cal

Current: Tosh Lupoi (Year 1)
2030: Lupoi

There has been buzz around the Bears since Lupoi was named head coach of his alma mater in December. Cal also tends to have a lot of patience with its coaches. The Bears’ concern is Lupoi does too well too fast and becomes a candidate for a bigger job.

Clemson

Current: Dabo Swinney (Year 19)
2030: Rhett Lashlee, SMU head coach

This is a complicated time to assess both Swinney and Clemson, with the program coming off its worst season in almost two decades. Lashlee seems like a perfect fit, but there is a very real question about whether Clemson would be a clear upgrade from SMU for him.

Duke

Current: Manny Diaz (Year 3)
2030: Jeff Farris, Austin Peay coach

The 35-year-old Farris played and coached at Duke and is coming off a solid season in his second year as a head coach at the FCS level.

Florida State

Current: Mike Norvell (Year 7)
2030: Kenny Dillingham, Arizona State head coach

The 35-year-old Dillingham is positioned to be maybe the hottest candidate in the upcoming hiring cycle, and Florida State could be the best job available. It seems like a match, though convincing Dillingham to leave his alma mater won’t be easy. He was FSU’s offensive coordinator in 2020-21.

Georgia Tech

Current: Brent Key (Year 5)
2030: Buster Faulkner, Florida offensive coordinator

We’re about to get some insight into how much of Key’s success at Georgia Tech over the past four seasons was attributable to the 44-year-old Faulkner, who joined Jon Sumrall’s new staff at Florida.

Louisville

Current: Jeff Brohm (Year 4)
2030: Brohm

Brohm is Louisville football, and it’s going to be hard to pull him out of there.

Miami

Current: Mario Cristobal (Year 5)
2030: Cristobal

It feels like Cristobal is just getting started at his alma mater.

North Carolina

Current: Bill Belichick (Year 2)
2030: Corey Hetherman, Miami defensive coordinator

Based on the assumption that North Carolina is going to be looking for a new coach by December, Hetherman should be a hot commodity among coordinators after transforming The U’s defense.

NC State

Current: Dave Doeren (Year 14)
2030: Shannon Dawson, Miami offensive coordinator

Dawson has been in the mix for the top job at West Virginia and Tulane, but if the Hurricanes keep making runs at national titles, the 48-year-old’s first head coaching job could be better than that.

Pitt

Current: Pat Narduzzi (Year 12)
2030: Mike Shanahan, Indiana offensive coordinator

The former Pitt wide receiver and Pennsylvania native seems destined to be a head coach soon, and Narduzzi’s contract runs through 2030. This was one of the easier matches to make.

SMU

Current: Rhett Lashlee (Year 5)
2030: Josh Heupel, Tennessee head coach

Heupel has done a great job pulling Tennessee out of a ditch, but expectations are sky-high throughout the SEC. SMU is a great spot for a successful coach to reset his clock.

Stanford

Current: Tavita Pritchard (Year 1)
2030: Pritchard

It’s unclear where Stanford football is heading under general manager Andrew Luck, but he seems likely to give his former backup quarterback Pritchard a fair amount of time to prove himself.

Syracuse

Current: Fran Brown (Year 3)
2030: Tony White, Florida State defensive coordinator

White is a former Syracuse defensive coordinator whose career trajectory took a hit last season in Tallahassee, but there is still time for him to re-establish himself. But let’s talk about the current coach and the wild swings in the coaching stock market. After a 10-win debut at Syracuse in 2024, Brown, a former Georgia assistant and Matt Rhule protege, seemed destined for an SEC head coaching job in the not-too-distant future. Now, coming off a three-win follow-up and with the athletic director that hired him at Syracuse heading for retirement, he’s probably another losing season away from the hot seat. The fall from rising star to coaching for your job can be one quarterback injury away.

Virginia

Current: Tony Elliott (Year 5)
2030: Anthony Poindexter, Tennessee co-defensive coordinator

Coming off a breakthrough season, pencil Elliott in for a few more years in Charlottesville — just long enough for the former Cavaliers All-American Poindexter to get a little more seasoning and step into the head coach’s chair at his alma mater.

Virginia Tech

Current: James Franklin (Year 1)
2030: Franklin

Whether the former Penn State head coach can bring Frank Beamer-level success back to Blacksburg remains to be seen, but it’s a safe bet he gets at least five years to make it work.

Wake Forest

Current: Jake Dickert (Year 2)
2030: Vince Kehres, Syracuse defensive coordinator

Kehres won two Division III national titles as head coach at Mount Union after taking over for his Hall of Fame father, Larry Kehres, and is coming off a successful stint as Toledo’s defensive coordinator. Add some P4 success, and he’ll be a head coach candidate in the next five years.

Big 12Arizona

Current: Brent Brennan (Year 3)
2030: Marcus Arroyo, Arizona State offensive coordinator

Arroyo started getting UNLV pointed in the right direction before an AD change led to his firing. The AD who hired him at UNLV? Desireé Reed-Francois, who is now at Arizona.

Arizona State

Current: Kenny Dillingham (Year 4)
2030: Dan Mullen, UNLV head coach

Mullen found a good spot to return to coaching at UNLV last year, and his record at Mississippi State and Florida warrants another Power 4 job if he wants it.

Baylor

Current: Dave Aranda (Year 7)
2030: G.J. Kinne, Texas State head coach

Kinne hasn’t yet had the big breakthrough season at Texas State, but Baylor hiring a Texan with a reputation for building explosive offenses makes too much sense.

BYU

Current: Kalani Sitake (Year 11)
2030: Jason Beck, Michigan offensive coordinator

The former BYU quarterback and assistant coach has already become one of the most sought-after coordinators in the country.

Cincinnati

Current: Scott Satterfield (Year 4)
2030: Luke Fickell, Wisconsin head coach

We couldn’t resist a reunion.

Colorado

Current: Deion Sanders (Year 4)
2030: Kenny Guiton, Wisconsin quarterbacks coach

Good luck forecasting when and how Sanders’ time in Boulder will end. Colorado has a new AD in Fernando Lovo, who has strong ties to Urban Meyer. Guiton, who played for Meyer at Ohio State, is a well-thought-of young coach.

Houston

Current: Willie Fritz (Year 3)
2030: Tremaine Jackson, Prairie View A&M head coach

Unless you’re Deion Sanders, there is no track record of going from an HBCU to a Power 4 job. Maybe Jackson will need a stop along the way, but he enters 2026 with a 50-16 record as a head coach, including stints at Division II Colorado Mesa and Valdosta State before Prairie View in the SWAC last year.

Iowa State

Current: Jimmy Rogers (Year 1)
2030: Matt Entz, Fresno State head coach

Rogers could turn out to be a star, but historically, Iowa State is a tough job. Entz, an Iowa native who won two FCS titles as head coach at North Dakota State, gets his first P4 head coach gig in Ames.

Kansas

Current: Lance Leipold (Year 6)
2030: Andy Kotelnicki, Kansas offensive coordinator

Kotelnicki returned to KU as offensive coordinator after a two-year stint at Penn State that included some P4 head coaching interest. The 61-year-old Leipold hands it off to him by 2030.

Kansas State

Current: Collin Klein (Year 1)
2030: Klein

The former Wildcats star quarterback takes over a program that needs a boost, not a massive rebuild. Klein is more likely to raise his profile and become a candidate for a bigger post than to fail at his alma mater in four years.

Oklahoma State

Current: Eric Morris (Year 1)
2030: Brent Venables, Oklahoma head coach

Venables has alternated 10-win and six-win seasons since arriving in Norman. It still feels a bit tenuous, not so much that he’ll flame out as much as he’ll never quite max out, but he’ll leave with a resume that still makes him an appealing P4 candidate — elsewhere in the state.

TCU

Current: Sonny Dykes (Year 5)
2030: Ra’Shaad Samples, Oregon running backs coach

Samples is only 31 but has already worked for Sean McVay with the Rams, Kenny Dillingham at Arizona State and Dan Lanning at Oregon. He’s a Dallas native and the son of Reginald Samples, a highly successful Texas high school coach. His ties in East Texas run deep.

Texas Tech

Current: Joey McGuire (Year 5)
2030: Lincoln Riley, USC head coach

Riley’s four years at USC have felt unsatisfying for everyone involved, but the two sides are also kind of stuck with each other because of his massive contract. Texas Tech could have the money and motivation to provide an off-ramp and bring Riley back home to Lubbock.

UCF

Current: Scott Frost (Year 2)
2030: Willie Simmons, FIU head coach

Simmons, a Tallahassee native and former Florida A&M coach, broke a five-year bowl drought in his first season at FIU. We might be selling him short. Maybe he should be the next Florida State coach?

Utah

Current: Morgan Scalley (Year 1)
2030: Scalley

Continuity hires can be hit-or-miss, but the guess here is Utah’s stability and culture make Scalley’s tenure a success after he succeeded Kyle Whittingham.

West Virginia

Current: Rich Rodriguez (Year 2)
2030: Ben Arbuckle, Oklahoma offensive coordinator

Arbuckle, 30, began last season as the youngest offensive coordinator in the P4.

Big TenIndiana

Current: Curt Cignetti (Year 3)
2030: Cignetti

With a recent raise to $13.2 million per year, where’s he going?

Illinois

Current: Bret Bielema (Year 6)
2030: Bielema

I could absolutely see Bielema, 56, retiring with the Illini.

Iowa

Current: Kirk Ferentz (Year 28)
2030: LeVar Woods, Michigan State special teams coach

Ferentz would be 76 at the start of the 2030 season. Don’t rule out that he’s still coaching the Hawkeyes. Woods is one of a few Ferentz disciples who has long been speculated to be a possible successor. After nearly 20 years on Ferentz’s staff, he returned to his alma mater a few months ago to work for Pat Fitzgerald. A return to Iowa City to sit in the big chair wouldn’t be surprising at all.

Maryland

Current: Mike Locksley (Year 9)
2030: D’Anton Lynn, Penn State defensive coordinator

Lynn made the move back to his alma mater to work for Matt Campbell after doing a solid job of cleaning up USC’s defense.

Michigan

Current: Kyle Whittingham (Year 1)
2030: Bob Chesney, UCLA head coach

Maybe the hardest call on the board. Chesney has star qualities. But UCLA is also a tough job. If he can find the formula for success there, he could end up on the short list for just about any job in the country. Otherwise, Westwood might end up being a career speed bump. This pairing is a bet that he figures it out.

Michigan State

Current: Pat Fitzgerald (Year 1)
2030: Max Bullough, Michigan State defensive coordinator

We’re a little skeptical of Fitz’s second act. This might be an aggressive timetable for the former Michigan State linebacker to become the head coach of his alma mater, but the Bullough family is football royalty in East Lansing.

Minnesota

Current: P.J. Fleck (Year 10)
2030: Bryant Haines, Indiana defensive coordinator

Haines was hard to place because on one hand the Broyles Award winner seems on track to land a head coaching job as soon as this year. On the other, the P4 market might be a bit slow this cycle.

Nebraska

Current: Matt Rhule (Year 4)
2030: Jake Dickert, Wake Forest head coach

Dickert’s first season at Wake Forest produced a surprising nine wins. After an impressive stint under difficult circumstances at Washington State, the 42-year-old Wisconsin native has “future Big Ten coach” written all over him.

Northwestern

Current: David Braun (Year 4)
2030: Dave Clawson, former Wake Forest head coach

Clawson interviewed with Northwestern when Braun was the interim, following the messy dismissal of Pat Fitzgerald. When he stepped down at Wake after the 2024 season, the 58-year-old Clawson insisted he wasn’t done but also was not desperate to get back in. This would be a good fit if it comes open fairly soon.

Ohio State

Current: Ryan Day (Year 8)
2030: James Laurinaitis, Ohio State linebackers coach

Since Woody Hayes’ 28-year tenure ended in 1978, no Ohio State coach has held the job more than 13 seasons (John Cooper). Laurinaitis, a former Buckeyes All-American and NFL player, could be in the mix for some lower-profile head coaching jobs this year and primed to take over at his alma mater after Day knocks out a second national title and gives the NFL another shot.

Oregon

Current: Dan Lanning (Year 5)
2030: Lanning

Lanning might have the best job in the country. Good luck getting him out of Eugene.

Penn State

Current: Matt Campbell (Year 1)
2030: Campbell

This one sure feels like it should work out for both sides.

Purdue

Current: Barry Odom (Year 2)
2030: Odom

Odom is a good coach, and although we’re not expecting the Boilermakers to suddenly make an Indiana-like transformation, it wouldn’t be surprising if he stabilizes the program enough to get to a sixth season in West Lafayette.

Rutgers

Current: Greg Schiano (Year 7)
2030: Anthony Campanile, Jacksonville Jaguars defensive coordinator

P.J. Fleck might have been the better call here, especially because successful NFL coaches these days are not exactly dying to get back to college football. Still, we’ll take a shot on Campanile as Schiano’s successor. He is a former Rutgers player and coach and part of a family with deep ties and experience in New Jersey high school football.

UCLA

Current: Bob Chesney (Year 1)
2030: P.J. Fleck, Minnesota head coach

Fleck is a fascinating case study. He has done an undeniably good job in his decade at Minnesota. You have to go back to the first half of the 1900s to find a Gophers football coach with a better winning percentage than Fleck’s .600. But he has cracked double-digit wins with the Gophers only once, in 2019. He has given Minnesota no reason to fire him while also never really positioning himself as a hot candidate for a potential upgrade.

USC

Current: Lincoln Riley (Year 5)
2030: Kalen DeBoer, Alabama head coach

Two seasons into DeBoer’s time at Alabama, it certainly hasn’t been bad. But it hasn’t quite clicked. If Jen Cohen is still USC’s AD when (if) the Trojans’ job comes up, expect her to make a run at the coach who worked out so well for her at Washington.

Washington

Current: Jedd Fisch (Year 3)
2030: Kalani Sitake, BYU head coach

Sitake nearly took the Penn State job last year, but the connection to his alma mater was too strong to break — especially while the Cougars were still in the Playoff hunt. He’d be a good fit in the Pacific Northwest wing of the Big Ten.

Wisconsin

Current: Luke Fickell (Year 4)
2030: Jason Eck, New Mexico head coach

The Wisconsin native and former Badgers offensive lineman seems to be on a collision course with a return to Madison after winning a share of the Mountain West regular season title last year with one of the most extensively overhauled rosters in the FBS.

SECAlabama

Current: Kalen DeBoer (Year 3)
2030: Jon Sumrall, Florida head coach

Is Alabama a better job than Florida in the current state of college football? Maybe not. But we do love SEC coaching drama, and the Gators’ new head man jumping from one powerhouse to another in the next three or four seasons would be riveting theater.

Arkansas

Current: Ryan Silverfield (Year 1)
2030: Jerry Mack, Kennesaw State head coach

The Conference USA-to-SEC jump seems like a lot, and maybe Mack, who is from Memphis and played at Arkansas State, will need a stop in between before moving into the SEC.

Auburn

Current: Alex Golesh (Year 1)
2030: Golesh

Golesh is Auburn’s third coach since it fired Gus Malzahn after the 2020 season. The odds alone suggest this hire will work out better than the last two (Bryan Harsin, Hugh Freeze).

Florida

Current: Jon Sumrall (Year 1)
2030: Jedd Fisch, Washington head coach

Fisch was on the radar at Florida this winter. He’s a good coach and an adept climber of the career ladder. We think he has at least one more step up in him.

Georgia

Current: Kirby Smart (Year 11)
2030: Smart

No reason to overthink this.

Kentucky

Current: Will Stein (Year 1)
2030: Brian Hartline, USF head coach

With the American’s current lineup, USF seems like a good launching pad for Hartline to land a P4 job in three or four years.

LSU

Current: Lane Kiffin (Year 1)
2030: Kiffin

Kiffin’s next step if he is successful at LSU is probably the NFL, but we’ll bet the 50-year-old gets to a fifth year in Baton Rouge before that.

Mississippi State

Current: Jeff Lebby (Year 3)
2030: Charles Huff, Memphis head coach

The last three Memphis coaches were hired away by Virginia Tech, Florida State and Arkansas. Huff, who was an assistant at Mississippi State, has positioned himself well to be the next coach to go from Memphis to the P4.

Missouri

Current: Eliah Drinkwitz (Year 7)
2030: Blake Baker, LSU defensive coordinator

Baker returns to Mizzou for his first head coaching job after helping Lane Kiffin reach a Playoff or two.

Oklahoma

Current: Brent Venables (Year 5)
2030: Eliah Drinkwitz, Missouri head coach

Timing is everything in life. If there had been as much coaching movement in 2024 (after Drinkwitz knocked out a second straight double-digit-victory season at Mizzou), maybe he would already be in a new gig. We think he’s got another big season in him, and it will align with the Sooners heading back to the market.

Ole Miss

Current: Pete Golding (Year 1)
2030: Charlie Weis Jr., LSU offensive coordinator

It was tempting to slide Weis in at Notre Dame, where his father’s tenure famously ended with one of college football’s first whopping buyouts ($19 million). Oh the irony!

South Carolina

Current: Shane Beamer (Year 6)
2030: Glenn Schumman, Georgia defensive coordinator

Schumann has been on hot coordinator lists for a couple of years now.

Tennessee

Current: Josh Heupel (Year 6)
2030: Will Stein, Kentucky head coach

We are bullish on Stein at Kentucky.

Texas

Current: Steve Sarkisian (Year 6)
2030: Sarkisian

NFL speculation will always loom over Sark, but we’ll go against conventional wisdom and say he stays put in Austin and leads the Longhorns to their best run since Mack Brown’s heyday.

Texas A&M

Current: Mike Elko (Year 3)
2030: Eric Morris, Oklahoma State head coach

Morris has a quarterback-whisperer reputation, and when he gets the Cowboys turned around, he’ll quickly rocket up SEC hot boards.

Vanderbilt

Current: Clark Lea (Year 6)
2030: Lea

Lea is in a fascinating spot. If he hits some rough patches at Vandy post-Diego Pavia, he should get plenty of leeway from his alma mater. If he continues to help the Commodores outperform their history, he’ll have plenty of suitors. But his loyalty to the school makes it likely that he’ll only bolt for the best of jobs. Think Notre Dame, Michigan, maybe Florida.

IndependentsNotre Dame

Current: Marcus Freeman (Year 6)
2030: Mike Elko, Texas A&M head coach

We’re going to assume the Freeman-to-the-NFL chatter becomes a reality in the next four years. Elko and Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea, both former Notre Dame defensive coordinators, are the presumptive first calls if Freeman does leave.