Following a seeming record number of college football coach firings in 2025, you’d assume there might not be nearly many on the hot seat going into 2026. But there are still plenty.
College football analyst Josh Pate outlined the coaches he views as being on the hottest seats on Sunday night on the latest episode of Josh Pate’s College Football Show. He listed four on the hot seat and four others as coaches to monitor.
So who needs to win right away to cool the seat and quiet the noise? Below are the coaches Pate listed.
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Norvell will be going into his sixth college football season at Florida State in 2026. And while he’s had some high points with a 13-win season in 2023, three of his five seasons so far have produced a losing record. That leaves the pressure all the way turned up.
Josh Pate: “Mike Norvell’s got to lead the list. When you’re talking about must win, like got to get it done in 2026, Mike Norvell and Florida State have to be at the top of the list. It seems the most obvious.
“They went 2-10 two years ago. That was the huge disaster season. Then, shockingly, they beat Alabama in Week 1, kind of dominated Alabama in Week 1, looks like they’re off to the races. And then they still finished 5-7. There’s all kind of hot seat talk. Turns out the buyout is really all that saved him, and it was public, it’s just kind of known that that was the case.”
Like Norvell, Beamer will be heading into Year 6 at South Carolina. He had a near-playoff run in 2024, but has produced just a 33-30 overall college football record in Columbia so far. He’s coming off his worst season at 4-8.
Josh Pate: “I think Shane Beamer may be on this list. Two years ago, I mean less than two years ago, really. South Carolina 9-4, they’re knocking on the playoff door, they just miss out. But outside of that, he’s gone 7-6, 8-5, 5-7 and 4-8. 4-8 was the most recent year last year.
“And you’ve got LaNorris Sellers on this team and you paid a lot to keep him. And you’ve got Dylan Stewart on this team, likewise, you paid a lot to keep him. You’ve got to ask yourself, South Carolina fans start to wonder, 10 years from now, are we really going to look back on this stretch of having LaNorris Sellers and Dylan Stewart on this team and we didn’t even make the playoff? And they expanded the thing to 12. We didn’t even make the playoff?”
At times last college football season Fickell looked like a dead man walking. But it was only Year 3 and Wisconsin rallied to finish 4-8. That obviously won’t cut it long term but was enough to earn another year. But it clearly has to get better.
Josh Pate: “It’s just not good enough. It surprises me a lot, because I still think he’s a really good football coach. And it felt like his DNA and that program’s overall historic DNA were such a match.
“And I just think if Luke Fickell had a do-over again I don’t think he would go the offensive route he tried to go. But he did. And then he bailed on it, but still when you’ve recruited and you’ve staffed one way and then you want to sort of 180 it and go another way, ask Lincoln Riley how that goes defensively. Well it’s happening offensively at Wisconsin.”
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Speaking of Riley, he also appears on Pate’s list. The Trojans made progress defensively but will have to prove they can avoid a step back after another coordinator change in the always revolving door that is college football coaching. Can Riley get the offense back to elite levels? There are a lot of question marks for a program that demands the best.
Josh Pate: “I think Lincoln Riley’s on this list too, though, at USC. Riley’s best year was his first year. They went 9-4 last year, but it felt kind of hollow. They got beat pretty soundly by Oregon, the bowl game, which, again, people kind of anecdotally value bowl games. But it went the way it went.
“They’ve got to click noticeably this year. This doesn’t mean they have to win the Big Ten. I do think they have to be in the playoff picture. I do think that they’ve got to be right there, because they just finished No. 1 overall in recruiting. Two years ago was their great reset, which I personally was willing to give them time for. But the whole context of that was, all right, you’re admitting your mistakes in terms of defensive personnel. And they hired D’Anton Lynn. Well he’s now on to Penn State. They brought in Gary Patterson. But still, you should be trending up defensively.”
Other Coaches To Monitor
Josh Pate provided four college coaches who aren’t fully on the hot seat yet but could get there in a hurry if things don’t start trending in the right direction. He listed a couple reasons for each.
Steve Sarkisian, Texas & Kalen DeBoer, Alabama
Pate: “Sark, you could make the argument for but that’s a totally different kind of pressure. I think Kalen DeBoer is the same way. Sark and Kalen DeBoer are not facing job security type pressure this year. There is immense pressure to level up the performance. For Texas there is an immense pressure to compete for a national title. For Alabama, at the very least, do things like run the ball effectively, which leads to playoff contention. That sort of thing has to exist with those two this year.”
Pate: “Just massively reworked his contract because there were rumors about him at Penn State. So he’s not on the hot seat, but the Rhule rule. The Year 3 Matt Rhule rule, it just didn’t click last year.”
Bill Belichick, North Carolina
Pate: “I don’t really know what to make of that either, only because they were bad last year. Schedule gets tougher this year. You’ve got to figure the roster will look a whole lot more like they want it to look. But also I don’t know… how bad does it have to be? How bad does it have to be at North Carolina? We’re not talking about Texas. We’re not talking about USC. I think the whole Bill Belichick pressure picture, I kind of think is a wild card to me.”