College football coaching landscape: Hot seats, potential coaching candidates and more
Whose early-season struggles have microwaved their seat?
Virginia Tech's Pry had an experienced team with high hopes in 2024, but the Hokies failed to meet expectations after a season-opening loss to Vanderbilt and finished 6-7. As a result, he made staff changes, hiring new offensive and defensive coordinators, and revamped his roster. Quarterback Kyron Drones remained a constant. Yet none of those changes appear to have Virginia Tech any closer to competing for a championship. The Hokies blew a 20-10 halftime lead to Vanderbilt, getting outscored 34-0 in the second half -- its worst scoring margin in any half at home in the history of Lane Stadium. Virginia Tech is now 0-2 for the second time in three seasons, and Pry is 16-23 since his arrival in 2022.
They do spend a little time talking about new coaching candidates, but its mostly from a Florida perspective. Dan Lanning, Lane Kiffin, Jedd Fisch, Eli Drinkwitz were all mentioned as people Florida could target. Specifically regarding 'others', they did mention Dan Mullen as someone who could get some look for schools wanting SEC experience.
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Lanning has increasing stock options in his contract that make his leaving Oregon unlikely. Additionally, he has all the NIL/rev share backing to build a title contending roster and less pressure at Oregon than he would have in Gainesville.
Lane Kiffin could be a real target for Florida, but I think he is such a perfect fit for Ole Miss that he would be taking a big risk to leave.
Dan Mullen to VT, without a tremendous amount of thought, is something I could get behind. I was very much for it back in 2015, as I'm sure there are receipts of somewhere on this very website lol. His stock has obviously dropped since then, but in terms of hiring a proven good football coach, he seems like a viable option.
I think we should can Whit yesterday, can Pry today, and offer Mullen the job tomorrow.
Give someone the interim HC position to finish this season, but consider the 2025 season a wash, use it to reset, and get a new AD in here with time to clean house before the 2026 season and give Dan Mullen the keys to the (albeit currently broken down) Camaro.
Even if he bails after a few years for a bigger job, I'm reasonably confident he could come in and start winning football games fairly immediately. And that is what we need more than anything else. A competent operator behind the wheel who knows how to win games. Someone to stop the bleeding, and set the program back on its feet over the next few years in time for the ACC to implode.
And if he leaves for something bigger and better? We shake his hand and say thank you. The days of hiring life-term head coaches are over. We're not trying to hire Frank Beamer. And hopefully by this time we will have a competent AD who we can trust to replace Mullen.
It would be nice to be in a spot where we even need to think about fending off suitors for our head coach.
Lately it's more like a Pinto (catching fire) or a Yugo(best feature? the rear window defroster so your hands don't freeze as you push it down the road...
To be fair, the Camaro is recently discontinued, so it tracks
Mullen would be a hire to get us back to operating like a football school again. If we bring him in, it would have to be with an understanding that he gets to mold VT as he sees fit, top to bottom. The ACC is a conference where more teams are getting it wrong than getting it right, so if you are able to bring in someone who establishes the right culture from the start, even if its not perfect it can still outpace the majority, and that might be enough to at least get us on some radars when the P2 expansion happens.
But without us actually being willing to fund our programs at a competitive level, I don't know why he would even consider us.
Mullen could also develop a QB which hasn't happened since... Hooker? And before that... Jerod? Tyrod? Mullen would be like if Fuente understood the value of recruiting, didn't do it that much, but hired guys who got it. Mullen would get us back to 8+ wins per year, with an occasional shot at the ACCCG.
Our athletic department is underfunded by ACC standards. Our football spending is fine relative to our peers (at least as of FY24):
If we're going to do this, I'd like to see us (a) funded closer to Clemson and FSU, and (b) have those funds wielded by competent people.
Let's not try to claim developing Hooker. Tennessee did that. Could he have been developed here? I don't have high confidence in that.
We didn't turn Hooker into a Heisman candidate but we did recruit him out of school and develop him into a quality starting quarterback who could win games against teams with a spine.
What are we spending this on? Travel? Hotels? Are their things that are joint but come from football budget like weight room stuff that basketball pays for at UNC? Also being 3rd/4th isnt that much different from the next few versus getting to 2nd.
It's everything:
No, it does not include shared facilities. It's from NCAA MFRS (Membership Financial Reporting System) reports, specifically drawing from "total football operating expenses (reported on line 42 by sport on the NCAA MFRS report form)
Sure - I think the point is that Pry's resources aren't that far behind most of the ACC. He's underachieving plenty.
Sorry shouldn't have said spending, what are we wasting it on? Our salaries are more, our buyouts aren't huge, comparatively, Bburg is in a lower cost of living area that lots of those places we should be cheaper in lots of areas, so how are we doing so much less with more?
I'm speculating here – but I do think this is one of those areas where location does hurt us:
I know that About $2.3m total to buyout fired coaches.
But also, like I said, it's not like Pry was working at a significant disadvantage relative to the majority of the ACC. Which makes his results even less excusable.
Looks like on your list only UVA has similar issues as FSU and Clemson have more budget, the rest have bigger airports closer.
I will believe Pry's seat is hot when either Whit or him get fired. To many people that think we gave Frank the time.
The administration DID give Frank a lot more time. That was also nearly 40 years ago, and the landscape of the sport, the culture at the school, and the financial impact the team had were all very different back then. Almost no school can afford the same luxury of time that Frank had when he started at VT. That world no longer exists.
Also, frank started off under sanctions and limited scholarships. Pry started off with the greatest amount of money and largest staff this school has ever had.
Wasn't Frank's first rodeo. He actually knew how to coach football.
I imagine it wouldn't be easy to become a first time head coach in the ACC right now, and maybe nobody should be doing that, but the payout is rather large.
This should be Pry's seat after tonight
Homer= Whit
Bart = Pry
Not anymore he's not.
Technically they were wrong. He was second.