How did the college football head coaches on the hot seat fare in the first week of the season?
The first week of the college football season offered plenty of surprises and confirmed what we already knew in some situations. For the coaches on the hot seat, some went out and got a much-needed win while others suffered some bad losses.
Week 1 of the season isn’t going to make or break a coach at the end of the day, but it starts things off in either the right or wrong direction. If the losing keeps piling up, they will be out of a job soon enough.
Two coaches on the hot seat this week picked up a win, while three suffered a loss. Not all losses are the same and some can be justified more than others. Nonetheless, there were winners and losers from the first week of the season.
Winner – Lovie Smith
Lovie Smith is just barely a winner from Week 1. If not for a second-half rally by the Illinois Fighting Illini, Smith would have seen his program suffer a bad loss to begin the season against Kent State.
Nonetheless, it’s a win and a step in the right direction. Wins all count the same and now the program can hopefully build off of it moving forward. Next week, Illinois faces Western Illinois at home.
It should be another great chance for the program to get in the win column before conference play rolls around and things become a lot more difficult. Smith doesn’t need his program to make a drastic leap this season, but it needs to show progress.
Considering he has only five wins in two years, getting to six and topping his total for his tenure in one season would go a long way to saving his job. That’s a long way away however and he needs one win at a time.