Hot Seat Watch: 10 college football coaches feeling the heat in 2019

2. Gus Malzahn, Auburn

This list is not complete without Malzahn, as Auburn entered last season with fringe playoff aspirations but wound up 8-5 with a 3-5 record in SEC play. A 10-win season in 2017, even with losses in the SEC Championship Game and the Peach Bowl, got Malzahn a seven-year, $49 million contract extension.

But when the Tigers were 4-3 around mid-season last season, Brandon Marcello of 247 Sports spoke to Paul Finebaum and suggested a substantial buyout payout ($38 million) would not prevent a decision to fire Malzahn at the end of the season. Auburn won four of six games from that point on, including a 63-14 win over Purdue in the Music City Bowl to end the season on a high note, and Malzahn survived. The $38 million, or presumably a bit less after next season, may be of relatively minimal consequence for the eighth-most valuable college football program in the country (for the 2017-18 season, $112 million in revenue and $61 million in profit, according to Forbes).

Since leading Auburn to the national title game in his first season (2013), Malzahn has won 8, 7, 8, 10 and 8 games with a 2-3 record in bowl games. Reaching mid-tier bowls on a semi-regular basis is not the accepted standard at Auburn, and Malzahn is 0-2 in New Year’s Day games.

Malzahn is never far away from the hot seat, as he suffers for the out-sized expectations which are around him. Another season with less than 10 wins in 2019 stands to bring his dismissal, once and for all.