College football hot seat: Clay Helton, Jim Harbaugh among 5 coaches facing a must-win

The Pac-12 joins the fray as the college football season rolls into Week 10. Two coaches in the conference begin the season immediately on the hot seat.

It’s time to welcome yet another power-five conference to the fold for the 2020 college football season. After a long layoff, the Pac-12 finally makes its debut on the season and will attempt to make noise with an increasingly shortened schedule. For coaches on the hot seat in the Pac-12, the day of reckoning could come fast.

We’ve hit the double digits when it comes to the weeks of the season. Things are entering crunch time as the brisk November weather creates the ultimate football environment. There isn’t much time to turn things around for those coaches that have suffered some tough losses.

In particular, in the Pac-12, the battle for keeping a job in Los Angeles is on and both Chip Kelly and Clay Helton can’t afford to begin their respective seasons with a loss.

Pac-12 coaches join the hot seat rankings

Chip Kelly – UCLA

It’s now or never for the Chip Kelly experiment to get off the ground in Los Angeles. He’s had to work with a very young roster during his time in Pasadena, but the time is now for Kelly’s program to start showing signs of improvement.

Let this be a lesson that sometimes hiring a name for the sake of hiring a name doesn’t always work out, or quite deliver the results expected.

The Bruins’ head coach has had the whispers of the hot seat surrounding him long before this year and it really shows where the frustration levels might be. Beginning the season with a win and some optimism is what Kelly needs in 2020.

UCLA is opening the season at Colorado. The Buffaloes are feeling the sting of former head coach Mel Tucker departing for Michigan State earlier in the year. Honestly, that feels like an eternity ago comparatively speaking to everything else that’s gone on. Nonetheless, it’s going to be a battle between two programs that each feels they have something to prove.

Clay Helton – USC

Kelly isn’t alone when it comes to a coach in LA on the hot seat. Clay Helton has been the perennial king of the hot seat in the Pac-12. Yet, for all the frequent flyer miles he’s earned on Air Hot Seat, Helton has managed to avoid being left on the tarmac like Lane Kiffin.

That may be a bad omen for Helton, as his Trojans face the team that got Kiffin fired to begin the season in Arizona State. The Sun Devils have a lot of hype surrounding them with Jayden Daniels at quarterback and the success of Herm Edwards so far.

To make things even more interesting, it’s a 9 a.m. kickoff on the west coast. Not only does Helton have to worry about facing a quality opponent, but he also has to make sure to wake everyone up in time for the game. If USC is sleepy at kickoff in a shortened season, there won’t be any time wasted on the hot seat talk.

Jim Harbaugh – Michigan

The saddest day in Ann Arbor is going to be the day Jim Harbaugh’s khakis are run down the flag pole, folded up and retired for ceremony. Harbaugh has long felt like a guy that would be at Michigan for a while due to the fact that he keeps them competitive and the program really isn’t going to find much better.

However, after yet another loss to Michigan State and the Wolverines failing to win a big game, you have to wonder if it might be best for divorce for both sides sooner rather than later? Maybe not a firing, but an amicable split.

Or, Michigan could say forget it after they get pummeled by Ohio State again later this year. Regardless, the Wolverines have to decide if they’re okay with being good, not great and if they feel someone better is out there.

Michigan’s on the road at Indiana on Saturday. Harbaugh needs to look no further than what happened to Penn State when they went there. It’s going to take the secondary having a rebound performance for the Wolverines to come out on top.

Scott Frost – Nebraska

The Scott Frost hot seat watch was delayed for a week after Nebraska’s game vs. Wisconsin was canceled due to an outbreak on the Badgers. This week, however, it is very much back on. Nebraska will hit the road to take on Northwestern.

After getting pummeled by Ohio State to begin the season, Nebraska is looking for a turnaround performance against the Wildcats. Northwestern is off to a great start at 2-0 after pounding Maryland and edging Iowa.

This is a tough task for the Cornhuskers, who may be all out of sorts with a week off thrown into the routine as they’re trying to find a footing in a strange season. A win would even things up and maybe provide a place for Frost to start navigating through a year with many obstacles.

Mike Gundy – Oklahoma State

Well, Mike Gundy did it. He and the Oklahoma State Cowboys killed the Big-12’s hopes at a College Football Playoff spot. Personally, it’s nice not having to pretend the conference is worthy of sending anyone there for a change so maybe Gundy did us a favor.

The Cowboys fell short against Texas on Halloween in overtime. In doing so, they ended the conference’s hope at a playoff spot and made everyone endure the always original rendition of “Texas is Back” after a Longhorns win.

Try to figure out which one is worse. This week, the Cowboys need a bounce-back effort at Kansas State. That’s not going to be easy as the Wildcats are seemingly built to make opposing coaches have an agonizing afternoon in Manhattan. The goal should be now to win the conference and see how things play out. A loss would make the conference picture even more convoluted.

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