College football hot seat: 6 coaches that could be fired after Week 8

The hot seat is getting way too hot for these 6 college football coaches who are in jeopardy of being fired after their team’s performances in Week 8.

Which college football programs need new head coaches? That’s a pretty tough question to answer, generally. There are a ton of factors that go into why a coach may not be a great fit at a particular school.

Generally, there are strong philosophical arguments for being patient and trusting a head coach to turn things around. That’s especially true with smaller programs that don’t have the luxury of having an abundance of resources available at their fingertips.

But in this day and age, seemingly everyone is ready to fire their head coach at the drop of the hat. Right or wrong, that’s the way college football operates right now. As such, turnover may happen.

Here are six teams and six head coaches who should consider separating in the near future:

6. College football hot seat: Jimmy Lake, Washington

When Chris Petersen stepped away from leading the Washington Huskies, it appeared as if things would be just fine when Jimmy Lake took over as their head coach. However, Washington is just 3-4 on the year and has looked anything but good throughout the season.

The Huskies started the season with a loss to Montana (an FCS team) and just barely managed to complete a comeback to take down the Arizona Wildcats.

That’s hardly anything worth celebrating.

Lake should probably get more time to prove himself as a head coach, but so far he hasn’t done much to inspire confidence in the direction the Huskies are going. There’s a very good argument that Lake should be canned and it centers around Washington’s inability to beat Montana. Adding to that, the Huskies essentially have no offense whatsoever.

Admittedly, it’d be a little shocking to see Washington move on from Lake this early into his tenure, but it’s clear that he needs to make some significant changes if he’s going to stick around as head coach in Seattle for the foreseeable future.

5. College football hot seat: Geoff Collins, Georgia Tech

Geoff Collins is in his third season with the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and he was given the difficult task of abandoning the triple-option offense that defined this team and made it a consistent winner over Paul Johnson’s career.

Because of the change in scheme and the relatively short time that he’s been the head coach in Atlanta, it’s not a shocker that Collins hasn’t had much success just yet. But the question should be asked, how patient will Georgia Tech fans be with Collins? How long will they give him before ultimately deciding it’s time to move on to someone with new ideas?

Collins, like Lake, should probably be around for a little while longer, but how much longer will depend on how many wins he starts getting or how many losses he continues to bring in. Prior to the start of the 2021 season, Collins held a 6-16 record as head coach of the Yellow Jackets.

Georgia Tech got the year started off with a one-point loss to Northern Illinois, missed the perfect opportunity to upset Clemson and lost, was blown out by Pitt, and then fell short on the road against Virginia.

There’s some potential for things to improve at Georgia Tech, but there’s also the potential for things to remain stagnant.

4. College football hot seat: Karl Dorrell, Colorado

While other head coaches on this list have been with their particular team for a few years, Karl Dorrell is relatively new to the Colorado Buffaloes. He was hired after Mel Tucker took off for Michigan State and unfortunately hasn’t really gotten around to bringing in a ton of wins since then.

Things started off in a pretty promising manner, the Buffaloes went 4-2 during a weird and unpredictable 2020 season that was impacted by the pandemic, but Colorado hasn’t even looked remotely consistent during the 2021 season.

Most recently, Dorrell and the Buffaloes fell to 2-5 after losing 26-3 to a 2-5 California Bears team. Stuff like that won’t exactly make folks thrilled about their favorite football team.

With how Colorado is dealing with plenty of turnover due to the seemingly never-ending revolving door at head coach, it’s actually still pretty early for the Buffaloes to do anything drastic. That said, Dorrell really needs to examine how his program is going to move forward.

3. College football hot seat: Justin Fuente, Virginia Tech

While there are plenty of fair arguments in support of keeping coaches around, despite struggles, there are also times when a school has tried to give a coach too many chances. The situation surrounding the Virginia Tech Hokies and Justin Fuente is a pretty good example of the latter.

Some of the head coaches on this list are new to that particular position, new to their school, or have had to deal with weird circumstances, such as major adjustments to a scheme (or a global pandemic).

Fuente doesn’t have this sort of excuse available to him for his lack of success with the Hokies.

Previously the head coach of the Memphis Tigers, Fuente has been with the Hokies since 2016. He was once one of the most intriguing coaching candidates in college football but because Virginia Tech is underachieving, it’s likely that he’s going to be out of a job in the somewhat near future.

Since he’s been in Blacksburg, Virginia Tech has only managed to go 41-30. The Hokies haven’t won a bowl game since 2016 and they haven’t made a bowl game since 2019. Virginia Tech fans have been patient. The wins just simply haven’t come. It’s beyond clear that it’s time to move on here.

2. College football hot seat: Manny Diaz, Miami

The Miami Hurricanes want to be a college football powerhouse. That’s what they were at one time and they want that again. The Hurricanes have a ton of financial backing from boosters, are in an area that is overflowing with talented high school players that are ready to be recruited, and there seems to be an overall commitment to the football program.

But was Miami head coach Manny Diaz even ready for this role?

This is his first time as a head coach and he stepped into a very difficult job. Just because there are a ton of upsides to the Miami gig doesn’t mean that it’s automatically going to be an easy place to win.

Diaz, a first-time head coach, inherited a roster that was dealing with some turnover from the three-year-long Mark Richt era. Prior to Richt, Miami fans had to deal with the underwhelming time that Al Golden was leading the Hurricanes that involved an NCAA investigation.

Since Diaz was hired, Miami has continued to be underwhelming and inconsistent. Despite the high-profile transfer of D’Eriq King (who has been injured), Miami can’t get anything going consistently on offense and often looks lost on defense (which is Diaz’s specialty).

Miami is now 2-4 and battling North Carolina State, but it’s not clear if Diaz will ever be able to get things rolling with the Hurricanes.

Should Miami start looking around for a more proven coaching option?

1. College football hot seat: Steve Addazio, Colorado State

The Colorado State Rams are looking real rough right now and there’s no real guarantee that Steve Addazio will be able to get them on the right track. Addazio was an odd hire, all things considered, and unfortunately for the Rams and their fans, Colorado State has struggled considerably under his guidance over the past season and a half.

In 2020, Addazio led the Rams to a 1-3 season. The pandemic made some things weird and unpredictable during the 2020 college football season, but Colorado State has looked miserable throughout this season.

Most notably, Colorado State made this disaster happen in a game it should have won against Utah State:

Apparently, Addazio and his coaching staff didn’t even send the field goal unit onto the field, according to Addazio.

The whole situation is just an odd one and it’s time for Colorado State to consider what it wants its college football team’s future to be.

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