Every situation is different, but pressure largely feels the same. When you feel the walls closing in on you, that is all you can think about. Whether it be real, imaginary or some confounded concoction in between, pressure can either build diamonds or crush you like an egg. Last year, we saw Ryan Day overcome insurmountable pressure to finally become a champion at Ohio State. Could Brian Kelly do the same?
While Kelly left Notre Dame for LSU with his eyes set on winning the College Football Playoff, he has not come close in his first three years down in Baton Rouge. Oh, don't get me wrong: Kelly has fielded some immensely talented LSU squads, but a combination of slow starts, bad defenses and just the day-to-day grind of playing in the SEC has had his program coming up short.
Those failures have set up a make-or-break year for Kelly in 2025, but he's hardly alone on that front. So what I want to do today is look at what other college football head coaches are facing their own unique pressure-packed situations. No, this is different from being on the hot seat; in a way, this is the step right before you are living and dying by every game because your job depends on it. In the words of NBA Jam, "He's heating up!" Kelly is not yet on fire, but he might be after yet another failed season.
Let's start with a promising head coach who still needs to prove his place among the upper echelon.
10. Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning
I am going to be especially critical of Lanning this season because I know he can be better. The former star defensive coordinator at Georgia has been good, but not great at Oregon thus far. Because of the way the Ducks have played on offense with Bo Nix and Dillon Gabriel at quarterback, we have grossly overlooked how lackluster the Ducks defense has been in big spots. This team is still soft.
We need to stop caring about uniforms and get back to the basics of winning. Oregon has never won a national title before, so why are we putting the Ducks in the same group of traditional powers who have won multiple in their illustrious histories? While I believe Lanning can bring Oregon its first before he exits stage right, he has to show us he is better than Chip Kelly and Mike Bellotti already.
Oregon should be a Playoff team again, but it has been over a decade since it won a Playoff game.
9. Tennessee Volunteers head coach Josh Heupel
Heupel is in a similar spot to Lanning. I firmly believe he will have the Tennessee Volunteers winning around 10 games and appearing in the College Football Playoff field next season. However, I am quite doubtful that he will ever win a national championship at Tennessee unless he grows and adapts as a head coach. His Air Raid offshoot offense is far too gimmicky to thwart the best teams in the sport.
What I am getting at is he needs to become more of the CEO-type to get on Ryan Day, Kirby Smart and Dabo Swinney's level. Doing so will help Tennessee in recruitment. The Vols are close, but close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and making the expanded Playoff. For all intents and purposes, we need to see the Vols win a CFP game or two in the next few postseasons.
While Heupel has gotten Tennessee back to prominence, will he ever get Rocky Top over the top?
8. Oklahoma State Cowboys head coach Mike Gundy
Gundy is the first of two head coaches I will talk about who firmly check the following box: Whatever happened last year cannot ever happen again. Gundy has been leading his alma mater for two decades, a period that's seen the best stretch of Cowboys football in program history. He is one-of-one as a personality and as a head coach, but he cannot go 0-for-9 in conference play again.
In the new Big 12, Oklahoma State is one of the most likely candidates to take advantage of the power void that exists at the top of the league in the wake of Oklahoma and Texas leaving for the SEC. Oklahoma has won the conference before and regularly competes for championships in its league. However, if Gundy cannot get the Pokes back to a bowl game, then Oklahoma State has to move on.
7. USC Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley
I may be a noted Lincoln Riley hater, but I am well aware of why USC hired him. Former AD Mike Bohn thought he could be the one to return the Trojans to former glory. But Bohn is out and in comes Jennifer Cohen, the long-time Washington athletic director who knows her stuff and will not be made out for a fool. Simply put, the only panacea that exists for Riley in terms of being able to work for USC is winning big here soon.
The move to the Big Ten may work out for the Trojans at some point, but they got their brains beat in with cross-country travel. This is a team that should be competing for Playoff berths and winning around nine or 10 games a year. Riley was winning 11 or more at his previous post at Oklahoma. USC is a private school, so moving on from him is not going to look as bad as it would at a public university.
If USC continues to be fairly pedestrian under Riley next year, he enters 2026 firmly on the hot seat.
6. Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Kalen DeBoer
This is a critical season for Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer. While he has won everywhere before, from Sioux Falls to Fresno State to Washington, this is Alabama. As long as DeBoer remains well aware of where he coaches football at now, he should be fine. The Crimson Tide went 9-4 last season and narrowly missed out on the Playoff. Then again, he somehow lost to Oklahoma to end all of that.
To put it as bluntly as I can, if DeBoer thinks he can turn Alabama into Washington, he and the Crimson Tide faithful are so incredibly screwed. This is a top-four job in the country, arguably top-two along with Ohio State in the history of college football. You do not have to win with our kind of guys like you did at Washington. Your kind of guys are five-stars because this is Alabama football, folks!
DeBoer needs to have Alabama in the College Football Playoff by year three to get a fourth season.
5. Florida State Seminoles head coach Mike Norvell
I mentioned Gundy before, and I will mention Mike Norvell now. Both of these Mikes came off seasons in which their respective teams were playing in conference championships. With their power combined, they went 5-19 with one conference victory between them.( Thanks a lot, Cal.) Norvell needs to get Florida State back to relevancy or he will be out of a job quickly.
While hiring former UCF and Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn should help the offense, we are talking about a more accomplished head coach aboard the Florida State coaching staff in an offensive coordinator role he could not be more overqualified for. Because Norvell does not carry the same sentimental attachment as Gundy does to his alma mater, he enters this year under more pressure.
Florida State cannot be out of bowl contention by Halloween again if Norvell wants to keep his job.
4. LSU Tigers head coach Brian Kelly
We have arrived at Kelly, who arguably faces the most interesting kind of pressure ahead of this season. LSU has a navigable SEC schedule, but his team's defense has to be exponentially better. While he does have Garrett Nussmeier back for one more season, LSU is a team with so much variance. They can just as easily win a national title as going 7-5, as well as everything in between.
Factor in how well his successor, Marcus Freeman, has done at Notre Dame, and things are starting to come to a boil for Kelly in Baton Rouge. The big question is will it be a crawfish boil to bring everyone together, or a tar-and-feather boiling to rile up the townspeople? I am more inclined to believe LSU will turn the corner this year, but they cannot lose their first game of the season again.
Kelly needs to have LSU in the Playoff mix this season or the Tigers need to go in another direction.
3. Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze
As is the case with Kelly at LSU, Freeze was not hired by Auburn because of his overall likability. He was hired to win, and win big. This will be year three down on The Plains for Freeze after having had great success at Liberty, Ole Miss and Arkansas State previously. But after getting Auburn back to a bowl game in year one, the Tigers were one of the worst teams in the SEC a season ago.
Could Freeze be gone from Auburn after this year? I would not rule it out. I have said he is sitting on the hottest seat in the SEC entering the season, along with Sam Pittman at Arkansas. However, he did take over an Auburn program that was in rough shape in the wake of the Bryan Harsin disaster. I want to believe that athletic director John Cohen will be patient in this rebuild, but this is also Auburn, folks.
Freeze is under a ton of real pressure, but I still think there are two guys who need to win more sooner.
2. Oklahoma Sooners head coach Brent Venables
Oh, what are we going to do with you, Brent Venables. The former rockstar defensive coordinator at Clemson has been anything but that in his three years leading Oklahoma. This may be his second tenure in Norman, but why does this keep feeling like it is still his first rodeo? His contract is why he is relatively safe heading into this season, but let's not reward the incompetence behind that awful deal in place.
Oklahoma was the best program in the Big 12 prior to joining the SEC. This was easily a top-10 job in the sport, and maybe higher than that. Now, the Sooners have devolved into being the Auburn of the plains. Venables has taken a program that could drive itself and has driven it into the ditch. If Oklahoma cannot win eight or nine games, he might need to go, and if and when that inevitably happens, so should long-time AD Joe Castiglione.
Nobody is squandering more resources and great infrastructure quite like Venables is at Oklahoma.
1. Wisconsin Badgers head coach Luke Fickell
I saw this coming from a mile away, but nobody else did. Luke Fickell was not good as the interim head coach at his alma mater of Ohio State in between the Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer eras. While he did incredible things at Cincinnati, that was back when the Bearcats were competing in the AAC as part of the Group of Five. Flash forward to two years in at Wisconsin, and his team is not improving.
The former nose guard actually thought bringing an Air Raid offense to Madison, Wisconsin, was a good idea. I have been out on Fickell ever since. Everyone thought this was a home-run hire, but let me put it this way: If Wisconsin does not win around eight games, they need to hire a new head coach. You cannot let Fickell turn Wisconsin into Arkansas north. We cannot lose our identity in all of this.
The only team I am more down on in the Big Ten this season is Maryland. Mike Locksley is so cooked.