Predicting who will be the first Power Four coach fired and when it might happen

It's gettin' hot in herre, so fire your bad coach! To date, there are 11 openings in FBS college football, but all of them are at Group of Five schools. Since Saturday's action, we have seen Ball State, Temple, UMass, Florida Atlantic and Charlotte all move on from their previous head coaches. For the life of me, I cannot remember the Power Four/Five ever taking this long to fire a head coach in my career.

The good news, or bad, is it's bound to happen. With 134 teams competing at this level, we should expect 20 or even 30-something jobs to open up in the Group of Five and Power Four combined. If I specialize in anything that comes to college football, I would say identifying head coaches who are on the hot seat is certainly one of them. Then again, I am not a big-pocketed booster who loves control...

Here is a table of Power Four head coaches who I think could be fired before the end of the month.

As you may have noticed, all 11 of these Power Four coaches are leading teams that have yet to achieve bowl eligibility. I did not include Mack Brown at North Carolina or Kirk Ferentz at Iowa for not only that reason, but it seems increasingly likely that they will retire, or be forced into retirement in Ferentz's case. Kyle Whittingham of Utah may retire as well, but his team already has six losses on the year.

Let me try to pick one of the head coaches I have listed above as the first Power Four to be fired.

When will the first Power Four head coach be fired, and who will it be?

Looking at the Week 13 slate of games, I can only see three Power Four head coaches potentially getting the ax before the end of the season. That would be Ryan Walters at Purdue, Gus Malzahn at UCF and Mike Locksley at Maryland. Purdue has one win on the season and plays at Michigan State on a Friday night. Maryland is 4-6 and hosts Iowa. UCF is also 4-6, but plays West Virginia on the road.

I would say of those three, Walters is the least likely to get fired after Week 13. He may be cooked, but I would venture to guess that at this point Mike Bobinski will let him coach the Boilermakers vs. Indiana for the Old Oaken Bucket in two weeks. A loss at home to a six-win Iowa team may be enough for Locksley to get the ax, but I am leaning Malzahn possibly being the one with a road loss at WVU.

I don't think it is the best job potentially opening up out of the Power Four this year, but I could see UCF possibly wanting to get a head start on its search after a seven-loss season by Malzahn. No matter what happens in Morgantown on Saturday, West Virginia is not going to fire Neal Brown then. He will be allowed to coach for a sixth win the following week at Texas Tech with his job on the line.

So let's not say it will be either Malzahn, Locksley or Walters after Week 13 for the sake of argument. Do the other eight Power Four head coaches on the hot seat have a real shot at being the first to be canned? I am skeptical that Mike Norvell and Brent Venables will be fired by Florida State and Oklahoma respectively this offseason. Those are great jobs though, so I understand the pressure.

I would venture to guess Kyle Whittingham would rather retire than be fired by Utah. I would also say that Mark Stoops and Lincoln Riley would rather resign from Kentucky and USC than be fired, so keep an eye on that with a Week 14 loss by the Wildcats or Trojans. As far as Sam Pittman at Arkansas, Neal Brown at West Virginia and Matt Rhule at Nebraska, it will likely not happen until after Week 14.

So if I had to seed it, I would still say Malzahn is the most likely candidate to be fired first, as UCF plays on Black Friday to finish its season, followed by Locksley, followed by Rhule. Brown and Pittman will have two games left to prove themselves. Unless Stoops' Wildcats look completely listless vs. Texas this weekend, I would say Malzahn is the most likely candidate to be fired first by a wide margin here.

It would serve UCF to punt on Malzahn the very instant the Knights cannot have a winning season.