It's only fitting that the craziest college football season in recent memory has also given us the craziest coaching carousel in recent memory — and we haven't even reached November yet. Eight Power 4 jobs have already come open, three of which are no-doubt blue-chippers in LSU, Penn State and Florida. Program legends have been cast aside. Rumors are running rampant. Silly season is fully upon us, with plenty more madness potentially still to come depending on what happens at places like Florida State.
It seems like the ground shifts under our feet with each passing day. So, while we have a temporary reprieve ahead of Week 10, let's try to sort through some things. We've broken down all eight Power 4 openings below, and identified one plausible candidate we think would be a perfect fit for each. Where does Lane Kiffin wind up? What on Earth is LSU going to do? Read on to find out.
LSU
Perfect fit: Jon Sumrall
We can hear the hollering from LSU fans all the way from Louisiana, but hear me out. Yes, I realize that Sumrall has never done it at the Power 4 level before, let alone at the top of the SEC. But he's won everywhere he's been, and more importantly, he has exactly the sort of personality that the Tigers should be targeting in their next head coach.
This coaching search has already become a circus, with the governor more or less firing the athletic director and grabbing the reins himself. There have been for years now too many cooks in the kitchen. Sumrall's gift, dating back to his time at Troy, is as a connector, someone who can get everyone pointed in the right direction without bending to the wrong voices. He's a Southern guy, he knows how to coach and he also knows how to tell people no.
Penn State
Perfect fit: Matt Rhule
From pretty much the moment James Franklin hit the curb after the loss to Northwestern, the eyes of every Penn State fan turned to Rhule. And why not? He played linebacker in Happy Valley, after all, and while his foray to the NFL was a disaster, all he's done at the college level is build rock-solid programs are places that had previously been down on their luck. (And one of those places, Temple, just happened to be located in Penn State's backyard.)
Rhule understands the place and its people, he knows how to recruit at a high level and he comes with quite the resume. There really isn't a box that he doesn't check, especially given the paucity of other top-tier candidates in this cycle. (And no, I don't think Lane Kiffin has any interest in spending his winters in central Pennsylvania.)
Florida
Perfect fit: Lane Kiffin
Especially not when he could be in Gainesville, taking the reins of a program that's been dormant for far too long now. In many ways, Kiffin feels like the heir apparent to Steve Spurrier, another offensive mastermind with a prickly personality and an abiding love for needling his rivals at every opportunity. (Lord help us if the OBC had been active when Instagram was ubiquitous.) That alone should speak to his fit here, but he also has the presence to help bring some swagger back to a Gators team that used to be overflowing with it. He knows how to assemble talent in the portal era as well as anybody, and if he can have Ole Miss consistently threatening for SEC titles, imagine what he could do in Florida?
Arkansas
Perfect fit: Alex Golesh
While the other SEC openings in this cycle are looking to compete for and land the biggest recruits in the country, the job at Arkansas is a bit different. You're never going to out-talent the Alabamas and LSUs of the world; instead, you're going to have to develop diamonds in the rough and then put them in a position to take schematic advantage.
Luckily enough, that's exactly what Golesh has done at South Florida, taking a moribund program to bowl eligibility in each of the last three seasons. This year's Bulls currently sit at 6-2, with a dark horse Heisman candidate in QB Byrum Brown showing just how dangerous Golesh's version of the Josh Heupel offense can be. Heupel has shown how hard that scheme is to defend, even in the toughest conference in the country, and Golesh has proven that he knows how to build sturdy rosters in less-than-ideal conditions.
UCLA
Perfect fit: Jedd Fisch
There's an emotional case to be made for interim head coach Tim Skipper or interim OC Jerry Neuheisel. But with all due respect to the job those two have done since the departure of Deshaun Foster, this program needs a serious shot in the arm that I'm not sure either of them are equipped to provide.
Fisch, on the other hand, is as dynamic as they come both on the recruiting trail and, just as importantly, schmoozing boosters. He did an excellent job rebuilding Arizona post-Rich Rodriguez, and he's brought a ton of blue-chip talent to Washington since taking over for Kalen DeBoer. He's exactly the sort of guy who could thrive in a market like L.A., and based on his flirtation with the Bruins job last go-round, it seems like he knows it.
Oklahoma State
Perfect fit: Eric Morris
Before things eventually went horribly wrong at the end for Mike Gundy at Oklahoma State, he was the ideal fit for this Cowboys program, a maverick offensive mind who built some of the most explosive attacks in the country out of three-star recruits the bigger Texas schools overlooked. That feels like a pretty good formula for this program given their resources and geography, and as luck would have it, there's a guy doing a pretty good Gundy impression (circa 2011) in the Pokes' backyard.
Eric Morris was born and raised in Texas, played his college ball at Texas Tech and has spent almost all of his coaching career in the Lone Star State. He's the guy who first turned Cam Ward into a star at Incarnate Word and then Washington State, and since 2023 he's served as the head coach at North Texas, where he's quietly built one of the wildest offenses anywhere in the country. All the man does is recruit the heck out of Texas and score points, and if that doesn't sound like Oklahoma State football I don't know what does.
Virginia Tech
Perfect fit: Shane Beamer
Could it be anybody else? South Carolina appears to be souring on Beamer amid a disappointing season, so much so that coming home to the program his dad built into a perennial power could seem pretty enticing. And even beyond his last name, there's plenty of reason for Hokies fans to get excited about this move: He's done very solid work at a tough job in Columbia, he's an ace recruiter and he certainly knows how to reestablish Tech's hold over the Tidewater.
The Hokies have tried to get cute with their last couple of hires in Justin Fuente and Brent Pry. This program is in desperate need of some energy, something to remind everyone of what this program used to be not all that long ago. Beamer can wake up the echoes while also being a pretty good coach in his own right.
Stanford
Perfect fit: Tavita Pritchard
Of all the jobs on this list, the Cardinal represents by far the toughest climb. Jim Harbaugh and David Shaw masked just how tough winning at Stanford actually was, and we've gotten a stark reminder over the last few years. It's going to take a lot of patience and a very slow build to get this thing back on track.
So why not hand the keys to a favorite son, someone who already has a long-standing relationship with current GM Andrew Luck? Pritchard was QB coach and later OC on some of the vintage Stanford teams of the 2010s, and for the last couple of years he's served as Jayden Daniels' position coach with the Washington Commanders. The resume is impressive, as is his presence, and as an alum he knows exactly what this job entails — and will get a very long leash to turn this ship around.