College football coaching search dilemma; more openings than attractive candidates

2025 has been a rough year for big name college football coaches. The increased pressure to win in the NIL/transfer portal era seems to be contributing to short fuses with big college football programs. As an example, recently fired Penn State coach, James Franklin was coming off a 13-win season and three wins in the college football playoff. The ability to flip rosters and pay big time players has convinced programs that grass might be greener with someone else.

As is always the case, when a prominent college football program decides to part ways with the current coach, the immediate instinct is to go shopping for their replacement at good programs playing well. The move is to swing big. Following the retirement of Nick Saban, the prevailing thought was Alabama could get anyone they could possibly want because it’s Alabama.

That concept runs rampant because everyone views each program subjectively. Teams like LSU, Penn State, Florida, and now Auburn are likely to follow that thinking. These are great programs with storied histories. In a vacuum, it’s perfectly logical to think they could trade up from their current situation. However, the same names are being consistently discussed. What happens when the demand is larger than the supply?

On Monday’s “Joel Klatt Show”, the college football analyst suggested that SEC teams like Florida and LSU were going to pursue Lane Kiffin. The Sporting News previously published an article last week explaining the lengths Ole Miss plans to take to retain Coach Kiffin. Klatt’s suggestion only reinforces the larger issue.

Currently there are twelve ‘noteworthy’ job openings in college football. LSU, Penn State, Florida, Auburn, Arkansas, UCLA, Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech, Stanford, Oregon State, Colorado State, and UAB.  The issue is, the same four or five names can’t fill all these jobs and some of them are not likely to leave the team they're coaching. 

The top teams are targeting the same names

ESPN has an article series that chronicles the coach fired, possible candidates and recruits those programs need to retain. Between LSU, Penn State, Florida, Auburn, and Arkansas only, they have each of those teams listing some combination of Lane Kiffin, Jon Sumrall, Eliah Drinkwitz, Marcus Freeman, Clark Lea, and Rhett Lashlee listed across those programs ‘wish list’.  

Those are six names for five openings. It would be really neat and clean for everyone if that was how this plays out. However, each of those names are leading winning teams in post season contention, they aren’t in situations they would be likely abandon. Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter has been adamant that they will do whatever is “financially necessary” to keep Kiffin. Yet Kiffin seems to be target No. 1 for LSU and Florida.

Clark Lea at Vanderbilt is another hot name, but Lea is doing the unthinkable with Vanderbilt. Even with their recent loss to Texas, Vanderbilt is in the top 15 and chasing a playoff berth. A similar argument could be made for Eliah Drinkwitz. Missouri needs some help in the rankings as the season nears its end, but a top 20 ranking and positioned in the top half of the SEC is nothing to snicker at.

Marcus Freeman is another name being floated for those top four or five jobs. Freeman confirmed that athletic directors from LSU and Florida have made calls but that he’s not interested in any open coaching jobs. The next wave are the long shots or the ‘thinking outside the box’ candidates. Names like Deion Sanders, Ed Orgeron and Jimbo Fisher.

Outside the box candidates might be tough to sell

There’s no secret that Deion Sanders moves the needle. The Sanders angle fails for two reasons. First, like Kiffin at Ole Miss, Colorado allows Sanders to run his program how he wants to run his program. There are concessions for Sanders that he would likely not get from bigger and more high-profile programs. The second Sanders issue is the on-field results. In two and a half years, Sanders’ Buffaloes have 16 wins and 19 losses.  It would be a tough sell to devoted program fans, boosters and alumni to bring in a coach with a losing record to one of these higher profile programs. No matter how magnetic the coach in question is.

Orgeron and Fisher provide a different concern to the proceedings. Orgeron has a National Title but there were enough factors behind his release that Orgeron at one of these higher profile programs seems unlikely. As far as Fisher is concerned, there’s no real red flags that immediately come to mind, but he was released for not meeting program expectations before the NIL/transfer portal era. Where those expectations have become even more urgent.

Everyone wants to win but there can be only one champion. Which means there will always be 11 teams that don’t win (in the 12-team model). Demanding excellence is not a negative. However, it seems that some of these top college football programs forgot a lesson many of us learned when we were young. Never quit anything until you have the replacement lined up.

Some of these coaches are going to stay right where they are. Some coaches don’t see these open jobs in the same light those programs or their fanbases do. With Curt Cignetti and Matt Rhule recently extended, the assumed available coaches list already became shorter. If Kiffin, Sumrall, Drinkwitz, Lea, and Freeman have no interest in leaving their current jobs, the top four to five available jobs at least, are going to find themselves in an interesting situation.

More college football news: 

• Deion Sanders buyout, contract details as Colorado Buffaloes coach
• Brian Kelly buyout, contract details as LSU Tigers coach
• Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter suffers major blow during rookie season
• Will Lane Kiffin leave Ole Miss? What to know about latest rumors
• Beloved college football mascot diagnosed with cancer