By Micheal Germanese
The off-season is officially here, and for several coaches their seats are already hot going into the 2025 season. Three of the coaches whose seats might be the warmest are among the 10 highest-paid coaches in the country. They are now faced with the reality that if this is another dreadful year, it could be the end for them at their current program.
The benefit of coaching at a top program is that you have every resource to win. The negative is that you’re expected to win every game every year because of those resources. It’s unrealistic to expect perfection every year, but it’s also unacceptable at any point to lose more than three games in a year. Now for these five coaches, 2025 will be a must-win year. If they don’t win, come December, they could be looking for new programs not because they wanted to, but because they were told to.
Lincoln Riley – USC
Lincoln Riley came to USC in 2022 after having a successful five years at Oklahoma where he never lost more than two games. Unfortunately for USC fans, the success didn’t follow Riley from Norman considering he’s already lost more games in three years than all five with the Sooners.
In Riley’s first three seasons, he has a 23-14 record and 2-1 in bowl games. For some programs that’s acceptable; for USC it’s nowhere close to being adequate. Riley wasn’t made the fourth highest-paid coach in college football to take the Trojans to meaningless bowl games. He was paid that to bring back the glory of previous years and has failed to do so up to this point.
Former USC star RB Reggie Bush says he would like to return as the head coach of his Alma mater✌️
“I would love to come back and be the head coach of USC at some point and help lead USC to a national championship,” Bush said. pic.twitter.com/21cknOWMhu
— Football Forever (@fballforeverhq) January 23, 2025
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This past season was his worst, going 7-6 in the Big Ten conference. Former player Reggie Bush saying, “I would love to come back and be the head coach at USC at some point” has dialled up the pressure to win even more. The Big Ten didn’t do Riley any favors with USC’s schedule in 2025 featuring games against Illinois, Michigan, Notre Dame, Oregon and Nebraska. Anything but making it to the playoffs could spell the end for Riley.
Hugh Freeze – Auburn
The 2025 season will be Freeze’s third at Auburn. While Freeze has been able the improve recruiting, he hasn’t been able to improve winning in the first two seasons. In his short tenure, he holds an 11-14 record overall with losses to New Mexico State by 21 points, Vanderbilt by 10, Cal by 7 and Maryland by 18.
Freeze has yet to beat rival Alabama, losing 28-14 this year and 2023 27-24. In the 2023 season, Auburn led Alabama with less than a minute to go, but Jalen Milroe completed a 31-yard pass in the corner of the endzone on 4th-and-goal. The question fans still ask is why Freeze had a player spying on Milroe so he could run on that play instead of having everyone back in the endzone.
The patience to start winning is running out at Auburn. If the the 2025 season doesn’t look a lot different than 2024, there is a chance he won’t get 2026 to try and get it right again.
Brent Venables – Oklahoma
The Sooners were 55-10 in Lincoln Riley’s five seasons at Oklahoma. In the three years since Venables took over they are 22-17. Joining the SEC after Year 1 looks to have been a bad idea, going 2-6 and finishing 13th in the conference finishing only one win better than Kentucky. The Sooners beat Alabama 24-3 in Week 13, but followed that up with a 37-17 loss to LSU and a 21-20 loss to Navy in the Armed Forces Bowl.
Texas, who came with Oklahoma from the Big 12, made the college football playoff for the second straight year. Success in Austin is only increasing the pressure on Venables to win. Venables against Texas holds a record of 1-2 and in those two losses has been outscored 83-3.
Is Brent Venables on the hot seat?
— Barrett Sallee 🇺🇸 (@BarrettSallee) October 19, 2024
The 2025 season will need to show drastic improvements if Venables hopes to still be there in 2026. Like USC, the SEC didn’t do any favors for Oklahoma with the schedule in 2025 with games against Texas, South Carolina, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri and LSU to finish the season. With Michigan on the non-conference schedule, things are not very promising for Venables in 2025.
Mike Norvell – Florida State
All that needs to be said here is 2-10. If you go 7-5 at Florida State it’s a bad season; to go 2-10 is just embarrassing. And to do it after going 13-0 the year before is an astonishing accomplishment by Mike Norvell. After the 2024 season Norvell holds an overall record of 33-27, not the record you would expect from the sixth highest-paid coach in college football at $10 million a year. It was FSU’s worst season since 1974 when they went 1-10.
In 2024 the season went downhill right from the start with a 24-21 loss to Georgia Tech. This was the only game FSU scored 20 or more points in. The Seminoles had a hard time putting points up, but their opponents didn’t with 5 of the 10 losses being by more than 20 points. Two of those 20+ losses came from instate rivals Florida (21-11) and Miami (36-14).
The good news for Norvell it can’t get worse in 2025 for Florida State. Improving on the season should be easy. Will Norvell win enough games to save his job is the question heading into the 2025 season.
Just incredible
Mike Norvell’s seat is so hot that the fire alarm goes off during his postgame press conference pic.twitter.com/vvUiTDIz6u
— Jim Costa (@JimCosta_) September 14, 2024
Kalen DeBoer – Alabama
You never want to be the guy who takes over for the best coach in school history. Instead you want to be the guy who replaces the guy who takes over for the best coach in school history. Unfortunately for DeBoer, no one told him and after going 9-4 in 2024 his chair is already getting a little hot. DeBoer was given an almost impossible task to keep what Nick Saban built going at Alabama moving forward. Over Saban’s 15 years, fans became spoiled with winning and now expect it every year. In his time at Alabama, Saban never lost more than three games – DeBoer lost four in his first.
When Saban retired, DeBoer was hired from Washington coming off the CFP finale and it looked like a no-brainer for both sides. But after losing 40-35 to Vanderbilt and 24-3 to a 5-5 Oklahoma team, fans questioned if he was the right hire. The problem for DeBoer is fans have the same expectations as when Saban was still the coach. DeBoer will never be able to live up to those expectations.
