Dabo Swinney is not getting fired, and that is the whole problem. In 2025, he coached the most talented roster of his eighteen years at Clemson to a 7-6 record and the lowest team rating of his tenure. A buyout of over fifty million dollars means nothing on the field can force him to change. This is what a hot seat looks like when the pressure is real and the consequences are missing.
Key takeaways
Clemson sent nine players to the 2026 NFL Draft and still finished 7-6, its worst full season under Swinney since 2010.
The 2025 team graded out at a 6.42 SRS, the lowest opponent-adjusted rating of Swinney’s eighteen years.
Over the last five years, against Kirby Smart and Ryan Day, Clemson trails on 20 of 22 measured stats, and does it on a softer schedule.
Swinney’s buyout sits near fifty-seven million dollars in 2026, which leaves real pressure without real risk.
The CHS read is a structural decline, not a one-season blip.
Nine draft picks, seven wins
The 2025 Tigers were the most talented team Swinney has ever failed with. Clemson put nine players into the 2026 NFL Draft, tying the most of his career, with five gone in the first three rounds. The only other Swinney team to hit nine picks played for the national title. This one watched the Playoff from home for the fourth time in five years.
Now put the talent next to the rating. By SRS, the opponent-adjusted number that separates beating Georgia from beating Furman, Clemson graded out at 6.42 in 2025. That is the lowest mark of his eighteen years, under the 6-7 team from 2010 and under the group he inherited in 2008. The most NFL talent of his career produced the worst football of his career, and only one of those facts is about the players.
Clemson’s opponent-adjusted rating by season under Dabo Swinney, 2008 to 2025, fell to a tenure low of 6.42.
The chart is the tell. The peak was the 15-0 team in 2018, and every season since has stepped downhill into the 2025 floor.
The peer test that Clemson keeps losing
Swinney likes to talk about money and how the bluebloods print theirs. Kirby Smart and Ryan Day took the same brand and the same five-star pipeline and answered differently, winning national titles while Clemson slid.
Over the last five years, 2021 through 2025, Clemson has trailed the Smart and Day average in 20 of 22 measured stats. It loses in winning percentage, SRS, scoring, and points allowed. It owns zero final top-ten finishes in that window, while each of the other two has five. The two rows it wins are takeaways and turnover margin, the numbers that look nice and keep nobody employed.
Peer matrix: Swinney’s Clemson versus Smart’s Georgia and Day’s Ohio State, 2021 to 2025, shaded on Clemson’s column.
Read the strength-of-schedule row, because it turns a gap into an indictment. Clemson played the softest schedule of the three yet still scored fewer points and allowed more points. An easy slate is supposed to flatter your numbers, and Clemson’s came out worse anyway.
Death Valley stopped being a fortress
The strangest part of the 7-6 is where the losses happened. Clemson went 4-1 on the road in 2025 and 3-4 at home, losing every game but the bowl inside a stadium where it had gone 73-9 in the Playoff era. LSU, Syracuse, SMU, and Duke all walked into Death Valley and walked out with a win.
Clemson’s 2025 results by final margin, showing every loss came at home or on neutral turf.
The close games got away, too. Clemson went 1-3 in one-score games, losing three of them by a combined eleven points. Good teams win the games this team lost, and that is a coaching grade, not a talent one.
The cure Clemson bought is a memory
Swinney saw the offense break and reached backward for the fix. He fired offensive coordinator Garrett Riley, the air-raid hire he brought from TCU, after a 2025 unit that finished 116th on third down and 109th in rushing. His replacement is Chad Morris, who ran the Clemson offense from 2011 to 2014 and has not called plays for a good one in nearly a decade.
The roster underneath is thin where it matters. Cade Klubnik is gone to the NFL, and the job goes to redshirt junior Christopher Vizzina or a freshman. Swinney broke his own rule by signing a program-record 10 transfers this cycle and still refused to spend one on a quarterback. Nine draft picks left the building, and Clemson enters 2026 in the bottom third of the country in returning offensive production.
The Market Read
The number that frames the season is 7.5, the win total the books hung on Clemson, with the over juiced to -135. That is the schedule talking. The market can see the soft home dates and is pricing a team that clears the tune-ups and stalls against the top of the league. Clemson sits around +8000 to win the national title and is nowhere near the ACC conversation that now belongs to Miami.
The edge is the live-dog window in the games that matter, at LSU and home against Miami, where the public still hears the word Clemson and pays for the logo. Fade the brand until a Swinney offense wins a game it is supposed to lose. Re-verify these numbers before acting on them, since win totals and futures move.
The verdict
This is a Structural Trend, not a blip. Five straight declining years by the opponent-adjusted number, on a softer schedule, against two peers who took the same materials and lapped him. The fair counter is that the one-score luck regresses and the roster is loaded, and both can be true while the verdict holds, because every flattering number describes something that happened to Swinney rather than something he did.
On the CHS thermometer, which measures pressure to win now and never predicts a firing, the reading is up and climbing. The buyout guarantees Swinney time, and time has never once forced a comfortable man to change.
Dabo Swinney hot seat FAQ
Is Dabo Swinney on the hot seat?
Yes, in the way that matters to Clemson. The 2025 team posted the worst rating of his tenure, extending a five-year slide. The CHS thermometer measures pressure to win now, and that pressure is rising, even while his job stays safe.
Is Dabo Swinney getting fired?
There is no sign of it, and the math rules it out. Swinney is signed through 2031, and his buyout is near $57 million in 2026. CHS does not predict firings. We measure pressure, and the point of this profile is that the pressure and the consequence have come apart.
What is Dabo Swinney’s buyout?
Roughly $57 million in 2026, down from about $60 million a year earlier, with a clause that rises by half again if he leaves for his alma mater, Alabama. Verify the current figure before publishing, since buyouts decline over time.
Who is Clemson’s offensive coordinator in 2026?
Chad Morris, in his second stint. He ran the Clemson offense from 2011 to 2014 and returns to replace Garrett Riley, who was fired after three seasons.
Want the full breakdown, with the complete peer matrix and every number behind the verdict? Read the full Diagnosis and subscribe to Coaches Hot Seat for the weekly Hot Seat Index.
Yes, Luke Fickell is on the hot seat, and it is one of the hottest in college football.
The reason is not the one most fans reach for. Wisconsin spent two years blaming the Air Raid, then fired the coordinator who ran it and watched the offense get worse, scoring 12.8 points a game in 2025. The pressure is real, and the story underneath it is more interesting than the boos suggest.
This is a pressure read, not a firing prediction. Below are the five questions that decide whether Fickell’s 2026 cools the seat or lights it, with the tell to watch for each one so you can judge the season as it happens.
Question 1: Can the offense clear the mid-20s, or is 12.8 the real Wisconsin?
Start with the number that ended the scheme debate.
In 2025, the reborn run-first offense scored 12.8 points a game, 135th out of 136 teams in the country and dead last in the Power Four. That happened after Wisconsin buried the Air Raid, which means the scheme was never the whole problem. The old system, which averaged in the low 20s, had more life in it than the throwback version brought in to save the day.
The tell to watch: look for the offense to camp in the mid-20s a game. Anything near 12 means the disease is still active, and a unit score of 24 or more is the first honest sign that the patient is up and walking.
Question 2: Does Colton Joseph survive to November?
The single biggest variable is not the scheme or the schedule; it is health.
Fickell has brought in a veteran transfer quarterback every year, and three straight have lost their seasons to injury: Tanner Mordecai’s hand in 2023, Tyler Van Dyke’s ACL in 2024, and Billy Edwards Jr.’s knee in 2025. New starter Colton Joseph is a dynamic dual-threat from Old Dominion, which is exciting and also the catch, because a runner behind a rebuilt line is an injury risk. The last three Wisconsin starters went down the same way.
The tell to watch: count how many games the Week 1 quarterback finishes. Joseph, standing on the field for the Minnesota finale, would break the pattern that has defined the entire tenure, and it matters more than any single stat line.
Question 3: Can Wisconsin make a bowl on the easiest schedule in the Big Ten?
The 2026 schedule takes away every excuse.
CBS Sports rated Wisconsin’s slate the easiest in the Big Ten, with no Ohio State, Oregon, Michigan, or Indiana. Last year’s opponents went a combined 110-53, with the eventual national champion among them. This year’s group went 69-79. With a draw this soft, six wins is the floor of competence rather than an achievement.
The tell to watch: treat bowl eligibility as the baseline, not the prize. A third straight bowl miss on a schedule this forgiving would be the loudest result of the season and a sign the problem runs deeper than luck.
Question 4: Is it bad luck or bad coaching?
This is the fairest question in the whole debate, and it deserves a real answer.
The quarterback injuries are a genuine misfortune, and no coach draws up a torn ACL. But building every season on a one-year rental with no functional backup is a roster decision, and Fickell made that call three straight times. When the school kept him, athletic director Chris McIntosh pointed at money, and there is a sliver of truth there, since Wisconsin has lagged in NIL. Paul Chryst won 67 games on less, though, and Fickell reached a College Football Playoff at Cincinnati on a fraction of a Big Ten budget.
The tell to watch: separate the wound from the plan. Injuries are luck, but depth behind the starter and finishing close games are coaching, so watch whether Wisconsin has a real answer the first time something goes wrong.
Question 5: What cools the seat, and what only looks like progress?
Not every win means the same thing this fall.
A nine-win season built on a soft schedule can still hide the same flaw, just as two non-conference blowouts can flatter a point differential. The results that move the needle are the ones that test the real problem. Wisconsin closed 2025 by upsetting ranked Washington and ranked Illinois, proof that the pulse is there when the quarterback is upright.
The results that change the read:
A healthy quarterback in December. If Joseph finishes the year, the biggest variable will finally break Wisconsin’s way.
An offense in the mid-20s. Scoring, not scheme talk, is the proof the fix took.
A road win over a team with a pulse. Padding the record at home proves nothing the schedule did not already promise.
The bottom line on Luke Fickell’s hot seat
This is a Structural Trend, and it is the hottest honest seat on the board.
The scheme war is over, and the offense lost anyway, which points the finger at the quarterback room rather than the playbook. The best-case scenario is real because the injuries were rotten luck, and a healthy Joseph on the softest schedule in the league could spark a genuine bounce. The buyout of about 25 million dollars buys Fickell the patience his record could not earn, so 2026 is the year the excuses finally run out.
Ask these five questions as the season unfolds, and you will know whether Wisconsin is climbing or just enjoying a soft landing.
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Is Lance Leipold really on the hot seat at Kansas? Five ways to tell if a coach bounces back or keeps sliding, run start to finish on the Jayhawks.
Every offseason, the preseason magazines sort last year’s 5-7 teams into “bounce-back” and “rebuild” based on almost nothing, and every fall, half of those calls fall apart. There is a better way to read it, and it is the method we use here at Coaches Hot Seat to rank coaching pressure.
One note, if you are new. Our ranking is a thermometer, not a firing prediction. It measures how much heat the job is putting on a coach right now, and none of what follows is a forecast that anyone gets fired. It is a way to read the seat honestly.
We will run all five tells on the same case: Lance Leipold at Kansas, who sits at No. 3 on our 2026 board. Here is how to do it yourself.
Tell 1: Throw out the record and read the pointdifferential
The win-loss line is the least useful number on the page.
A coin-flip team can finish 5-7 with average underlying numbers, and a lucky team can finish 8-4 while getting outplayed. The two numbers that actually predict next year are point differential and SRS, an opponent-adjusted rating you can find on any team’s Sports Reference page. If the margin sits near zero and the SRS is low single digits, there is no contender hiding under the record and no collapse waiting either.
Kansas was plus 1.3 points a game with a 2.88 SRS in 2025. Those are the vitals of a thoroughly average team, which means the record is roughly honest and no kind bounce is buried in it.
Tell 2: Count the one-score games
This is the number that decides most bounce-back bets.
Games settled by eight points or fewer are close to coin flips, and they regress hard from one year to the next. A team that lost a pile of them is a decent bet to win a few next season without changing a thing, and a team that won a pile is due to give some back. Walk the schedule and tally the one-score finishes and who came out on top.
Kansas went 1-4 in winnable Power Four games and led in the fourth quarter of four of its seven losses. That is a finishing problem, and finishing problems in close games are the most likely thing on this list to correct on their own, which is the single strongest reason for Kansas optimism.
Tell 3: Find the side of the ball nobody fixed
Most struggling teams are lopsided, and the trick is naming the unit that is actually sinking them.
Compare scoring offense to scoring defense, then dig one layer down to yards per play on each side. Points allowed tends to be the more stable and more telling number, so when a team keeps blowing late leads, look at the defense before you blame the offense.
Kansas has the opposite of Florida State’s problem. The offense is real and efficient, better than its historical Kansas comps in yards per play and yards per carry. The defense gives up 189 rushing yards per game at 4.9 per carry. You do not surrender fourth-quarter leads because the offense turned shy. You surrender them because you cannot get off the field.
Tell 4: Strip the cupcakes out of the schedule
A shiny record or scoring margin is often two blowouts against overmatched teams in costume.
Pull the game log, remove the FCS opponent and any clear buy game, and recompute the record and the margin against everyone with a pulse. If the team padded its résumé on tune-ups, this is where it shows. If it did not, the record is telling you the truth.
Kansas bought an FCS guarantee game every fall and beat Wagner 46-7 right on schedule, and still missed a bowl. When the cupcakes cannot buy you a sixth win, the record is honest, not inflated.
Tell 5: Watch what the staff repaired in the offseason
The offseason tells you the coach’s own diagnosis, and whether he agrees with yours.
Look at the coordinator hires and the transfer portal class, and ask one question: which unit got the resources? If a staff spent the winter upgrading the thing that already worked and left the real problem alone, next season tends to rhyme with the last one.
Kansas brought coordinator Andy Kotelnicki back to sharpen an offense that was never the problem, while the defense that surrenders 31 points a game got no equivalent rescue. Fixing the symptom and leaving the disease is a tell, and it is the one that keeps Leipold at No. 3.
Run the five onKansas, and here is the verdict
Add them up, and the seat reads clearly.
The underlying numbers say average, the close-game math says a rebound is possible, the defense says the problem is real and unaddressed, the schedule says the record is honest, and the offseason says the staff fixed the wrong side. That is a Trend, and it is hardening. It is not structural yet, because the offense is real and coin flips regress toward even, and it is not a firing call, because this is a pressure reading. Win a handful of tight ones in 2026, and it will be a blip that fixes itself. Lose them again, and the slide becomes the address.
That is the whole method, run start to finish on one coach.
Want to run it on your own team? Our free Coach Evaluation Scorecard walks you through seven categories on a 1-to-5 scale, 35 points in all, so you can score any coach’s seat the way we do. [LINK]
Want the complete case on Leipold? The full Diagnosis, with the workbook comparison matrix against Mark Mangino and Matt Campbell, and The Market Read on where the betting line disagrees with the hype, is here. [LINK]
Mike Norvell would like to apologize again, and he has had the practice.
After Florida ran through his team 40-21 in November, the fourth losing season in his six years, he stepped to the podium and said he had not coached well enough and his team had not played well enough. He called it infuriating. A year earlier, off a 2-10 season, he promised an immediate, fast fix and took full responsibility.
The fix showed up at 5-7.
Florida State hired a genius and got half of one
Norvell arrived with the reputation he built piling up points at Memphis, and it was half right.
He can draw up a Saturday. It is the other six days, the leading and the steadying of a team when the building shakes, that he cannot do. That is how a man who knows the X’s and O’s cold has not won a road game since November of 2023.
The reputation got him the job, and the other six days are the job he skips.
The plus-eleven is a magic trick
Here is the number his defenders want you to hold: plus eleven.
Florida State outscored its 2025 schedule by eleven points a game and finished 5-7, and one of those numbers is lying to you. Watch where the eleven goes:
The whole margin is two games. Strip a 77-3 win over an FCS team and a 66-10 win over a MAC team, and plus-eleven falls to plus-0.2 against everyone else.
Every close game was a loss. Florida State went 0-4 in one-score games.
The road stayed winless. Zero for five away from home, a skid that now runs to ten straight games away from Doak.
Beat the helpless, lose every coin flip, and the spreadsheet stops being a defense and turns into the indictment.
The roster was not the problem
The 2025 team did not quit, which is the whole case against its coach.
A Gus Malzahn offense led the ACC in total and rushing yards and hung 30-plus on four league teams. The talent came back and the scheme worked, and the team still could not win a game in doubt in the fourth quarter or anywhere outside its own zip code. When a roster has the talent and the scheme and still folds the moment a game tightens or the bus crosses a state line, the missing piece was never the talent.
It is the part of the job a coordinator never had to do.
So Norvell fixed the wrong thing
He took back the play-calling, the one job that was working.
“I’ve been really good at calling plays throughout my coaching career,” he said, and you can wait a long time for the part about the fourth quarter or the road. It never comes. The team’s flaw was finishing, and his answer was to hand himself the one task the season never flagged.
That is a coordinator treating the head-coach job like a position he can coach his way out of.
Why the checkbook keeps him
None of this got him fired, and the reason has eight figures and a comma.
Firing Norvell after 2025 cost about 53 million, the bill from the extension Florida State handed him in 2024 when Alabama came calling for a Saban replacement. So President Richard McCullough, athletic director Michael Alford, and board chair Peter Collins kept him and put it in writing that the three of them agreed “changes are needed for our program to improve.” Read that for what it is: a school grading its own coach as failing, in a press release, and admitting in the same breath that it cannot afford to act on the grade.
The seat never cooled, because the buyout runs hotter than it does.
The verdict
The fair counter is real, and it still loses.
The offense travels, and one-score records are close to a coin flip, so the record could climb back without Norvell coaching a down better. Both can be true, and the call holds. On the thermometer, this is Structural, not a blip, because until Florida State wins a game it is supposed to lose, the flattering numbers stay hollow, and the genius label is marketing for a man doing half the job. The buyout even falls from about 53 million to roughly 46 million after this season, which drops the price of moving on at the exact moment the verdict comes due.
No seat in the country runs hotter than the one a program has already graded and chosen, for now, to keep.
The full Diagnosis is for subscribers
You are reading the abbreviated version of our Diagnosis: Norvell breakdown.
The complete breakdown puts Norvell, row by row, against Jimbo Fisher and Mario Cristobal in the comparison matrix, then runs the 2026 schedule through the stress test designed to expose the road and close games. It also carries The Market Read on where the win total and the futures still misprice a team that cannot finish.
The Coach Evaluation Scorecard walks you through seven categories, each scored from 1 to 5 and totaling 35, so you can take any coach’s temperature yourself. You do the scoring, so it is a tool that makes you the analyst rather than a grader who hands you the answer.
Locksley is the head coach at Maryland, the program he grew up rooting for, and those two numbers are why he enters 2026 coaching for his job. The 18-0 is his record in nonconference games, the bodies nobody schedules to test you. The 0-19 is his mark against ranked Big Ten teams, the only games that decide a season. He beats the filler and loses to everyone who matters, and Maryland keeps meeting that ceiling on national television.
A coach can survive a lot. He cannot survive a number that specific.
Our model grades Locksley a Trend, not a Blip, and 2026 is the cleanest test he will ever get. Maryland brought back nearly everyone that matters, from the freshman quarterback who reset its passing records to a defense that returns almost intact. If a roster this experienced still cannot beat a ranked team, the ceiling was never the talent.
Why the seat is hot
On a Sunday in November, Maryland fired Mike Locksley, and none of it was true.
A fake report tore across social media, blamed a 55-10 homecoming wipeout by Indiana, and pulled past two million views before anyone debunked it. The lie outran the truth for one reason, the same reason the seat is hot: it felt true. This is Locksley’s hometown, the program he grew up rooting for, and for the first time his own stadium chanted for the firing out loud.
Athletic director Jim Smith, in his first year, could have made the move and chose not to. Instead, he retained Locksley for 2026 and published an open letter promising more resources, conceding that competing requires a level commitment. That is not a clean endorsement. It is a new AD betting on continuity while admitting the program has been under-supported, and it leaves Locksley coaching for his job with the safety net half-removed.
Here is the standard. Ralph Friedgen won 60 percent of his games at Maryland and kept the Terps ranked across 36 separate weeks. Locksley has won 45 percent and reached the rankings in exactly one week of his entire tenure.
The comparison that fuels the heat:
Win rate: .453 to Friedgen’s .600. Greg Schiano at Rutgers, the peer comp, sits at .444.
Quality: an average SRS of 2.5 to Friedgen’s 5.5.
Relevance: one ranked week, against Friedgen’s 36.
The national lists agree with the fans. Sports Illustrated slots his seat among the hottest in the Big Ten, CBS Sports files him under start-improving-now, and 247Sports calls 2026 a referendum.
The rebuild that makes this hurt
To understand the fall, you have to understand what Locksley walked into.
He took the job in December 2018 as a man who already knew the worst thing. Fifteen months earlier, his son Meiko had been shot and killed in Columbia at 25, a case still unsolved, and nine months after that, a Maryland player named Jordan McNair died of heatstroke after a team workout, in the same Shock Trauma center where Meiko died. Locksley had helped recruit McNair. He did not inherit a football program so much as grief, and he came home anyway, telling recruits’ families he would treat their sons as his own.
The program was rubble. DJ Durkin had been fired after McNair’s death exposed a toxic culture, and Locksley’s first team went 3-9 with an SRS of minus 3.18, the signature of a dead program. Then he built. The SRS climbed season by season: -3.18, 0.49, 3.44, 6.68, 9.74. By 2022 and 2023, Maryland was 8-5 and 8-5 with three straight bowl wins, the longest such streak the program had ever produced, powered by quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa.
[Figure 1: SRS climb-and-fall chart, insert from the Diagnosis]
Figure 1. The climb out of a dead program to a 9.74 SRS peak, and the two-year fall that gave it all back. 2020 is omitted from trend scoring.
That 9.74 peak is what convicts him, because the program gave it all back in twenty-four months. Tagovailoa left, and Maryland has not replaced him. This is the cruelty the standings hide: Locksley already proved he could win here, which is exactly why losing it back has felt like a death in the family.
What the data says
Start with the number that ends the cookout argument: Mike Locksley is 0-19 against ranked Big Ten opponents.
In the same years, he has won 18 straight nonconference games. He beats the bodies nobody schedules to test you and loses to everybody who decides a season. Luck does not lose you the same game nineteen times. That is a ceiling, and Maryland keeps meeting it on national television.
Figure 2. The defining split of the Locksley era: unbeaten against the schedule’s filler, winless against everyone ranked.
One honest caveat, because it raises the credibility of everything else.
Friedgen coached entirely in the ACC; Locksley coaches entirely in the Big Ten, and the workbook’s strength-of-schedule numbers confirm his slate is meaningfully tougher. Part of the .600-versus-.453 gap is two leagues, not two coaches. But the harder league explains the floor, not the collapse. He hit 9.74 in this same Big Ten in 2023, then fell to minus 0.74 and minus 0.91. The conference did not change in twenty-four months. The roster did.
The full comparison: Locksley against the Maryland standard
Here is the entire profile in one place, the same way we grade every coach: Locksley measured against the school-success comp, Ralph Friedgen, and the peer comp, Greg Schiano at Rutgers.
The shading is Locksley’s only, and it is read across the three coaches. Green means he is the best of the three on that metric, red means the worst, and the rest is a wash. One glance tells the story: he wins the passing-game rows and loses almost everything that decides games.
Table 1. Career per-game and rate averages, eligible seasons only, 2020 excluded. Shading marks where Locksley ranks best (green) or worst (red) among the three coaches; defensive and giveaway metrics are scored so that lower is better. Source: CHS Hot Seat Diagnosis workbook v3.
Read the green and the red as two sentences.
The green is the passing game: completion percentage, passing yards, passing touchdowns, total yards, and total touchdowns per game, each a Locksley advantage over both comps. The red is everything that turns yards into wins: win percentage, ranked weeks, point differential, turnover margin, points allowed, and passing touchdowns allowed. A coach can lead this table in passing production and still trail it in the only column that matters, which is the win percentage row at the very top.
The defense is the reason, and the names tell the story
If you watched Maryland in November, you watched a secondary get cooked in real time.
The Terps lost their final eight games of 2025, and the defense did the losing. The unit finished fifth-worst in the Big Ten at 26.5 points allowed per game, and it got worse as the year wore on, surrendering a staggering 39.4 points per game across five November contests. They did not hold a single opponent under 20 points down the stretch. The matrix shows why: 28.0 points allowed per game to a comp average of 24.3, 236.8 passing yards allowed to 211.5, and 1.68 passing touchdowns allowed per game to a comp average of 1.32. The run game stagnated too, 128.5 rushing yards a game against a comp average of 151.2 and falling, so an offense that could throw could not run, and a defense that could not stop anyone turned every shootout into a loss.
Here is the twist, and it is the heart of the 2026 case.
Defensive coordinator Ted Monachino keeps his job and enters year two, with co-coordinator Aazaar Abdul-Rahim alongside him, so this is a continuity bet: the same coordinators, kept on to fix what they just broke. The argument for patience is that the bleed was youth, not talent. Monachino has said the young players made young-player mistakes, and Locksley points out the unit still led the Big Ten with 19 regular-season interceptions and four defensive touchdowns, the playmaking of a good defense trapped inside a unit that could not close. The bet is that experience fixes the rest.
And the experience is real, which is what makes 2026 the verdict. Maryland returns 74 percent of its defensive production, fourth nationally behind Florida, Notre Dame, and Air Force, anchored by senior linebacker Daniel Wingate, who turned down outside interest to come back and is arguably the Terps’ best 2027 draft prospect. The edge rotation of Zahir Mathis and Sidney Stewart returns, with five-star recruit Zion Elee added to it. Cornerbacks Dontay Joyner and Jamare Glasker are back, joined by Boston College transfer Amari Jackson. This is a maximally experienced defense by design.
Blip or trend
Most hot-seat lists hand you a label without telling you the window that produced it, which is selling an opinion in a lab coat.
Start the clock in 2023, Locksley’s best year, and the model says a possible blip. Start it in 2024, and the same model says a clear decline. The honest read is the shape itself: this is two straight 4-8 seasons stacked directly on the best two-year run in twenty years. That is not a dip, it is a cliff with a peak right behind it, which is the worst kind, because the talent to be good is recent enough to remember and already gone.
The label is Trend. We make the call in the open instead of hiding the window behind it.
What still works
The case for patience starts at quarterback, and his name is Malik Washington.
The in-state four-star from Archbishop Spalding started as a true freshman in 2025, set Maryland freshman passing records, and agreed to return for 2026 instead of testing the portal, the kind of continuity almost nobody at a 4-8 program keeps. He inherits a new offensive coordinator in Clint Trickett, who ran Conference USA’s top-scoring and rushing offense at Jacksonville State last year, powered by national rushing leader Cam Cook, a deliberate hire to fix the exact run-game problem the matrix flags in red. Washington has a veteran portal room behind him, Cardell Williams from Sacramento State and Devin Kargman from Kent State, so a Washington injury no longer ends the season the way it would have in 2024.
The rest of the case for waiting:
Continuity: Maryland returns 14 starters, tied for the second-most in the country. Locksley is betting the whole season on the idea that experience converts close losses into wins.
Resources: the AD’s public pledge of more NIL support, per Bleacher Report, signals the administration thinks it underbuilt the roster it is now judging.
Local recruiting: five-star edge Zion Elee headlines a build-from-within approach that is keeping DMV talent home, the foundation Locksley’s peak was built on.
None of this erases the cliff. It explains why a move is not automatic. But it also removes the alibis, because a roster this experienced does not get to blame youth in 2026.
The 2026 outlook: the 4-0 start is the trap
The single most dangerous thing that can happen to Maryland in 2026 is a 4-0 start, because it would prove nothing and feel like everything.
The first two openers are the kind of games the 18-game nonconference streak was built on, and Maryland should win them. The next two have teeth: a Virginia Tech rebuild under James Franklin, and a UCLA team the Terps are favored against for one reason only, home field. So even a 4-0 start would rest on two routine wins, one coin flip, and a game decided by a plane ticket. Then the season tells the truth, and the ceiling the standings hide comes due in October.
The runway, all winnable:
Sept 5: Hampton: an FCS opener, a scheduled win.
Sept 12: at UConn: a road trip but a manageable one, against a team Maryland routed 50-7 in 2024.
Sept 19: Virginia Tech: the toughest of the four, at home. Note the wrinkle: this is the first Maryland meeting with a Virginia Tech now coached by James Franklin, who took over in Blacksburg after his Penn State exit, so the rebuilt Hokies are a genuine unknown.
Sept 26: UCLA: the Big Ten home opener, and the biggest test of the opening month. This is not the 3-9 UCLA that still beat Maryland in 2025. The Bruins hired Bob Chesney off a James Madison run to the playoffs, reloaded with a top-25 transfer class, and returned Nico Iamaleava with weapons at last. Maryland’s edge is the zip code, not the roster: UCLA crosses three time zones for a road kickoff. Lean on that, but lightly, because if a plane ride is the difference, a win here proves Maryland holds home field, not that it closes the gap that decides seasons.
Then the measuring sticks, where the 0-19 gets its 2026 stress test. Back-to-back road trips to Nebraska on Oct 3 and to Ohio State on Oct 10 are the ceiling for the schedule. The October 31 home game against Illinois and the November 7 trip to Purdue are the swing games that decide bowl math, since Purdue was among the league’s weakest last year, and Locksley has owned Rutgers, his Oct 17 home opponent. The November back half hardens: Wisconsin at home Nov 14, a cross-country trip to USC Nov 21, and the home finale Nov 28 against a Penn State program that has beaten Maryland four straight and owns the all-time series 44-3-1. A scalp there would rewrite the season.
The Market Read
The books have already told you what the model did, if you know how to listen.
Sportsbooks price Maryland around a six-and-a-half win total and a 500-to-1 shot to win the Big Ten, which is the market’s polite way of saying bowl-eligible and irrelevant. The trap is the front end of the schedule. Maryland should walk into October at or near 4-0, and a clean September will tempt the market to price an improvement over the 0-19 mark against ranked teams says is not real. The value, if it exists, lives in the gap between a record propped up by the 18-game cupcake streak and a back half that hardens through Nebraska, Ohio State, Wisconsin, USC, and Penn State.
Watch the tells, not the win column.
The numbers to trust are SRS and point differential, because both turn before the record does, and a September that looks clean but flat in the predictive metrics is a mirage with a price tag.
The fade window is October, when the filler runs out and the ceiling the standings hide finally comes due.
We do not hand out picks. We hand you the read and the line where it breaks.
What changes the story next
Forget the win total. The signal that matters is whether Maryland finally beats a ranked opponent.
2026 is year eight, and the continuity bet means the excuses are spent. Watch three things, none of them the record against the filler.
The defense: with 74 percent of production back and Monachino in year two, the unit that gave up 39.4 a game in November has to actually close games, or the youth excuse dies, and the Trend hardens to Structural.
The run game: Trickett was hired to build one. If Washington still has to throw it every down, the offense stays easy to defend when the lights come up.
The predictive metrics: watch SRS and point differential early, because they flash a real turnaround before the win column does.
If those hold where they have sat for two years, the next label is Structural Trend, and the conversation stops being about whether to wait.
Bottom line
This is a Trend, and 2026 is the cleanest test Locksley will ever get.
He has his quarterback in Malik Washington, a run-game fixer in Clint Trickett, 14 returning starters, a defense that gets almost everyone back, and an AD who chose him and promised the money. The alibis are gone. Strip them away, and you are left with his own number, 9.74, reached and surrendered in twenty-four months, and an 0-19 mark against which everyone Maryland measures itself. He proved he could build it once. If this roster, this experienced, still cannot beat a ranked team, then Maryland will have its answer: the ceiling was never the talent.
Three things would change my mind, and none of them is another blowout of an overmatched opponent.
A one-score win. They went 0-4 in them. One close victory is worth more than every cupcake blowout combined.
A road win. The first since November 2023 would be the cleanest evidence that the finishing problem is coaching progress, not noise.
The anchors converting. SRS and point differential mean nothing until they start showing up in the fourth quarter of a tight one.
Grade your own coach
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The coaching carousel just claimed its biggest name yet.
Brian Kelly is out at LSU. Fired. Done. Less than 24 hours after a humiliating 49-25 home loss to Texas A&M—after running into the locker room while students chanted “Fire Kelly,” after being forced to come back out and sing the alma mater with his players—LSU finally pulled the trigger. But this wasn’t a simple firing. This was a full-blown confrontation that spiraled out of control.
Here’s what happened.
The Dramatic Showdown That Ended It All
Sunday afternoon, according to The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman and Ralph D. Russo.
Brian Kelly and athletic director Scott Woodward meet. Woodward wants staff changes. Specifically, he wants Kelly to fire offensive coordinator Joe Sloan. LSU’s offense ranks dead last in the SEC in rushing. Something has to give. Kelly fires back. If we’re making staff changes, he says, I want to make different changes. Ones Woodward isn’t comfortable with.
Things get tense.
The conversation escalates. Kelly pushes back hard against his boss. Threats about negotiating Kelly’s $53 million buyout come up. But there’s a question: will the LSU Board of Supervisors even give Woodward the authority to do that?
By Sunday night, it’s over.
Kelly is out. A team meeting is called for 8 p.m. Associate head coach Frank Wilson is named interim head coach. Tight ends coach Alex Atkins will take over play-calling duties. And on Monday morning, LSU announces they’ve fired Sloan anyway. “When Coach Kelly arrived at LSU four years ago, we had high hopes that he would lead us to multiple SEC and national championships during his time in Baton Rouge,” Woodward said in the release. “Ultimately, the success at the level that LSU demands simply did not materialize.”
Translation: You didn’t win enough.
The Wildest Coaching Carousel Year in Recent Memory
But here’s the thing: Kelly isn’t the only one.
This has been one of the most chaotic coaching carousel seasons in years. Jobs are opening everywhere:
Penn State
LSU
Florida
Oklahoma State
Arkansas
Virginia Tech
UCLA
Stanford
And that’s just so far.
Florida State and Oklahoma could be next. Maybe others. The competition for top candidates is going to be insane. Top-tier schools like Florida, LSU, and Penn State are in their own tier—massive resources, elite NIL, phenomenal facilities. But even they’re going to have to pay up. Big time.
Agents are salivating.
Salaries are about to get wildly inflated. And how many of these coaches will actually complete their contracts without needing to be bought out? History says not many. But here’s the question nobody wants to ask: Who are these schools actually going to hire?
And that leads to an even more uncomfortable question for programs down the ladder.
If You’re Cal (Or Nevada, Or Louisiana Tech), What Do You Do?
Let’s talk about the schools further down the food chain for a second.
If you’re Cal, what do you do? Justin Wilcox has been there for nine years. No winning seasons since 2019. The program is stuck in mediocrity. Do you fire him and jump into this insane market where every coach’s price just tripled? Do you keep investing in a guy who hasn’t delivered? If you’re Nevada, do you pay the $2.7 million buyout for Jeff Choate and try to compete with Penn State and LSU for the same candidate pool? If you’re Louisiana Tech, do you cut ties with Sonny Cumbie and hope you can find someone better in a market that’s about to be picked clean?
The reality is brutal.
The top jobs are going to snap up the top candidates. Everyone else will be fighting over the scraps. Or they’re going to have to roll the dice on assistant coaches and hope they hit on the next Cignetti. Schools like Vanderbilt, Missouri, Tulane, North Texas, Memphis, Wake Forest, and Boise State have coaches who are prime poaching targets. And they won’t have the money to keep them if the big boys come calling.
It’s a bad year to be a mid-tier program with an up-and-coming coach.
So, Who Is LSU Going to Get That’s Better Than Brian Kelly?
Which brings us back to the biggest question of all.
Think about Kelly’s résumé for a second:
Two Division II national championships
Took Cincinnati to 11-1 and a top-4 finish
Took Notre Dame to two national championship games
Ten top-25 finishes at Notre Dame, half of them in the top 10
Won 10 games in each of his first two seasons at LSU with top-15 finishes
Won 9 games last year
On pace for 8 wins this year
That’s not a bad coach.
That’s an excellent coach who didn’t meet LSU’s sky-high expectations. So who’s the upgrade? The names being thrown around: Lane Kiffin, Marcus Freeman, Brent Key, Eli Drinkwitz, Jon Sumrall. Are those guys sure things? Are they going to be infinitely better than Kelly?
Nobody knows.
LSU is about to spend $100 million (or more) buying out Kelly and his staff, then funding a new coaching staff, to get someone who might be better. It’s a massive gamble. Here’s the reality: You’re going to spend probably $100M buying out your previous coaching staff and funding your new one to get someone that isn’t necessarily a sure thing. It’s not like Brian Kelly was going 4-8.
And here’s the kicker.
Unless LSU is bringing back Nick Saban, Chris Petersen, or Urban Meyer from retirement, there isn’t a candidate out there who’s a sure thing. Lane Kiffin is going to make a fortune – either from Ole Miss giving him a massive raise to stay, or from one of these desperate schools throwing ridiculous money at him. Brian Kelly won’t be out of work long. Neither will James Franklin, who Penn State moved on from. They’re outstanding coaches. The problem is they weren’t great enough for programs with championship-or-bust expectations.
And that’s the new reality of college football.
What’s Next?
The carousel is spinning.
Fast. More jobs will open. More coaches will get massive paydays. More schools will regret the contracts they’re about to hand out. In about four years, a lot of these fan bases are going to be asking: “Why did we give him that contract?!”
And the carousel is spinning faster than anyone expected. We’re barely past mid-season and the coaching changes are piling up. Brian Kelly is out at LSU. James Franklin got fired at Penn State two weeks ago. Florida, Oklahoma State, Arkansas, Virginia Tech, UCLA, Stanford—all looking for new head coaches.
This isn’t normal.
This is chaos. And for the coaches who are still employed? The pressure just went up. Because if a guy like Brian Kelly—with two national championships, a College Football Playoff appearance, and multiple 10-win seasons—can get fired, then nobody is safe.
So who’s next?
Here are our Week 10 Top 10 Coaches Hot Seat Rankings.
1. Mike Norvell (Florida State)
Mike Norvell’s seat isn’t just hot anymore.
It’s molten.
Florida State went from Top 10 to four-game losing streak to getting embarrassed by Stanford—a team nobody expected them to fail to beat. And now? Boosters are openly questioning whether Norvell is the guy. The administration says they’re backing him, but that’s what they always say before they’re not. The only thing keeping him in Tallahassee right now is a buyout so massive it would make your eyes water. But make no mistake: a full program assessment is coming, and nothing about this season suggests he’ll survive it.
2. Jonathan Smith (Michigan State)
Five straight losses.
Four straight losses to Michigan.
Jonathan Smith turned around Oregon State. It took time. It was a slow rebuild. But here’s the problem: today’s college football environment no longer tolerates slow rebuilds. The Spartans are 3-11 in Big Ten play under Smith, and fans aren’t willing to wait three, four, five years to see progress. And here’s the kicker: he wasn’t even hired by the current AD or president. That’s a death sentence in college football. When the people who didn’t hire you start questioning your decisions, your player development, and your ability to compete? It’s over. The patience that worked at Oregon State doesn’t exist at Michigan State. Not anymore.
3. Bill Belichick (North Carolina)
Bill Belichick’s reputation was supposed to be bulletproof.
Turns out, college football doesn’t care about your NFL résumé.
The Tar Heels are 2-4. They’re getting blown out. And the off-field issues keep piling up: a cornerbacks coach suspended for NCAA violations, reports of preferential treatment in recruiting, a scrapped documentary deal, and internal tensions that have leaked into the media. This was supposed to be the start of something special—Belichick bringing his genius to Chapel Hill. Instead, it’s dysfunction. On the field and off. And now? Exit strategy conversations are already happening. In October. Of his first season.
4. Jeff Choate (Nevada)
Year 2 at Nevada was supposed to show progress.
It hasn’t.
The Wolf Pack are still winless in conference play. They’re still one of the worst teams in FBS. The offense is broken. The losses are piling up. And fans are starting to ask the question every coach dreads: “Is this ever going to get better?” Choate went 3-10 in Year 1. He’s on pace to do worse in Year 2. But here’s the reality: local reporter Chris Murray put Choate’s hot seat at “0” on a scale of 0-10, explaining that “Choate’s buyout after this season is $2.7 million, which Nevada is not paying to change coaches.” The money is keeping him employed for now.
5. Hugh Freeze (Auburn)
Hugh Freeze finally won an SEC game.
Great. He’s 1-4 in the conference.
Auburn sits at 4-4 overall, and the win over Arkansas—while needed—doesn’t erase the reality: this program is underperforming. The quarterback play has been terrible. Game management has been questionable. And expectations? They’re not being met. Freeze was hired to bring Auburn back to relevance, and instead, they’re fighting to stay above .500. If they don’t win out, the talk of a coaching change is going to get loud. Fast.
6. Luke Fickell (Wisconsin)
Back-to-back shutouts.
By Iowa and Ohio State.
The first time Wisconsin has been shut out twice in a row since 1977. Luke Fickell’s tenure in Madison is collapsing in real time. The Badgers are 15–18 since he arrived. They’ve lost 10 straight games to Power Four opponents. The offense is nonexistent. And fans? They’re done. Chanting “Fire Fickell” in the stands. Waving shirts. Walking out. Athletic Director Chris McIntosh has publicly committed to keeping Fickell and investing more in NIL and program resources, saying “the results of this elevated support may not be immediate, but we are confident the direction will be positive and long-term.” But here’s the problem: fans aren’t buying it. Betting markets still have him as a top candidate to get fired. And unless something changes immediately, all the investment in the world won’t save him.
7. Justin Wilcox (California)
Justin Wilcox is stuck in mediocrity.
And mediocrity doesn’t keep you employed forever.
Cal hasn’t had a winning season since 2019. They’re below the required .490 winning percentage. And now, with a new chancellor emphasizing accountability and self-sustainability, Wilcox is facing a crossroads: improve immediately, or get replaced. The buyout? Nearly $11 million. That sounds like a lot until you remember Cal has some of the wealthiest alumni in college football. This program has enormous potential. If they want him gone, they’ll find the money. Recruiting is suffering. Fan support is fading. And if 2025 doesn’t show real improvement? He’s gone.
8. Derek Mason (Middle Tennessee)
Year 2 at Middle Tennessee has been abysmal.
4-14 overall. 2-9 in CUSA. Blowout losses. Embarrassing performances against teams they should be able to compete with. Derek Mason came in with a plan, but the results haven’t followed. Fans are running out of patience. Boosters are losing faith. And unless something miraculous happens, a coaching change is coming. Because at some point, you have to cut your losses and try something new.
9. Shane Beamer (South Carolina)
Shane Beamer entered 2025 with momentum.
Now he’s 3-5 and the wheels are coming off.
After a spectacular 9-4 season in 2024 that earned him SEC Coach of the Year and nearly landed the Gamecocks in the playoff, expectations were sky-high. Instead? South Carolina is dead last in SEC offensive output. The contract extension that seemed like a no-brainer six months ago now feels premature. Close losses. Underperformance. Disappointment. If this season doesn’t turn around fast, the goodwill from 2024 will evaporate. Because at some point, one great season stops being enough.
10. Sonny Cumbie (Louisiana Tech)
Sonny Cumbie started the season with the hottest seat in college football.
Clear #1. Everyone knew it.
Three straight losing seasons. 11-26 record coming in. The offense, his specialty, is getting worse every year. But then something happened: Louisiana Tech started winning games. They’re 4-3 now, competitive in Conference USA, and suddenly Cumbie’s seat has cooled. Not cold. But cooler. Here’s the problem: the offense is still struggling. The thing he was hired to fix? Still broken. And with road games at Delaware, Washington State, and Missouri State still on the schedule, plus a home date with Liberty, a bowl game isn’t guaranteed. If Louisiana Tech misses a bowl again, all that early-season progress won’t matter. Because in Year 4, you either show real improvement or the program shows you the door.
Oklahoma State’s legendary coach has become a cautionary tale about staying too long at the party
Here’s what nobody wants to say out loud.
Mike Gundy is done. Not “struggling.” Not “going through a rough patch.” Not “needing time to adjust to the new landscape.” Done.
And the numbers don’t lie—even when the narrative tries to.
The Brutal Reality Check
Let me paint you a picture of just how far Oklahoma State has fallen.
172.3 passing yards per game. That’s it. That’s the offensive explosion Mike Gundy has engineered in 2025. For context, most high school teams throw for more than that. 0.3 passing touchdowns per game. You read that correctly. In three games, Oklahoma State has thrown ONE touchdown pass. Uno. A single aerial score. 426.7 yards allowed per game. The defense—if we can even call it that—is surrendering nearly 7 yards every time an opponent snaps the ball.
But here’s the number that should make every Oklahoma State administrator’s blood run cold.
When Legends Become Liabilities
Twenty years ago, Mike Gundy was the answer to Oklahoma State’s prayers.
He turned the Cowboys into a consistent winner. Eighteen straight winning seasons. Five major bowl appearances. 102 Big 12 wins—third in conference history. He made Oklahoma State a national presence. But success has an expiration date. And Gundy’s expired somewhere between his “I’m a man! I’m 40!” rant and losing to Tulsa at home for the first time since the Clinton administration.
The statistical evidence isn’t just bad—it’s historically catastrophic.
The $15 Million Question
Here’s where things get interesting (and expensive).
Oklahoma State owes Gundy $15 million if it fires him before 2027. That’s a lot of money for a school that’s already struggling with NIL funding and watching their coach publicly complain about Oregon’s “$40 million roster.” But you know what’s more expensive than $15 million? Irrelevance. Every game Gundy stays, every embarrassing loss, every empty seat in Boone Pickens Stadium—that’s the real cost.
That’s the price of watching a proud program become a punchline.
He suggested teams like Oregon shouldn’t play teams with fewer resources. This is where we separate legends from losers. Great coaches find ways to win with what they have. Average coaches make excuses about what they don’t have. Guess which category Gundy has fallen into? Two weeks after complaining about Oregon’s spending, Tulsa—with a NIL budget smaller than most high school booster clubs—walked into Stillwater and won.
The excuses don’t work when you’re getting out-coached by teams that can’t even spell “NIL.”
The Statistical Smoking Gun
Let’s discuss what good coaching looks like versus what Oklahoma State is currently receiving.
Elite programs adapt. Oklahoma State’s passing game has gotten worse every year. Elite programs develop talent. The Cowboys have more transfers than touchdowns. Elite programs win games they should win. Oklahoma State can’t beat Tulsa at home. Elite programs prepare for the future. Gundy hired two coordinators who hadn’t called plays since 2021. This isn’t about NIL. This isn’t about the transfer portal. This isn’t about “the changing landscape of college football.”
This is about a coach who stopped evolving while the game passed him by.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Mike Gundy gave Oklahoma State twenty incredible years.
He deserves gratitude, respect, and a place in the school’s Hall of Fame. What he doesn’t deserve is another season to damage further the program he helped build. The fans know it—they booed at halftime against Tulsa and left early. The media knows it—even OSU’s own radio broadcast called it “the worst sore we’ve seen in a long time.” The administration knows it—they restructured his contract in December with a $1 million pay cut and modified buyout terms.
Everyone knows it except the man making $6.75 million to go 1-2 against teams like Tennessee-Martin, Oregon, and Tulsa.
The Way Forward
Oklahoma State has two choices.
Pay the $15 million and start rebuilding now.Watch their program become the laughingstock of the Big 12. The first option is expensive. The second option is fatal. Great organizations make difficult decisions before they become impossible ones. They cut ties with legends before legends become liabilities. Mike Gundy was the right coach for Oklahoma State for twenty years.
But the Mike Gundy Era is over.
The numbers don’t lie.
The results speak for themselves. And sometimes, the most brutal truth is that every great story has an ending. Mike Gundy’s story at Oklahoma State was beautiful.
In today’s reactive world, genuine leadership has become increasingly rare.
When Florida Gators men’s basketball coach Todd Golden faced serious misconduct allegations before the season, Athletic Director Scott Stricklin had a critical choice to make:
Take the easy path and suspend Golden immediately to protect the university’s reputation
Stand firm in the principles of due process and support his coach while the investigation unfolds
Bow to external pressure demanding immediate action
Risk his own career by refusing to rush to judgment
Trust that the truth would eventually emerge
Your ability to lead isn’t measured during times of prosperity, but in moments of intense pressure and scrutiny. Most leaders crumble when faced with public outrage and cancel culture. But the greatest leaders understand that true courage means standing by your principles when it would be easier not to. This is exactly what Scott Stricklin did for Todd Golden and the Florida Gators.
Stricklin’s Bold Stance Against Cancel Culture
According to Orlando Sentinel’s Mike Bianchi, Stricklin’s approach was nothing short of revolutionary in our current climate.
The easy move would have been immediate suspension. After all, nobody predicted the Gators would become a national championship contender. The stakes seemed low, and the potential PR damage high.
But Stricklin chose a different path.
He allowed the investigation to proceed without prejudgment, keeping Golden in his position despite the serious nature of the allegations. This wasn’t just a basketball decision—it was a moral one.
The Athletic Director’s Powerful Explanation
Stricklin recently explained his decision-making process to Bianchi with remarkable clarity.
“Both morally and legally, it was the right thing to do,” Stricklin stated. “Anyone can make an allegation, but it doesn’t mean it’s true. He [Golden] has rights just like the people who make allegations have rights. And so there’s a process and we followed that process.”
This single sentence reveals everything you need to know about Stricklin’s character.
The Foundation of Trust That Made It Possible
Why was Stricklin able to stand firm when others would have folded?
It came down to a foundation of trust built over time:
Golden had consistently demonstrated honesty since their first meeting
Stricklin had developed a leadership philosophy built on investing in people
He understood that even successful individuals occasionally face challenges
He remembered Billy Donovan’s wisdom that great coaches overcome adversity without distraction
“Todd has been completely honest and truthful since I first met him and I had no reason to think that was any different in this situation,” Stricklin explained.
The Lesson Every Leader Should Take Away
The next time you’re faced with a crisis, remember Scott Stricklin.
Instead of reacting to public pressure, he stayed true to his principles and allowed due process to unfold. Rather than protecting his own reputation at all costs, he risked it by standing by his coach.
As Stricklin himself said, “You’re investing in people. And I have a lot of faith in our people.”
That’s what real leadership looks like.
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