It’s still a bit weird to process.
In 2024, the SEC had what was believed to be a “down” year. Every SEC team entered the postseason with multiple losses and no team from the conference reached the College Football Playoff National Championship Game, yet for the first time since the end of the 2018 season, we didn’t have a single coaching change in the SEC.
Before 2018, the last such occurrence in the SEC was all the way back in 2005. Of course, that was back when the SEC only had 12 teams. To have an entire 16-team conference stand pat at head coach was somewhat stunning, especially given the big-picture view of the SEC’s 2024 season.
It set the stage for what could be an active coaching carousel in 2025. Well, at least one would think it’ll be active, despite what some have speculated about the arrival of the revenue sharing era. So what’s an appropriate over/under to set for coaching changes in the conference? Let’s dig into that.
(And to be clear, I’m referring strictly to firings. It doesn’t make sense to anticipate an SEC head coach leaving a job when the last one to do so for another conference was James Franklin leaving Vanderbilt for Penn State after the 2013 season.)
First, let’s look at the last 2 times that this happened
Again, that’s 2005 and 2018. Those years were the last times that the SEC coaching carousel was completely idle.
A year after those respective seasons, though, that wasn’t the case. Here were the SEC coaches fired at the end of 2006 and 2019:
Post-2006 SEC coach firings Mike Shula, Alabama Post-2019 SEC coach firings Chad Morris, Arkansas Joe Moorhead, Mississippi State Barry Odom, Mizzou Matt Luke, Ole Miss-2019 SEC coaching carousel saw 3 SEC coaches fired without earning a Year 4, and while the post-2006 SEC coaching carousel was also atypically quiet, it did yield the loudest hire in conference history when Alabama landed Nick Saban. Both had pivotal, seismic moves that shaped the decade that followed.
What’s interesting about the post-2019 successors is that none of them have been fired. Of course, the late, great Mike Leach is the only one who isn’t still at his respective job after he was the first active FBS head coach to die in 16 years (Northwestern’s Randy Walker died in 2006). The other 3 (Sam Pittman, Lane Kiffin and Eli Drinkwitz) will all enter Year 6.
That active post-2019 cycle felt somewhat inevitable. It might not have felt inevitable with each specific coach that was fired — Morris and Moorhead didn’t enter the season as hot-seat guys because it was only Year 2 — but it did feel like the conference most synonymous with head coaching movement would have some shakeups after a quiet 2018.
So with that historical context in mind, what’s a fair over/under for SEC head coaches fired in 2025, you ask?
My over/under is … 2.5 SEC head coaches fired in 2025
Here’s my thinking. In a 16-team conference, having just 2 coaching changes would feel somewhat surprising when you consider that at this time last year, Pittman, Clark Lea and Billy Napier were all over the hot-seat lists while coaches like Shane Beamer and Mark Stoops were considered guys to watch, though obviously their seasons played out in much different ways.
Two would feel low. Three would feel like a lot, especially with some of the buyout numbers that could be in play for guys like Stoops ($37 million) and Brent Venables ($35 million), both of whom would be in position to receive the second-biggest buyout ever behind only Jimbo Fisher and his $76 million.
Hence, why 2.5 fired SEC head coaches feels … right. At least for setting expectations. The buyout money won’t be an issue for guys like Napier, Hugh Freeze and Pittman, and while guys like Brian Kelly and Lea aren’t on the hot seat, one has to at least consider what could be in store if a disastrous 2025 awaits. After all, this is the SEC. Does anyone truly have a 0.0% chance that they won’t get fired? I’d put Kirby Smart, Steve Sarkisian and Lane Kiffin at 0.00001%. Maybe that’s not high enough. You get it.
Earlier in the offseason, I came up with a hot-seat index that factored in things like history, buyouts, athletic department, etc. The scale was a 1 is “untouchable” and a 10 was “they could get fired if they park in the wrong spot on Monday morning.”
Or if you don’t want the full context by watching (and subscribing while you’re at it) to The Saturday Down South Podcast, here was my hot-seat index rating for each SEC coach:
Kirby Smart: 1 Steve Sarkisian: 1 Lane Kiffin: 1 Josh Heupel: 2 Mike Elko: 2 Kalen DeBoer: 2 Shane Beamer: 2 Eli Drinkwitz: 3 Jeff Lebby: 3 Clark Lea: 3 Brian Kelly: 4 Billy Napier: 5 Brent Venables: 6 Sam Pittman: 7 Mark Stoops: 7 Hugh Freeze: 9I put the 5-9 guys as the ones who’ll likely be on plenty of offseason hot-seat lists, though all of them are in entirely different situations. I’d be stunned if all 5 of them survived, and I’d be stunned if all 5 of them got fired. Half of them surviving that would be … 2.5 coaches. And if you average out the year after the last 2 times this happened, the average would be … 2.5 coaches. That’s how we got here.
If chaos is indeed imminent, the “over” will hit and everyone will say that water found its level with SEC coaching movement. If the “under” hits, one will have to assume that it’ll be a similar story to what we saw in 2024 when the 3 SEC coaches on seemingly every preseason hot-seat list all finished with winning records and multi-win improvements (that’s also not including what Beamer did to turn around South Carolina).
A stagnant coaching carousel in the SEC is like lightning striking. It’s a once-in-a-decade occurrence. If it somehow happens again, question everything.
But for now, just question which side of the over/under you’re on in 2025.
Let’s set an over/under for how many SEC coaches will be fired in 2025 Saturday Down South.
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