In college football, you never really know whether a coaching hire is going to work — just take a peek at all those A’s for Brian Kelly and Billy Napier four years ago. But you also don’t need to wait around to evaluate whether a school hired the right fit.
As the 2025-26 coaching carousel heats up, we’re handing out initial grades to the hires as head coach openings are filled around the country, focusing on how much the hire makes sense and whether it satisfies what a team identified it needed going into a coaching search.
Check back as more jobs get filled.
Michigan State hires Pat Fitzgerald: B-
(Hired on Nov. 30)
A lot to unpack here. Fitzgerald won a bunch of games over a lot of years at a Northwestern program with almost no winning history, and he knows the Midwest. He will be a lot different from West Coast native Jonathan Smith, whose personality never seemed to fit. The donors are behind this Fitzgerald hire, and that’s as important as anything, as the Spartans have been behind financially.
But it’s also a surprising that a school still dealing with the fallout from multiple sexual misconduct scandals would hire a coach whose previous program had a hazing scandal, even though Fitzgerald was found to not have knowledge of it. He also won only four games in his final two seasons as head coach. How much of that was the natural disadvantage Northwestern had in the NIL era? How much has Fitzgerald learned about the modern game in his three years away from the sideline? And are Spartans donors about to pour much-needed money into the roster?
LSU hires Lane Kiffin: A
(Hired Nov. 30)
He was the best coach reasonably available, and LSU was the best job available. Kiffin’s departure from Ole Miss was messy and self-inflicted, but LSU has a lot to be excited about. Few coaches have proven better at adapting to this era of college football, from managing a roster budget to recruiting the transfer portal. Kiffin was given a lot of roster money at Ole Miss and made a lot out of it, with a 32-6 record over the last three years and four top-15 finishes in the last five. He turned transfer quarterback Jaxson Dart into a first-round NFL Draft pick and this year has turned Division II transfer Trinidad Chambliss into one of the best quarterbacks in the SEC.
Now he takes over an LSU job that has a hold on its in-state talent unlike any other in college football The concerns would be that Kiffin has never won a Power 4 conference championship as a head coach, he never reached an SEC title game and his record against top-five teams is 3-11. But Kiffin has always had the less-talented team in those matchups and within the SEC. At LSU, Kiffin should be able to put together the most talented rosters he’s ever had. His LSU tenure will not be short on drama, and it will probably end messy because nearly every Kiffin job does, but there’s a good chance there will be a lot of wins in between. Do you want a coach who would walk out on Ole Miss the way Kiffin did? You do when you’re the beneficiary.
Ole Miss promotes Pete Golding: B
(Promoted Nov. 30)
Promoting from within to keep continuity after the departure of a high-profile coach has historically had mixed results. It worked the last time a coach went to LSU; Marcus Freeman has arguably taken Notre Dame to a higher level than Brian Kelly did. But there are a slew of other examples where it didn’t work out. Golding deserves a lot of credit for his work in putting together the roster Ole Miss has this season. He’s done a solid job as a defensive coordinator and is respected in the coaching community. He’s also a Louisiana native who went to school in Mississippi and knows the state. It’s just a real unknown what kind of coaching staff he can put together as Kiffin builds his own staff at LSU, and it’s impossible to know what will happen to the roster with the transfer portal.
We do know Ole Miss will continue to fund a roster at the level needed to compete for championships, and that’s as important as anything else. If the goal was to create the best possible situation for the upcoming Playoff run and try to keep as much continuity as possible, Golding had to be the choice.
Florida hires Jon Sumrall: B+
(Hired Nov. 30)
Sumrall has been a head coach for four years across Troy and Tulane and has reached the conference championship game in all four years. This year’s Tulane team will play for a College Football Playoff spot against North Texas on Friday. Sumrall took over a Troy team coming off three consecutive 5-7 seasons and went 23-4 with two Sun Belt championships. He took over a successful Tulane program when Willie Fritz left the Green Wave for Houston, but he had to rebuild the roster in his first season, then had to deal with the loss of star quarterback Darian Mensah and running back Makhi Hughes to Power 4 programs for Year 2.
Sumrall is very good with roster management and logistics, and he brings SEC experience as a former Kentucky and Ole Miss assistant (and Kentucky player). But he has also coached at programs with more resources than many of their peers. Florida will have more competition. Sumrall will also have to adjust to recruiting and roster building at a Power 4 level. Florida fans are upset they didn’t get Lane Kiffin, but comparing Sumrall to Billy Napier as a fellow Louisiana Group of 5 coach would be unwise, because they’re very different coaches.
Auburn hires Alex Golesh: B
(Hired Nov. 30)
Golesh brings a strong offensive background and SEC experience, two things needed at Auburn after this season’s dreadful offense wasted a talented defense. It’s too early to know whether Golesh will be able to retain Auburn’s top offensive players like receiver Cam Coleman. But Golesh took over a 1-11 South Florida program and went to three bowl games in three years, including a 9-3 start to this season with a win over Florida.
His USF success came after a good run as Tennessee’s offensive coordinator under Josh Heupel. But Golesh also had the most resources in the Group of 5 from a roster budget standpoint and fell short of the conference championship game this year by blowing a 14-point fourth-quarter lead to Memphis and losing to Navy. He has shown a strong ability to build at his various stops, and that could bode well for the Tigers.
Arkansas hires Ryan Silverfield: B-
(Hired Nov. 30)
There are two ways to look at Ryan Silverfield’s run as Memphis head coach. On one hand, he went 29-9 over the last three years, never had a losing season over six years, won his last four games against Power 4 opponents, and he went 6-1 against fellow G5-to-P5 hires Jon Sumrall, Alex Golesh and Eric Morris. On the other hand, he never reached the American Conference championship game despite those wins and with some of the league’s highest roster budgets because losses to UAB, East Carolina and UTSA in the last two years cost the Tigers a spot.
Silverfield will have to show he can recruit at an SEC level, but the reality is Arkansas was low on the coaching carousel pecking order compared to other open jobs, with questions about football roster spending when so much money is designated for John Calipari’s men’s basketball team and a strong baseball team. In a loaded SEC, the ceiling here does not look very high, no matter the hire. Arkansas will hope Silverfield can bring back respectable seasons with consistent bowl appearances with the occasional big win or two.
Stanford hires Tavita Pritchard: C
(Hired Nov. 28)
Stanford got someone who most certainly knows Stanford. Pritchard was in Palo Alto from 2006 to 2022, first as a quarterback and then as an assistant. Pritchard also did a good job working with Jayden Daniels as the Washington Commanders’ quarterbacks coach. Stanford is a uniquely difficult job, so knowledge of the landscape is important, but Pritchard has been out of college football for the last three years as it has undergone big changes, and Stanford has been hurt as much as any school by those changes. Does he know how to navigate this?
Pritchard likely wasn’t going to become a head coach anywhere other than at Stanford right now. That usually doesn’t bode well. But with Andrew Luck running the show, a new $50 million donation into the football program and now Pritchard taking over, Stanford is doubling down on itself.
Oregon State hires JaMarcus Shephard: C
(Hired Nov. 28)
It’s surprising Oregon State is going with another first-time head coach, after admitting mistakes in promoting Trent Bray with that inexperience last time. Shephard has experience in the region, having worked at Washington and Washington State, and he’s developed some of the best wide receivers in college football in recent years. Every coach has to get their first shot somewhere, and he knows the area, which helps. But this move is quite an unknown.
Colorado State hires Jim Mora: B
(Hired Nov. 25)
It’s a compliment to the hire that most observers were surprised Mora didn’t land a bigger job. Mora has a rare spectrum of experience, from being an NFL head coach who reached an NFC Championship Game to taking over a 1-11 UConn program and winning nine games twice. His UCLA tenure also looks better in hindsight. His ceiling as a coach may not be as high as others’, but he should be able to bring structure, planning and vision to a program that has mostly lacked it for two decades, outside of one brief spurt. Can Mora use his West Coast connections to get better players to Colorado State? He has done more with less, and Colorado State’s resources shouldn’t make it a “less.”
Oklahoma State hires Eric Morris: B+
(Hired Nov. 25)
Morris checks a lot of boxes for Oklahoma State. He has deep ties to Texas, having spent almost his entire playing and coaching career there. And he knows how to develop quarterbacks, as names like Patrick Mahomes, Cam Ward, John Mateer and now Drew Mestemaker have thrived under his watch. He has also shown an ability to do more with less at North Texas and FCS Incarnate Word.
But while Morris’ offenses have long been good, his defenses have been up and down, and he’s won six games or fewer in four of six non-pandemic seasons as a head coach as a result. The hire of Skyler Cassity as Mean Green defensive coordinator in 2025 was one of Morris’ best moves. We don’t know yet whether Cassity will follow him to Stillwater, but that side of the ball will have to keep up with the offense.
Virginia Tech hires James Franklin: A-
(Hired Nov. 17)
Franklin was the No. 1 target from the moment he was fired at Penn State, and for good reason. He’d never missed a bowl game in 15 years at Vanderbilt or Penn State, outside of the pandemic-altered 2020 season. He turned Penn State into a top-10 program again. He dominated recruiting in the state of Virginia while at Penn State. He has a long track record of fostering alignment and investment. All the characteristics Virginia Tech needed, Franklin has them. He has only won one conference championship, and his game management has come under fair criticism, but he checks off all the other boxes of what Virginia Tech needed.
Kent State promotes Mark Carney: B
(Named interim coach in April, hired to full-time job Oct. 30)
What Carney has accomplished this season cannot be understated. He became the interim head coach on the eve of spring practice in April, when coach Kenni Burns was fired amid an investigation into his financial dealings. Then his defensive coordinator left in the summer for an assistant job at North Dakota State. The Golden Flashes were 1-23 in the previous two years and appeared headed for a doomed 2025 season. Yet this year’s team is 4-7 and remained in bowl contention until a loss to Central Michigan in the season’s penultimate week. Kent State is arguably the toughest job in the Football Bowl Subdivision, so keeping a coach who turned the Golden Flashes back into a respectable MAC outfit was an easy decision.
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