ATLANTA — There is only one rock-solid certainty in the Southeastern Conference: The football coaching lineup will change in the next six months. Perhaps massively.
For just the third time in the last 45 years, there were no coaching changes last year in the most tumultuous league in America. Going a second straight year without a firing, a resignation or a retirement? No chance. Last time the SEC did that was 1965 and ’66, when Arch Manning’s famous grandfather was still in high school.
Something’s got to give. Someone’s got to go. Probably several someones. Search firms, stay ready.
Against that backdrop, this was hot seat Wednesday at SEC media days. Four coaches took to the lectern, and all four of them vowed year-over-year improvement. They all need it, to one degree or another.
Brent Venables, entering his fourth year at Oklahoma, needs it most urgently. Billy Napier, heading into Year 4 at Florida, isn’t far behind. Kalen DeBoer would be expensive to fire at Alabama after just two seasons, but he’s dealing with the Saban scale of excellence. Jeff Lebby at Mississippi State is also heading into just his second season and has a huge rebuilding job on his hands, but a 2–10 debut season was a step in the wrong direction.
Beyond them, several other SEC coaches could be on shaky ground if this season goes poorly. In order of vulnerability: Sam Pittman in Year 6 at Arkansas; Hugh Freeze in Year 3 at Auburn; Brian Kelly in Year 4 at LSU; and Mark Stoops in Year 13 at Kentucky.
That’s half of the 16-team league. Some might have been saved last season by impending budget challenges associated with revenue sharing. Some might have been saved by the size of their buyouts. Some might have been saved by making just enough forward progress to believe that the corner has been turned.
They won’t all be saved this time around. Here’s a brief assessment of the Shaky Eight:
Brent Venables
Record: 22–17 at Oklahoma, 2–6 in the SEC
Seat heat: Scalding
The Sooners are trying to reverse the worst three-year performance since the regrettable John Blake era from 1996–98. After getting their teeth kicked in as SEC newbies, they’ve changed the scenery around Venables in hopes of salvaging his tenure.
Oklahoma hired former Senior Bowl exec Jim Nagy as its general manager, and Nagy in turn hired a six-man front office staff to assist him. There is a new offensive coordinator (Ben Arbuckle), a new special teams coordinator (Doug Deakin) and new linebacker coaches on the inside (Nate Dreiling) and outside (Wes Goodwin). The Sooners also have a new quarterback in Washington State transfer John Mateer, new lead running back in Jaydn Ott from California and new havoc-raising linebacker in Kendal Daniels from Oklahoma State.
The schedule is brutal, but there is hope for a fast start with just one road game in the first six, and that’s at lightweight Temple. The final seven games are all against teams that could be Top 25 caliber: Texas, South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri and LSU.
After a pair of 6–7 seasons sandwiched around a 10–3 mark, it feels like Venables has to win at least eight games to restore faith. He’s aware of the urgency for a bounce-back season.
“The expectations here and in the locker room are to win at the very highest level and to compete for a championship,” Venables said Wednesday. “That’s always been the way it is here at the University of Oklahoma. We embrace those standards and expectations of excellence.”
Sam Pittman
Record: 30–31 at Arkansas, 14–28 in the SEC
Seat heat: Scalding
Pittman was probably the primary beneficiary in the league when it comes to newfound institutional fiscal restraint. That and a couple of significant wins in the first half of the season (at Auburn and a major upset of Tennessee) gave him another chance.
Pittman retained both coordinators, Bobby Petrino on offense and Travis Williams on defense, plus high-usage quarterback Taylen Green (3,756 yards rushing and passing, but also 13 turnovers). The Razorbacks need to improve their pass defense, which gave up too many big plays (an SEC-high 14 completions of 40 yards or more).
Pittman can either solidify his standing or lose the fan base by the end of September. Games against neighbors Arkansas State and Memphis feel like must-win situations, while a trip to Mississippi and the first-ever game against Notre Dame present springboard opportunities.
There is an open date after the Notre Dame game on Sept. 27, and if things are going poorly that could be a time for a change. The thinking has changed on in-season firings in the free-transfer era, but Arkansas also could get a jump on what could be a busy hire-and-fire season.
Hugh Freeze
Record: 11–14 at Auburn, 5–11 in the SEC
Seat heat: Toasty
The last Auburn coach to keep his job after three straight losing seasons doesn’t exist. The only one to have three straight losing seasons is Earl Brown, from 1948–50, and he was never a head coach again after that. So it’s reasonable to suggest that Freeze needs to go 6–6 at the very least, and probably better than that to get a fourth year on The Plains.
Freeze is heavily invested in transfer quarterback Jackson Arnold playing considerably better this season than he did last year at Oklahoma. The former five-star recruit was 16th out of 16 in the SEC in pass efficiency at 124.78, and that rating dropped to 109.91 in conference games. He’s athletic and an elusive runner who was probably mishandled by Venables and his staff, but there is still a lot to prove. Arnold will at least have a better receiving corps and a veteran line to help him out this season.
This being the SEC and Auburn being Auburn, some fans are irritated by the fact that Freeze’s golf game has been on point this offseason. The school of irrational thought seems to be that no coach with a losing record should do anything but obsess over football from December through July.
“I assure you it does not take time away from my time working to take Auburn back to the top of the college football world,” he said Tuesday.
The Freeze scorecard gets some important entries early with an opening road game against Baylor. Then there is a Hot Seat Bowl at Oklahoma on Sept. 20, and a trip to Texas A&M the week after. The die could be cast by October.
Billy Napier
Record: 19–19 at Florida, 10–14 in the SEC
Seat heat: Not as hot as last year at this time, but that can change quickly.
Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin stayed the course with Napier after an ugly 1–2 start and was rewarded with a four-game winning streak to finish the season against rugged competition. “At the end of the year, you could argue we were playing as good of football as anybody in the country,” Napier said Wednesday.
The Gators went 8–5 with a young team, upsetting LSU and Mississippi in the closing stretch. The retention of budding star quarterback DJ Lagway, a veteran offensive line and a fully mature defense has spurred hopes for a return to the upper echelon of the SEC and contention for a playoff bid.
But the schedule is preposterous again this season, with the following opponents between Sept. 13 and Nov. 1: LSU, Miami and Texas A&M on the road; Texas at home; and Georgia in Jacksonville. And the Cocktail Party game is followed by a closing stretch of Kentucky and Mississippi in consecutive road games and rivalry matchups with Tennessee and Florida State.
If Napier can nudge the regular-season win total up from last year’s seven, that’s additional progress. It’s not Urban Meyer/Steve Spurrier–level achievement, but it would be something. If the thing is cratering by November, well, Florida has a rich history of in-season firings.
Brian Kelly
Record: 29–11 at LSU, 17–10 in the SEC
Seat heat: Like July in Louisiana, it’s pretty hot.
Averaging 9.7 wins, playing in a conference championship game and coaching a Heisman Trophy winner would get a lot of coaches a rich extension after three seasons. In Baton Rouge, it spurred Kelly to pledge $1 million of his own salary toward NIL payments for his players—tacit acknowledgement that he’s not done enough yet.
LSU believed it should always be in contention to make the College Football Playoff when it was a four-team affair, so the prospect of missing it twice in a row at 12 teams is not a pleasant one. Especially now that Nick Saban isn’t around to torment the Tigers.
If quarterback Garrett Nussmeier takes strides similar to Jayden Daniels in his second season as a starter under Kelly, LSU could really be cooking. The Tigers did work in the transfer portal and get back linebacker Harold Perkins Jr. from injury, two developments that should help a defense that progressed from awful in 2023 to not good in ’24.
Kelly is 0–3 in season openers, and this one looks harder than those: at Clemson. That and a hot seat showdown with Florida on Sept. 20 will be crucial early components to the season.
Kalen DeBoer
Record: 9–4 at Alabama, 5–3 in the SEC
Seat heat: Fine for now. Capable of volcanic temperatures on a moment’s notice.
The only way DeBoer is in serious trouble is if this season falls apart and the Crimson Tide are out of playoff contention by November. It’s too early and he’s too expensive to make a rash move, unless the results are rashly terrible.
But the road performance must improve after losing to Vanderbilt, Tennessee and a bad Oklahoma team. The quarterback play, which will be in unproven hands, must improve after Jalen Milroe staggered through a disappointing season. The front-seven defensive dominance must return after Alabama slumped to 13th in the SEC in sacks and ninth in tackles for loss.
The addition of Ryan Grubb at offensive coordinator should be significant—it will be fun to see what he does with flashy wide receiver Ryan Williams. The defense should be very good. And DeBoer should simply be more comfortable in the toughest role in college football, as the man replacing The Man.
Mark Stoops
Record: 67–73 at Kentucky, 28–62 in the SEC
Seat heat: Hot, but his contract provides some insulation.
Sometimes marriages get stale, and that’s how this one feels. Stoops is the most accomplished Kentucky coach since Bear Bryant and Blanton Collier were winners from 1946–61, but the thrill is gone after going 18–20 the past three seasons. And now so is ace recruiter Vince Marrow, lured away by rival Louisville.
Kentucky’s offense has cratered, ranking last in the SEC in scoring two of the past three years. Rummaging through the transfer portal for quarterbacks has not been a productive strategy in the post–Will Levis years. The Wildcats also have a minus-22 turnover margin over the past four seasons.
Gifted with a John Calipari Lite contract, Stoops is expensive and hard to fire. He would have jumped on his own to Texas A&M in 2023, but that move was vetoed at the last minute. If he can find a landing spot, he might try again if this season is a struggle.
Jeff Lebby
Record: 2–10 at Mississippi State, 0–8 in the SEC
Seat heat: Room temperature, perhaps due to baked-in fan fatigue.
The Bulldogs have been a struggling program since the death of Mike Leach, and the last thing they need to do is make another quick coaching change with Lebby. But man was it bad in his debut season—Mississippi State didn’t just lose 10 games, it lost nine of them by double digits. That includes every SEC game.
Lebby used the phrase “change the outcome” eight times Wednesday. It needs to change at least a little to give beaten down Bulldogs fans some hope. But with a nonconference game against reigning Big 12 champion Arizona State, and neither Kentucky nor Vanderbilt on the schedule, finding more victories will be tough.
