College football hot seat: Auburn, Florida State already sizzling

College football coaches were afforded a recruiting class’s full cycle of four years to prove their value, barring major malfeasance, not all that long ago.

Those days are long gone.

In today’s ecosystem, when freshman signees rarely stay at the same program for four years and what was once considered malfeasance is now unenforceable, a coaching staff is fortunate to get two full years if the program falls short of expectations.

Consider the following names who enter the 2025 season on the proverbial hot seat. It’s a group that includes a coach less than three years removed from reaching a conference championship game behind a Heisman Trophy winner; another coach less than two years removed from a league title and College Football Playoff snub; and a third who has barely had time to settle into his new home.

–Hugh Freeze, Auburn

After his unseemly exit from Ole Miss, Freeze rehabilitated his image enough in a 34-15 tenure at Liberty to return to the SEC in 2023.

Auburn brass banked on Freeze recapturing the magic he introduced nearly a decade prior in Oxford, when the Rebels reached New Year’s Six Bowls in 2014 and 2015 and flirted with the Playoff the latter campaign.

Instead, the Tigers have more closely resembled Freeze’s last Ole Miss team that finished 5-7 in 2016. Auburn dropped seven games in each of Freeze’s first two seasons. His 14 total losses already surpassing the 12 predecessor Bryan Harsin accumulated before his ouster midway through the 2022 campaign.

Perhaps worse, Freeze did so employing an offensively anemic brand of football.

Freeze’s Ole Miss teams were celebrated for their explosiveness, which Auburn recaptured in a 43-41 upset of Texas A&M last November. But in the Tigers’ seven losses in 2024, they scored more than 17 points only once, including early-season home setbacks of 21-14 to Cal and 24-14 to Arkansas.

Both the Golden Bears’ Justin Wilcox and Razorbacks’ Sam Pittman enter 2025 on the hot seat in their own right.

–Lincoln Riley, USC

Another head coach lauded for his offensive chops, Riley’s stunning introduction at USC in late November 2021 seemed like an early Christmas gift for Trojans fans. Claiming just one Pac-10/12 championship since 2008, USC boosters longed for a return to their dominance of the Aughts.

Riley, having coached Oklahoma to four straight Playoff appearances from 2017 through 2020, seemed to be the man to recapture that glory. And, throughout his initial regular season, he validated that confidence.

But in being physically dominated by Utah to lose the Pac-12 championship, then again by Tulane in the Cotton Bowl, it became evident that Heisman winner Caleb Williams masked a number of deficiencies in the program. Those deficiencies couldn’t be masked in a disappointing 2023.

Replacing Alex Grinch at defensive coordinator with D’Anton Lynn from crosstown rival UCLA was a huge step in the right direction as USC moved to the Big Ten, but the Trojans sputtering on offense without Williams relegated them to a 7-6 finish in 2024.

The good news for Riley and USC is that five of last season’s six losses were decided by less than a touchdown, suggesting the Trojans are close to Big Ten contention.

–Mike Norvell, Florida State

Even in the hot-take friendly media climate of 2025, it feels reactionary to place the direction of an entire program on one game. However, Florida State’s no-show — literally with a bevy of players sitting out, and figuratively, as in the 63-3 final score — against Georgia in the Orange Bowl cast a dark cloud over the Seminoles.

For some, that outcome justified the Playoff committee’s unprecedented decision to exclude an undefeated power-conference champion from the field. It also set the table for a dismal 2024. Florida State’s 2-10 finish wasn’t just worse than the nadir under Norvell’s predecessor, Willie Taggart; it was the worst any Seminole team had finished since the 1973 squad went winless.

Florida State welcomes a talented crop of transfers that includes quarterback Tommy Castellanos (Boston College); wide receivers Duce Robinson (USC), Malik Benson (Oregon) and Squirrel White (Tennessee); and defensive end James Williams (Nebraska). Norvell will need the influx of experience to pay immediate dividends to remain in Tallahassee – and that means immediate in the most literal sense.

A Week 1 matchup with Alabama looms as the most singularly important game for the Norvell era at Florida State since being stomped in the Orange Bowl.

–Brent Brennan, Arizona

While the restructured transfer portal can offer a program instant relief, as Florida State seeks in 2025, it can also doom a program from the outset. Brent Brennan faced such a scenario in his return to coach his alma mater, Arizona.

Brennan achieved more with much less in his tenure at San Jose State, a perennial cellar-dweller that he led to a Mountain West Conference championship and repeated postseasons. Competing against Big 12 Conference competition with less proved to be more difficult, as the exodus of transfers in the wake of Jedd Fisch leaving for Washington following Arizona’s 11-win 2023 campaign left the Wildcats decimated in the trenches.

Arizona’s lack of depth on either line left the Wildcats unable to capitalize on the final season of their offense pairing friends Noah Fifita at quarterback and first-round NFL draft pick Tetairoa McMillan at wide receiver.

Fifita’s return in 2025 and Arizona featuring a more veteran lineup on the rest of the roster could help Brennan restore the excitement UA lost after a dizzying decline from one of the best seasons in program history.

–Field Level Media