When Penn State hit the big red button on Sunday, it did more than just alter the trajectory and future of Penn State football. It sent a shockwave that will be felt in boardrooms, closed offices and booster text chains around the country. It gave ammo to unhappy donors in other places.
More specifically, it ensured that the upcoming hiring cycle will be one one of the wildest and most compelling in recent years.
Indeed, it’s about to get very, very weird. (And very expensive.)
Here’s what we know. Penn State, after firing James Franklin following the team’s third consecutive loss, reportedly costing the school a cool $49 million in the process, is now in the market for a new football coach.
The Nittany Lions began the season ranked No. 2 in the AP Poll. Three consecutive losses to Oregon, UCLA and Northwestern, however, ended the push for a national championship. It also ended Franklin’s tenure, which was ripe with unmet potential.
Penn State invested a small fortune in this year’s team through the coaching staff and NIL. It will spend another fortune to remove the coach tasked with overseeing it all. It will now spend another small fortune to find a coach capable of leading one of the best jobs in all of college football.
That’s precisely where the intrigue begins. Regardless of how Penn State might be performing presently, this is a destination job overflowing resources and prestige. It’s a program that will likely garner interest across college football and the NFL.
It’s a job that will be in high demand. But it’s not the only job that will be in high demand.
Presently, Arkansas, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma State, Oregon State and UAB are looking for new head coaches. (Oregon State and UAB also reportedly made moves on Sunday.)
While these jobs aren’t at the same level as Penn State, they are very capable positions that will attract plenty of interest.
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Keep in mind, we just finished Week 7. We haven’t even hit Halloween yet. Prime “firing” season hasn’t even begun, but it will soon. Other marquee, coveted positions are likely to entertain the possibility of moving on from their head coach.
Florida’s Billy Napier, having spent two seconds on the hot seat, is currently 2-4 and has a slew of losable games to come.
Florida State’s Mike Norvell, fresh off a two-win 2024, just lost his third straight game to fall to 3-3 on the year.
Auburn’s Hugh Freeze is finding new and exciting ways to lose football games every week. The Tigers are now 3-3, and they’ll play three ranked teams down the stretch.
Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell just lost 37-0 at home to Iowa to fall to 2-4. The Badgers still play Ohio State, Oregon, Washington, Indiana and Illinois. (Yikes.)
Kentucky’s Mark Stoops is 2-3, winless in the SEC and still has games against Texas, Tennessee, Auburn, Florida, Vanderbilt and Louisville still to play. (Oof.)
Then there’s Bill Belichick at North Carolina. It’s hard to know exactly how this will shape out, but the possibility that UNC conducts a coaching search for the second consecutive year seems, well, very real.
And there will be more. Will Oklahoma lose patience with Brent Venables if the Sooners’ season falls apart? What smaller FBS schools will make a change? Where will the next great surprise come from?
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The current state of college football is both risky and expensive, and the end result is an unstable environment riddled with immense pressure to win both big and immediately.
Schools with immense booster backing are in a position to stomach bigger buyouts, as Penn State will do now. They are acting because the alternative is potentially more financially unfavorable over a longer period of time.
Had Penn State stuck with Franklin, what would have happened to NIL support? For as unfathomable as it might seem to pay a coach nearly $50 million to go away, the sport’s current state makes this a much easier decision as it once was, regardless of how absurd that might sound.
That pressure is being felt at other programs in unique ways, and it feels like 2025 will serve as a culmination of unmet promises at major universities. Time will tell what happens in the state of Florida and beyond, but the Silly Season, college football’s hiring and firing cycle, is about to be unleashed.
It’s not just the reality of football-crazed schools looking for coaches. It’s the rumors and interviews and speculation that follows. The disruption this cycle is poised to cause it’s going to be seismic.
The guaranteed winner in all of this? Well, that would be the agents. Of course it is.
Those representing clients in demand are about to enjoy one of the greatest opportunities of their professional lives. It will be a feeding frenzy to fill all of these positions. Then it will be another frenzy to fill the positions from the coaches who leave.
Then, the cycle will continue.
Just how crazed this gets, of course, depends on just how many jobs open up, but Penn State has set the tone. Unhappy boosters and fan bases looking for change just saw another administration act in a meaningful way.
Others, soon enough, will follow suit.
While the hiring and firing cycle has been somewhat quiet over the past few years, this will be anything but. If things stayed as it—and they absolutely won’t—the college football world would be thrown off its axis.
Seeing the potential of more significant change across the CFB landscape, however, paints a picture that will be both distracting and all-consuming. Teams cannot afford to wait, not in the era of the transfer portal and NIL.
While the news out of Happy Valley still feels shocking, just wait until you see what this sport has in store next.
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