Pennsylvania Duck Moderator No. 1 Share Posted July 16, 2023 Some coaches in the Pac-12 are under a ton of pressure while others are sitting pretty Finding a good head coach isn't always easy for college football programs. Some programs hit the jackpot like Stanford who outside of these past few seasons had been a power on the West coast with David Shaw at the helm, while others like Colorado are on their fourth coach since 2018. There are many factors that go along determining whether or not a head coach is good, with things such as recruiting, staff building, and culture building all being vital to a program's success. However, not every coach is working under the same circumstances. There are some coaches who have already proved themselves and have earned the respect and trust of their school, while others may be coaching for the job in 2023. The Pac-12 is full of coaches of all kinds of status', having some of the most established coaches in the sport while also having a couple coaches running out of leash. Something that CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd recently broke down, ranking the status of every coach in the FBS from 0-5, with 0 being "untouchable" and 5 being in the "win or be fired" range. I can't believe that this Stanford site posting misspelled "Lanning." Let's take at the status of every coach in the Pac-12. To access the article, click here. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pennsylvania Duck Author Moderator No. 2 Share Posted July 16, 2023 How secure is Dan Lanning's job in his second year as coach at Oregon Head coaching positions in college football often have revolving doors, so each year, CBS Sports evaluates every FBS coach and ranks their job security on a scale of 0-5. 0 is reserved for who it sees as “untouchable” while the coaches given a 5 have never sat on a hotter seat. In the 2023 coaching hot seat rankings, Dan Lanning was given a rank of 1 (“safe and secure”), while other notable Pac-12 coaches such as Lincoln Riley, Deion Sanders, and Kyle Whittingham were all given 0’s. Lanning is heading into his sophomore year as an Oregon coach. His freshman year was successful, and the performance of the 2022 Oregon Ducks exceeded most people’s expectations. After only one season, it was pretty safe to assume that CBS wouldn’t see Lanning’s job as in jeopardy. Still, there is information to be gleaned and questions to be asked based on CBS’ evaluations. For example, why is Dan Lanning ranked as a 1 and not a 0? And why are Riley, Sanders, and Whittingham untouchable instead of Lanning? Oregon Football: How secure is Dan Lanning’s job heading into year 2? DUCKSWIRE.USATODAY.COM Dan Lanning is entering year 2 as Oregon’s head coach. CBS Sports evaluated how secure his job is going into 2023. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Sousa No. 3 Share Posted July 16, 2023 I think it is somewhat crazy to think that either Dan Lanning or Jonathan Smith is anything right now but untouchable. 1 1 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Joseph No. 4 Share Posted July 16, 2023 On 7/16/2023 at 12:19 PM, Pennsylvania Duck said: Some coaches in the Pac-12 are under a ton of pressure while others are sitting pretty Finding a good head coach isn't always easy for college football programs. Some programs hit the jackpot like Stanford who outside of these past few seasons had been a power on the West coast with David Shaw at the helm, while others like Colorado are on their fourth coach since 2018. There are many factors that go along determining whether or not a head coach is good, with things such as recruiting, staff building, and culture building all being vital to a program's success. However, not every coach is working under the same circumstances. There are some coaches who have already proved themselves and have earned the respect and trust of their school, while others may be coaching for the job in 2023. The Pac-12 is full of coaches of all kinds of status', having some of the most established coaches in the sport while also having a couple coaches running out of leash. Something that CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd recently broke down, ranking the status of every coach in the FBS from 0-5, with 0 being "untouchable" and 5 being in the "win or be fired" range. I can't believe that this Stanford site posting misspelled "Lanning." Let's take at the status of every coach in the Pac-12. To access the article, click here. Completely believable considering this guy has CU suffering its first loss against "defending national champion" TCU. I guess Gold slept through the champ game versus Georgia? The quality of sports journalism today including editing is pathetic. Gold: Predicting the first loss for every Pac-12 team SATURDAYOUTWEST.COM Sorry, Pac-12 fans, no team is going undefeated this season. Not with the talent at the top. But some teams will have their hopes... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Marsh No. 5 Share Posted July 16, 2023 Only one coach in the PAC even has a warm to hot seat... Justin Wilcox at Cal. New coaches.... ASU, Colorado and Stanford can't have any sort of hot seat because they're new. All untouchable, they'll have at least two years to right the ship. Coaches entering year two... Oregon and Washington and USC (I suppose well count them). Too much new stuff and successful first season basically untouchable. Chip Kelly's contract got renewed after the 2021 season and his buyout is too much for UCLA to handle so it doesn't matter how he does. Jedd Fisch is building a program and is doing an incredible job. He has one of the hardest jobs in the conference rebuilding Arizona from the train wreck of was in. No one at Zona is looking at getting rid of him. Dickart at WSU might have a little heat but WSU's fiances are such that they aren't firing a head football coach for a few years. They opted to officially make him HC last year (he was interm the year before) so you can throw him in the 2nd year head coach group for all intensive purposes. Jonathan Smith is untouchable right now. Beaver fans would absolutely lose it, and rightfully so, if he was even doubted by the athletic department and they'd blame the athletic department long before they blame Smith for a down season. The beavers are going bowling again next year. And let's get real... Utah isnt firing Whittingham no matter what. He is untouchable. They stuck with him through the power five transition thry aren't touching him after two conference titles. So that leaves Cal and Wilcox... He's been there long enough there should be results but hasn't produced any. So his stat is heating up but Cal will probably give him two more seasons. This one and the next and see if he produces. So... I guess I write a response article to how their article was pointless. No one is on a true hot seat in the PAC this year. 4 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven A Moderator No. 6 Share Posted July 16, 2023 On 7/16/2023 at 11:27 AM, David Marsh said: No one is on a true hot seat in the PAC this year. Agreed, article is word vomit. Wilcox is closest, so that is the blind squirrel in the article. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Fischer Administrator No. 7 Share Posted July 16, 2023 When most sportswriters have nothing to write about... But FishDuck writers deliver! 1 2 Mr. FishDuck Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Log Haulin No. 8 Share Posted July 16, 2023 IMO, Cal could care less about football. Wicox is serviceable. Thats all the Brass cares about. I doubt any Pac coach gets fired next off season. For many reasons, mainly that there are a lot of talented coaches in the pac. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Marsh No. 9 Share Posted July 16, 2023 On 7/16/2023 at 3:26 PM, Log Haulin said: IMO, Cal could care less about football. Wicox is serviceable. Thats all the Brass cares about I give Wilcox two more seasons if he doesn't boost Cal's on field performance. Only because Cal really doesn't seem to care too much about football or athletics too much on the whole. Cal was hovering near the bottom last season and if it wasn't for Colorado and Stanford (both which had coaching changes for different reasons) Cal was AT the bottom. I just looked up the basics on Wilcox's contract and it goes through 2027. So in two seasons it will be at the end of 2024-2025 and there won't be much left on his contract to buyout so I can see them making a move then if his results haven't improved. Edit... that contract that ends in 2027 was an extension that was signed last season. So, yeah, Cal isn't moving on Wilcox any time soon. He is basically in the same place as Kelly is at UCLA. Cal actually made money from its athletics last year so I doubt they want to saddle themselves with a big bill this quickly after a contract exertion. His seat is cool. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Washington Waddler Moderator No. 10 Share Posted July 16, 2023 People can only focus on one thing at a time with any genuine effectiveness. So long as the search light is obsessed with the PAC?$$ mess, coaching jobs sit safely in the dark. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Marsh No. 11 Share Posted July 17, 2023 Other thing that comes to mind here... To determine if a coach is in the hot seat or not it all comes down to the standards and desires the University has for their football program. For Oregon State the yearly goal is to make a bowl game with aspirations of potentially playing in a good bowl game and making the conference championship game as a crazy good year. The CFP doesn't factor into it. For the Ducks on the other hand... Getting to the conference championship game is kinda the baseline. Many see last year's season as a failure because we didn't make it in Lanning's first year and we were darn close. Oregon's aspirations for any reason is making the playoff. If you were to put Jonathan Smith to Oregon's standards of course he'd have some degree of heat in his seat but he doesn't have to meet the same goals as Lanning does. That's one of the reasons why I also feel like this type of hot seat article is a bit silly. They rarely take into consideration what each program's goals are to determine the hot seat degree. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
