It took Bobby Bowden 130 games to get to 27 ACC losses. It took Mike Norvell 49. Additional fact: FSU has more ACC losses from 2020-present than they had from 2010-19. They had 25 in the 2010s and 27 in the 2020s.

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EXPLANATION

Jimbo's Inferno is a tiered college football coach hot seat ranking.

There are seven levels of Jimbo's Inferno:

1. LIMBO - Safe for now. Keeping their job outside of a major collapse.
2. RISING - Questions are starting to be asked. Still safe unless things go south.
3. CRITICAL - The tenure is at a crossroads. Progress needs to be made.
4. HOT - The danger of firing is real. Coach must hit key benchmarks or risk being fired.
5. SCORCHING - A firing appears likely. Only a major turnaround would turn the temperature down.
6. HELL - Unless a significant turnaround is made, this position will be open at the end of the season.
7. THE VOID - Where no head coach wants to find themselves. Essentially a dead man walking. Expect a firing imminently.

There are also a few tags that coaches can have:

• RETIREMENT WATCH [R] - for coaches that are in the tier they are because they could plausibly retire after the season.
• DOLLAR SIGN [$] - for coaches that have such an astronomically-high buyout that could prevent a firing

Jimbo's Inferno takes into account team performance, coach behavior and public image, as well as any public statements made by administrators or credible reports that come out.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

I appreciate the feedback from everyone on the last post. Everything - whether it was a suggestion, a critique, a complement, or an insult - is helping me make this better and more accurate as time goes on. Please continue to chime in with your opinions because I will probably read all of them and take all of them into account while I continue to keep this up throughout the season.

Here are a few things I wanted to mention:

• Regarding Steve Sarkisian's inclusion: I should have done better with the way I worded things last time around because it did not accurately reflect Sark's job status. I think the likelihood of him being fired this season is very low; it would take an absolute disaster for Texas to pull the plug on him. It's why I initially included him in the LIMBO tier. Coaches in that tier are in no imminent danger of being fired, but there are questions being asked about their coaching ability and whether or not they are the right man for the job going forward. Regardless, I have decided to remove Sarkisian and Kalen DeBoer from the list. After thinking about it, I don't think it's time to ask those questions until something happens this season that causes those questions to arise.
• I removed Lance Leipold from the list. In gathering information for the initial list, I looked at a few websites, and some of them listed Leipold as being on the hot seat. After thinking about it more, I realized I didn't agree at all with his placement, and then realized that it was my list and it makes no sense if I don't agree with my own list.
• I have added a second tag for coaches: the DOLLAR SIGN [$]. This tag is for coaches who have a buyout north of $50 million, which is where- at least I believe- the amount of money starts heavily affecting the decision to retain or fire a coach. Coaches with that tag may stick around solely because the university does not have the money to pay the buyout.
• I have also included some Group of Six coaches. I don't have a lot of room to include them all, but I tried to get some of the ones that were closer to being fired. If there's a particular one I missed, let me know.

Week 1 is probably the hardest week to rank these coaches because there are so many things to overreact to, but I tried to be as objective as possible. With that being said...

JIMBO'S INFERNO

Jimbo's Inferno - Week 1

LIMBO

• Matt Rhule, Nebraska - Found out the hard way that the Ohio University Bobcats are no slouch, but Nebraska was able to put them away in the fourth quarter. Jamal Rule is a genuine stud. We'll see what happens with Nebraska going forward.
• Lane Kiffin, LSU - Absolutely right up there with the best coaches in CFB, but the reason I still have him on there is because you just know that if LSU faces any severe sanctions or God forbid is removed from the SEC over this pro player controversy, they will shove him out the door so quickly, and if you don't believe me you don't understand how stupid Jeff Landry in particular is.
  • NOTE: Kiffin does not have the [$] tag because his firing would likely be for cause.

RISING

• Bronco Mendenhall, Utah State - Any head coach that loses to an FCS team, let alone by a comfortable margin, belongs on this list. Just unfortunate, really.
• Bill O'Brien, Boston College - Can't make any major changes to BOB's status after the first week. Let's wait and see what happens going forward.
• Scott Satterfield, Cincinnati - See above

CRITICAL

• Eric Morris, Oklahoma State - One game into the Eric Morris era in Stillwater and he already has fans wishing they had just kept Mike Gundy. I was really high on the Cowboys this season too. Maybe they can turn it around, but that was an alarming start to the season.
• Sonny Dykes, TCU - Didn't play this week since they just got back from Ireland, but TCU is perhaps one of the teams I'm most interested to see play again. Can they bounce back from what was a terrible loss to UNC?
• Lincoln Riley, USC - I mean, they pitched a shutout this week, so Gary Patterson's defense deserves a ton of credit. I still need to see them against a Top 25 team.
• Jeff Lebby, Mississippi State - If Lebby wastes Kamario Taylor's college career...

HOT

• Dabo Swinney, Clemson [$] - It might just be time. Dabo has clearly lost his touch, and if the LSU game tells us anything it's that it has the potential to get real bad. Also, FCM.
• Shane Beamer, South Carolina - Solid start, but it is Kent State. We'll re-evaluate when SEC competition begins.
• Dave Doeren, NC State - Also off this week, my thoughts from last week still stand.
• Dell McGee, Georgia State - Wait, Hue Jackson is Georgia State's offensive coordinator?
• Dave Aranda, Baylor - I still have mad respect to Aranda for slapping his nuts on the table and choosing to go for two, even if it wasn't successful. Seen some mixed reactions to his coaching overall, so we'll see how the next few weeks play out.

SCORCHING

• Greg Schiano, Rutgers - I have UMass ranked in my Top 25 this week, but that still doesn't excuse the fact that Schiano let a team that went 0-12 the previous year walk into his house and look like Ohio State for a week.
• Luke Fickell, Wisconsin - Fickell moving to this tier isn't a result of the Notre Dame loss but moreso that I re-evaluated his standing and decided he should have been in this tier instead of Hot. Wisconsin looks better, but we have to see wins for Fickell to retain his job.
• Deion Sanders, Colorado [R] - Big win this week for Coach Prime but I still think he's close to retirement, even if he doesn't want to admit it. Also, I have no idea if Julian Lewis is good.
• Derek Mason, Middle Tennessee - 3-9 two years in a row in a conference that might be worse than some FCS conferences will get you here. I have a feeling that Murray State win will be one of the only ones Mason and the Blue Raiders get this year.
• Eddie George, Bowling Green - Tarleton State is definitely one of the better FCS teams, but they are still an FCS team, and the last thing you want to do after a rough first season is lose to an FCS team to start year two.

HELL

• Mike Norvell, Florida State [$] - SMU turned the ball over four times and Florida State could not capitalize on them. Buyout be damned, this seat is searing hot and I expect to see Norvell gone very soon.
• Bill Belichick, North Carolina - Idle this week, but man that Michael Lombardi/Steve Belichick scandal is looming large right now.
• Mike Locksley, Maryland - Ozempic Mike Locksley beat a very bad FCS team by so many points that it almost made you forget he brought two abusers back onto his football team and is generally a terrible head coach.
• Jay Sawvel, Wyoming - I wonder what his opinions are on his own head coaching ability.
• Phil Longo, Sam Houston State - Talk about falling upwards. Fired from Wisconsin because he sucked only to get hired as the head coach at SHSU, where he also sucks.
• Tim Albin, Charlotte - I debated long and hard about putting Albin into The Void. I mean, it cannot get much worse than following a disastrous 1-11 first season by immediately losing to THE CITADEL. Should've stayed in Athens. "You look like you're troubled, Tim."

THE VOID

No coach is currently in The Void, but Tim Albin and Mike Norvell are very, very close.

Despite the "FIRE KYLE" chants that were observed in Michigan Stadium, I did not include Kyle Whittingham, even with Michigan's loss to Western Michigan. I don't think Michigan's problems necessarily boiled down to coaching - I attribute most of the blame to Bryce Underwood. That defense was legit and JJ Buchanan is awesome. That being said, if they continue to play Bryce at QB and they continue to lose, Whittingham will find himself on this list.

CONCLUSION

Again, if there are any changes or suggestions you have to make this better, or if you disagree with one of the placements, please let me know in the comments!

I don’t think anything nefarious was going on. I think the refs became extremely stressed and scrupulous after telling themselves, “Holy shit. This is a monumental, once-in-a-lifetime upset. Let’s make sure there is absolutely no possible way — absolutely none — that Michigan deserves an extra millisecond.”

I want refs to take their jobs as deadly serious as this, but the dead-on precision still felt unusual in practice. It’s like a maid who suddenly decides to use tweezers to pick up individual specs of dust. When usually refs are happy to run off the field and call it a day.

I’ve watched my teams desperately try to reach field goal range and hopelessly throw an incomplete pass at the 30 as time expired. But how much time was left after the ball bounced off the receiver and hit the grass never crossed my mind — even though I search for any reason for hope for an extra play.

The refs treated Saturday’s first Hail Mary like more than a crucial play at the end of the game. It was like if cops received a tip that someone had Cubar cigars and decided to obliterated every crevice of an apartment looking them, cutting through furniture, taking an ax to the walls, etc.

Be it due to a rough season at the wrong time, realignment decisions, state politics messing with things or just the state of the game changing a couple years too early or late, there's a lot of programs that were once p4 hopefuls that are still on the outside looking in today.

Off the top of my head there's obviously the PAC2 teams, USF looked like a lock at one point but eventually got passed up by UCF, ECU and USM would be good candidates if they actually played well again. Memphis just got unlucky and found itself with a short straw.

In another world UOhio and Miami are in the B10 like Indiana and Purdue and OSU/Cincinnati are FCS schools. UChicago, Tulane and Sewanee obviously left P4 conferences.

Also yes I am making this post because I want to make alternate universe CFB27 conferences lol.

Please keep trash talk civil, and report any comments that violate our rules.

LET'S TALK FOOTBALL!

By Raj Chavda

Photos from Northwestern University Wildcats vs South Dakota State University Jackrabbits on 09/05/2026 at Martin Stadium in Evanston, IL

Evanston, IL - Jackrabbits come into Evanston for their first ever matchup against the Wildcats. Evening matchup on the lake while the new Ryan Field is almost complete.

Northwestern for the first three quarters felt like they were trying to figure out new OC Chip Kelly’s offense. They had big plays on offense to super charge them but it didn’t feel like his offense we are used to seeing with only 17 points thru three quarters. New transfer QB Aiden Chiles played well for being on a new team on a opening game keeping the offense moving with his passes and his feet when needed. SDSU’s QB Chase Mason on the other hand had an ok to less than average day. He finished hte game no TDs, 1 INT and 50% completion. Mason had as many completions as Chiles had attempts and less completions but similar yardage in the air.

Outside of couple big plays given up by SDSU’s defense kept them in the game thru 3 quarters down 5 points. As expected for a top ranked FCS program against an unranked P4 Northwestern team. That is until the 4th quarter started and Northwestern dropped 17 points to open up the game and let the fans start to ponder to leave early to beat traffic. SDSU eventually answered with a their only TD (failed 2pt conversion) of the game late to mildly close the gap.

Northwestern is off this week and will host Coach Prime and Colorado on 9/19/2026 while South Dakota State will host New Haven on 9/12/2026.

Interesting notes:
Luckily the bugs weren’t too bad as they are for games at the temporary stadium on the lake. The wind must of kept them at bay. Previous games you would be spitting out the gnats and dodging the wasps field side.