It’s a topic that SEC fans have dissected a number of different ways this offseason: which schools, players and coaches will be undeserving victims of the bad, mean SEC West?
All seven head coaches are getting paid handsomely, with Dan Mullen (Mississippi State) and Hugh Freeze (Ole Miss) recently agreeing to new contracts that will pay them more than $4 million per season.
All seven enter 2015 with high expectations, having played in a bowl game last year and holding legitimate Top 25 aspirations for the fall.
This level can’t be sustained forever. At some point Florida and Tennessee will be good again in the SEC East, or a very good team will lose too many conference games, or success will create an opportunity in the NFL or elsewhere that’s an attractive challenge.
Retirement also looms, at least at some point in the next decade, one would imagine, for Nick Saban (63 years old) and Les Miles (61 years old).
So, which SEC West coach will leave his post first, either due to retirement, accepting another opportunity or getting fired?
Saban has seven years left on his contract, and even if he doesn’t last that entire length, it seems like he will outlast South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier. Auburn’s Gus Malzahn and Arkansas’ Bret Bielema are just getting started at their respective programs. Les Miles didn’t seem interested in the high-profile Michigan job when it opened this offseason. Mullen and Freeze have found it unnecessary to take other jobs to get elite contracts, while Kevin Sumlin has managed to a) stock College Station full of young football talent and b) lure one of the SEC’s most successful defensive coordinators ever.
College football is unpredictable. Urban Meyer, in his 40s and just two years removed from winning his second national championship at Florida, left the school in favor of a temporary retirement after health issues (and watching the talent on the Gators’ roster sink pretty quickly.)
Entering 2015, there’s no way we can predict any of these coaches will leave after the season, but neither is there a way we can guarantee they’ll all return. Could we see all seven coaches in the division stay put for a second consecutive offseason in ’16?
There aren’t any SEC West coaches with seriously-hot seats entering the season.
NFL.com recently ranked Miles 15th in the country in its list of coaches facing job pressure this fall. If the Tigers fall off the 10-win train for a second consecutive year while continuing to struggle at quarterback, discontent in Baton Rouge will grow very loud. But surely LSU won’t shed Miles. Not as the program continues to excel in recruiting. Not after so many terrific seasons in Baton Rouge. Not if the Tigers win 8 or 9 regular-season games.
Sumlin will face some heat in ’15, especially if the Aggies finish in the bottom half of the SEC West. A&M has finished third, fourth and sixth in the division in three seasons. No school wants to pay its head coach $5 million per year to finish behind both Mississippi programs and fail to come close to unseating the recent historical triumvirate of Alabama, Auburn and LSU. But, for a number of reasons, Texas A&M has needed patience. Sumlin is more likely to enter ’16 with a red-hot seat than to find that the Aggies have punched the eject button after another 8-5 year.
If Arkansas finishes last in the SEC West for a third consecutive season, the team’s ongoing honeymoon with Bielema may come to an abrupt end, putting pressure on the Razorbacks to perform in ’16.
There have been some rumblings that Sumlin and Bielema could take NFL jobs someday. Saban already has gone down that path without success. Perhaps one day Malzahn will want to complete his rapid ascension from high school coach to college coordinator to college coach to NFL coach, proving that Chip Kelly doesn’t have a monopoly on innovative offense at the professional level.
The formula of ever-increasing revenue and salaries, a scarcity of wins within the SEC schedule and a fierce pressure-cooker of attention and competition within the SEC West inevitably will cost some coach his job. I just don’t think it will happen until after the ’16 season.
Barring a major disaster off the field, a surprise retirement or someone jumping ship for the challenge of an NFL head coaching job, I expect all seven SEC West coaches to remain in their current offices this time next season. Beyond that, expect a couple of changes in the division heading into ’17.
Just what those changes could be remains a mystery until we let this upcoming season play out.
An itinerant journalist, Christopher has moved between states 11 times in seven years. Formally an injury-prone Division I 800-meter specialist, he now wanders the Rockies in search of high peaks.
