Let's have a realistic conversation about SEC coaches on the hot seat after Week 1 duds
Despite strong odds that it wouldn’t happen, the sun did indeed rise again Sunday morning.
The end of the world did not take place for a handful of SEC teams, despite what Saturday’s results suggested. Four SEC teams (Mizzou, Ole Miss, South Carolina and Tennessee) suffered what I’d call embarrassing losses.
Yes, Ole Miss fans. Your team was an underdog, but please tell me how scoring 10 points against a Group of 5 team that ranked No. 94 in FBS in scoring defense last year wasn’t embarrassing.
Now that we’ve had a day to cool off from the fire takes that were flying on Twitter on Saturday, it’s a more appropriate time to actually look at how Week 1 duds impacted coaches who were given the “hot seat treatment” by their own fan bases.
As we know — or at least as we should know by now — 1 August game will not make or break if a coach is fired. But it could absolutely impact their job security because of the type of conversations it opens up within an athletic department.
Let’s break down each of the coaches of those 4 aforementioned SEC teams and have a realistic conversation about where they should stand with their respective universities:
Barry Odom, Mizzou
Why can’t Odom’s teams start a season? I mean, he’s become the inverse Kevin Sumlin. To lay an egg at Wyoming when Mizzou was a 2-touchdown favorite was a tough look. And understandably so, Tiger fans were upset with how bad the team played in the trenches.
Finishing with 43 rushes for 114 yards against a Group of 5 team is inexcusable. Yes, that’s partially on Derek Dooley. But Mizzou’s run defense was even more troubling. To surrender 300 rushing yards and get beat that badly against a 6-win Mountain West team is awful for Odom. Period.
Last thing on the Wyoming game and I promise I’ll move on. How in the world do you allow Wyoming to score 34 of the next 37 points after taking an early lead? That speaks to a lack of adjustments from a coaching staff, which is as troubling of a sign as any.
Ok, so what? Are we putting Odom back on the hot seat? No. He’s still improved Mizzou’s win total each year he’s been there and last year’s defensive improvements earned him a 2-year extension at the end of the 2018 regular season to keep him under contract through 2024. And as tough of a loss as that was, the schedule still sets up extremely well. The guy who’s 11-3 in games Oct. 20 or later could turn it around this year, as well.
But going 0-7 with more than 2 weeks to prepare is a bad sign. It’s also not good that Mizzou is now 5-19 when it fails to reach 40 points under Odom (via Brett McMurphy).
Barring a disaster, though, Odom is still set up to make the Wyoming loss just a bump in the road.
Matt Luke, Ole Miss
I can think the following things are both true:
- Luke hired a pair of recently-fired Power 5 coaches as his coordinators and deserves a lot of credit for inviting that many egos onto his staff when few coaches in the country, if any, would do that.
- Luke did that because he realizes he desperately needs to improve despite the fact that he has the least-experienced offense in the country.
So while it didn’t surprise me necessarily that Ole Miss lost to Memphis, I do believe it was the type of game that he’ll kick himself for not winning once conference play starts. Losing to the Group of 5 team an hour away isn’t something boosters can get behind.
If you recall, Luke didn’t get an extension after the 2018 season. In the state of Mississippi, where state employees can only be under contract for 4 years, that’s significant. In its first year without the bowl ban, I tend to think that a program that hasn’t been to a bowl game since the 2015 season absolutely has to get at least that.
Add to all of this that the guy who hired Luke, Ross Bjork, bolted for Texas A&M this summer and yeah, life could be better for Luke. That seat will get even hotter next week if Luke drops a home game to Chad Morris, who has yet to win an SEC game since he arrived at Arkansas last year. The optics of that in front of the home crowd would be awful for Luke.
It’s not jumping the gun to say Saturday’s loss definitely put a hit on the likelihood that Luke is in Oxford beyond 2019.
Jeremy Pruitt, Tennessee
Ask anyone in mid-July if the words “Pruitt” and “fired” would’ve been in the same sentence for Tennessee fans after Week 1 and they would’ve laughed you out of the room. Instead, there were plenty of people ready to hop off the Pruitt bus during Saturday’s dud against Georgia State. I understand that doesn’t speak for all Vols fans.
Here’s the thing. Pruitt isn’t getting fired in 2019, despite the absolute train wreck we saw on Saturday.
Phillip Fulmer didn’t hire Pruitt with the expectation that he’d win a division title in Year 2. But he sure as heck didn’t hire Pruitt thinking that he’d start Year 2 by losing to a 2-win Sun Belt team as a 28-point favorite. The lack of development in the trenches is as alarming as anything.
Well, besides this:
Lot to be disturbed about right now if you’re a @Vol_Football fan. But in talking with @CoachSElliott last night, he told me after watching tape of the Vols that he felt going in that @GeorgiaStateFB could win the line of scrimmage battle, which is exactly what happened.
— Chris Low (@ClowESPN) September 1, 2019
Fortunately for Pruitt, he still does have a lot of things working in his favor. One of them is that he’s got the team with more returning production of any Power 5 team in America. Improvement still should be on the way with a favorable early schedule (a schedule can still be favorable even if a team starts off horribly). The other is the support of Fulmer, who put all his eggs in Pruitt’s basket after taking over as athletic director.
And the other thing is that up until Saturday, Tennessee fans have gone to bat for Pruitt because of how he’s handled himself publicly, not only with hiring former Vols like Tee Martin, but being as blunt an honest as possible with the media as the anti-Butch Jones.
Saturday’s loss was bad. Real bad. But Pruitt has a handful of opportunities to grab headliner wins this year, which seems loftier than ever right now, but is still something he can do for a fanbase that’s been deprived of quality victories for much of the 2010s decade.
This is, however, an interesting crossroads because Pruitt’s situation is more about keeping the faith of the fanbase and being able to sell his vision of the program. Continue to have embarrassing showings and there will be plenty more pictures of half-empty Neyland Stadium throughout the season.
That certainly would make him a popular hot-seat candidate entering Year 3. But barring a complete collapse both on and off the field, bailing on Pruitt is premature.
Will Muschamp, South Carolina
And last, but certainly not least, the guy who lost the “things can get really ugly for him if he loses this game.” Things are ugly for Muschamp right now. Even the “he inherited an absolute mess from Steve Spurrier and he deserves more time” crowd is starting to turn after what happened Saturday.
Losing to a 2-win UNC team was a gut punch for several reasons. That game was marked as a win on South Carolina’s incredibly daunting schedule all offseason. Instead, a team that was expected to be improved in the trenches lost that battle, the most experienced quarterback in the SEC played horribly down the stretch and a coaching staff couldn’t make any adjustments while an opposing staff in its first game did.
And now, a coach who has 10 straight losses to Top 25 teams and is 0-3 against Kentucky has 6 such games left on the schedule.
Yikes.
So does that mean Muschamp will be fired? I’m gonna say no, and my guy, 247sports’ Brad Crawford reminded me why that’s likely the case.
Muschamp’s buyout if he’s fired before Dec. 31, 2019 is $18 million. If he’s fired midseason, it’s $22 million. He’s under contract through 2024. As Brad said, South Carolina ain’t Texas A&M or Auburn. The pockets aren’t quite that deep.
The thought of South Carolina eating Muschamp’s contract and shelling out massive cash to buy out a Dino Babers or a Matt Campbell is bonkers. That ain’t happening in 2019 so kiss that goodbye.
(I also tend to think even if they did have the cash to make that happen, it would make zero sense for Babers or Campbell to come to South Carolina. Those dudes aren’t making what would be completely lateral moves when places like USC or Notre Dame could pursue them.)
I believe that because of the aforementioned contract situation, it’s extremely difficult to see a situation in which he’s indeed gone at season’s end. Then again, boosters are the ones who cover these buyouts. If there’s enough momentum following a 2-10 season or something absolutely horrendous like that, I wouldn’t rule anything out. I always say “barring disaster” when prefacing that I believe a coach is safe. Losing to UNC is the beginning of a scenario that would be considered a disaster.
The good news for Muschamp? The rest of the SEC East outside of Georgia had a bad Week 1 showing. Everybody looks beatable. Obviously that includes a South Carolina team that looked lost offensively yet again after the dreadful finish to last year.
It’s early, yes, but Muschamp feels like he’ll have “lame duck coach” written all over him heading into 2020. Again.
As bad as we played, Barry Odom isn’t close to the hotseat. We would have to collapse like this for most of the season and finish 4-8 or so for that to change.
After yesterday I think you do finish 4-8 maybe 5-7.
They have time to clean it up but 6 wins looks like the ceiling for them atm.
arguably at least 4 of the 7 teams in the East currently looks like they have a ceiling of 6 wins. odds are at least a couple will exceed that
They are projected by FPI to win 7 games. 6-6 is possible but definitely not the ceiling.
I think that is exceedingly unlikely. Even after yesterday I think the 5-7 is the absolute floor, but I’d still be really, really surprised is Missouri finished less than 6-6.
It was a bad loss, but overreacting to Week 1 is generally a fool’s errand.
Brother I think you’re still in shock. Gotta admit you have a problem. Don’t let Odom be youre Mark Richt.
If Barry Odom is Mark Richt Missouri would build a statue for him. That’s just reality.
Mark Richt won though
Odom is a likable guy and I love that he’s Mizzou made. But we’re going into our 4th year with him and once again we’re saying the same things:
He can’t prepare the team well enough in training camp to be ready for a cupcake by week 1;
The defense looks inept;
Piss poor game management – can’t protect a lead or orchestrate a comeback;
Recruiting at the bottom of the SEC
For all the above reasons, I sincerely hope Sterk has made Odom aware that business as usual can’t continue. From a fan perspective, Odom should be on a hotseat this season. However I think Mizzou would give him another season as long as he wins 4 games this year.
Lucky for Mizzou, as the article mentioned, Barry Odom seems to be the “reverse Kevin Sumlin,” in that he starts the season poorly but finishes strong and goes to bowl games.
South Carolina and Tennessee are stuck with mediocrity, and that’s putting it kindly. Missouri seems to be fine there as long as they pull off a nice win or two each season. Ole Miss is the most likely to make a change. Right now, RichRod seems to be a bust.
I’ve felt, ever since the hires were announced, that both guys would use this season as an audition. On the outside looking in (meaning I’m drawing conclusions with zero evidence), it has seemed as if Luke was hired to get them through the probation period, and he has known that. And because of the pride for his alma mater, he decided to take that challenge on and bridge the gap between the Freeze debacle and the next chapter. And right now it seems MacIntyre is leading the race for the next Ole Miss HC.
Did he just say basically that moving from Syracuse and Iowa State to USCe is a lateral move for a HC? Ouch
That line in the article is blatant trolling. I’m not saying that it’s a lock that Campbell or Babers would leave, but there is no way on earth that a school that plays literally in a basketball stadium in northern New York is an equally attractive job to SC. You could ask 100 coaches and I bet you couldn’t get one who would agree with that, and about 98 of them would laugh in your face if you said that.
No. He said moving from Syracuse or Iowa State to South Carolina was a lateral move.
I’d take the Syracuse coach he seems to have Clemson’s number
Yeah I’d rather coach SC than either Syracuse or Iowa St. The Gamecocks have a passionate fan base, are in a warm weather state, and are in the middle of a hot recruiting area. I can see why a coach on the rise might want to hold out for something better though.
We can hold off on the Gus-bus-gettin-outta-town talk until after we somehow lose or look crappy vs Tulane thank you very much.
Tennessee Fans I’m sure it will get better it’s just one game. I know it was Georgia State and as a auburn fan I’d be pissed too but I think coach Pruitt will get it fixed you can’t go around saying fired the guy it’s his second year not his fourth or Fifth year. Tennessee can win some games if the mess gets cleaned up it will be ok. I know y’all are tired of being a mediocre team and wanna win games and championships he will get you there.
Will he? What elite level championship caliber coach has ever had a loss that bad?
Pruitt seems like a quality coach. May need to clear out the Sr and Jr class before the ATTITUDES change. They may be the cancer.
If this season goes the way Saturday went, one of two people are going to be gone. If it ain’t Muschamp, it will be the guy who signed that contract. Tanner is growing less popular by the day at this point as it is. Somebody’s ass will get fired.
At this point worst case we go 6-6 probably 7-5 but if we could manage to pick up some kind of upset muschamp will be in good shape
Why on God’s green Earth would you want Chump to “be in good shape?”
Ha I agree. I WAS in Muschumps camp 100% until Sat. He’s done in my book. Problem is as stated, Im afraid we’re stuck with him unless we can find a Daddy Warbuck to buy his stupid contract.
I dont know what schedule youre looking at. I see only two gimmes, 5 absolute losses, and the rest toss ups. Your ceiling is 5-7 with the floor 3-9.
You really think FL is a for sure loss? No not even close to playing enough football to assume that
The biggest SEC East game of the year is not trending toward South Carolina v. Tennessee…loser leaves town…lol.
…now trending…
IMO all of the schools listed here will have a difficult time getting an “A” coach to take the job at this point. Patience might be an unwanted necessity.
east looked weak except Georgia. keep sleeping on UK we like it that way. were not just a Basketball school anymore
How long till your head coach gets hired to a better program. UK is solid right now but I doubt it’l last much longer
You are so write Kentucky…Tennessee is now the basketball school in the SEC…
I consider UT’s loss to be the most egregious, but not one of the losses are legitimate reasons to fire a coach. For UT, they have new coordinators (again), a head coach in his second year, and an offensive (yes, play on words) line they knew was weak before the season started. Pruitt has continued to improve the level of talent he inherited from Botch Jones, but Rome was not built in a day. Let the season play out for all of the losing coaches, then take a look.
Well said. Really hope TN gets it together. Jim Cheney’s the one who should be fired, weak play calls from a “top oc” with years experience.
We cannot forget the days of North Texas, Rutgers, Duke, Wyoming and all those Vanderbilt losses.
Muschamp will not be on the hotseat regardless of how bad this season is going to go. I don’t think the buyout prevents him being there either. I simply think his boss will not put him on the hotseat. Even if by some unexpected move he is fired the next coaching search will also be a flop.
I’m willing to take that chance…it can’t get worse. Well maybe it could…I remember Sparky Woods.
It’s a very fair question to ask if Pruitt is in over his head. not many would think he would be fired this season but you could count on one hand how many thought we would lose to UGA st. If the game was lost of flukes… it would be different but we were dominated and appeared uninterested and extremely soft. The defensive shortcomings with such a highly respected D coach are extremely alarming. Has anyone else drawn similarities to the last D coach we got from bama. Sal sunseri. I never thought we would see a D as inept as sunseris but there it was. The offense wasn’t good but from my perspective the D was what lost the game. The offense certainly has its share of blame. Why did we not even attempt a vertical passing game. That baffles me. I can see having a conservative game plan but after that first half that should have gone out the window. I find it hard to believe Chaney has regressed that much from his previous stint here but what many UGA fans said about him may be true. It’s only one game but there was so much wrong, so little competitive fire, so little leadership I have to question if the team can reach down deep and find the heart and desire to play and win again. Firing Pruitt this season may be nearly unthinkable right now but 0 wins or even 1-2 which seems difficult to find could change that.
You will at least get your guaranteed annual win against the Cats. We have to have someone to replace our 55842373 year losing streak against Florida. Although with the direction Florida is taking we will be rebuilding that streak in short order, probably starting next week.
Correction–2 weeks from now.
Stop posing as a UK fan, you little troll. Kentucky has been the better team vs FL the last two years, and after each team’s first game performance this year, I look for that trend to continue. I welcome the doubters from around the league (just like last year), but after 10-win season last year, and an improved offense this year (not one dropped pass on the team), I’m calling BS on you being a Kentucky fan
Who’d UK play week one?
Observations after week 1 : All of the coaches in the East save CKS should be on the Hotseat, especially Mullet. Tenn should quit football, (can’t get any worse) and re-group. UF looked like crap (Mullet really got his team ready to play). Kent, Mizzou should find a highscholl team to play first game (cause the teams y’all played? aint workin for ya)
I’m guessing when you say “Kent” you mean Kentucky. And I also assume you didn’t actually watch UK play at all on Saturday… “the teams y’all played? aint workin for ya” Don’t know what the hell that means, but UK played a solid mid-major program (Toledo is picked to be at the top of the MAC) and beat them by 2 TDs (would’ve been 3 TDs, but they got a last-minute score in garbage time). Works for me and my team just fine.
whatever dude your in the SEC kinda sorta ….I hear the sunbelt is looking for teams
Since when do you think any GATOR gives a you know what about anything a DAWG thinks? Worry about winning a Natty when you play in your own backyard and can’t do it. I’d take Mullen over coach no neck! The Canes are an in state rival and the W is the same as yours over Vandy. Congrats on your 1st win since November 2018. #allbark #factsdawglovers
you can’t dis – own the Mullet!!
Did you really add hashtags to the end of your comment? This isn’t twitter…
Regarding Muschamp – that was a bad loss in a game where SC was expected to win. I had SC winning 7 games (and I’m a fan) but expected a win vs UNC. So now I’m at 6 and if they don’t get this fixed and keep playing like they did on Saturday, SC is not even winning 6. If Muschamp wins 6 and gets to bowl game, he’s probably not fired (especially with buyout), but if they win less than 6, I do think he’s on hot seat.
Bottom Line: The SC game plan was overly conservative and unimaginative, they played “not to lose” and failed to make adjustments at half time (while UNC did). When you get out-coached so clearly, you should be on hot seat.
Not to take anything away from South Carolina…but Syracuse has been a major eastern football mecca since the 50s. It has a long history of being a former football power producing the likes of Jimmy Brown, Ernie Davis, Floyd Little, Jim Ringo, Larry Csonka, Art Monk, Donovan McNabb, Marvin Harrison among others. Back in the day…the Penn State v. Syracuse football game was the marquee game in the East…much like Ohio St. and Michigan and Notre Dame and Mich St.