Who needs patience when you’ve got TV money? Last college football weekend, two more Power Five coaches lost their jobs, and Colorado pulled from Karl Dorrell and Wisconsin, surprising everyone by dropping Paul Chryst. It was the fourth straight Sunday that at least one Power Five coach was shown the door after Nebraska’s Scott Frost, Arizona State’s Herm Edwards and Georgia Tech’s Geoff Collins.
All five were fired with the idea that the schools firing them wanted a “head start” in finding their replacement, which is a common motivator that leads to coaches being fired earlier and earlier each year. If Nebraska had waited until October and fired Frost the same day Dorrell and Chryst were fired, it could have saved itself $7.5 million. Wisconsin will reportedly owe Chryst more than $16 million if he stops doing his job. Wisconsin athletic director Chris McIntosh says Chryst’s buyout is “significantly smaller” than reported, so it could drop anywhere from $8 million to $10 million. What a bargain!
It seems like coaching buyouts are like crypto. No one knows what they are, they just know they exist and someone is supposed to be paying for them.
Whatever the case, it’s still heartbreaking to see so many coaches being fired so quickly during the season, and Chryst’s firing may be the most heartbreaking of all. Frost entered the season on a reduced salary in the hot seat. He was in a win-or-else position and then lost to Northwestern and Georgia Southern. He begged to have the boot. Herm Edwards started the season with an NCAA investigation hanging over him, leaving him on shaky ground even if his boss was his former agent. Geoff Collins hadn’t won more than three games in his first three seasons at Georgia Tech and was likely always fired. Colorado looked like one of the worst teams in the country — not just the Power Five — and was 4-13 as of early 2021. For Dorrell, it was only a matter of time.
But Christ? Chryst won at least 10 games in four of his first seven seasons with the Badgers and went 9-4 up last season. He won three Big Ten West titles (but lost all three Big Ten championship games, twice to Ohio State and once to Penn State), a Cotton Bowl, and an Orange Bowl. His Badgers went to the Rose Bowl after 2019.
Chryst went into the weekend with 68 wins in Wisconsin, the third most in program history. He was a win away from tying Bret Bielema second best behind the man who hired them both, Barry Alvarez. He then lost at home by 24 points to a Bielema-led Illinois team and was fired by Alvarez’s backup.
None of this is to say that Wisconsin made a mistake or that there weren’t any warning signs. I have no idea what Wisconsin will be from here. It could continue to be one of the better programs in the Big Ten, battling for playoff spots in an expanded field, or it could get lost in the clutter of a changing conference. One that will likely scrap departments as it adds USC and UCLA.
Wisconsin recognized this and decided to take a step when it saw signs of decline. The Badgers haven’t won the West since 2019, have struggled against ranked opponents in recent years, and the personnel changes that should improve offense this offseason only seem to make things worse. The Badgers are not scheduled to lose non-conference games at home like they did against Washington State. They’re not supposed to lose by 24 points at home to Illinois. While they can accept losing to Ohio State (that’s just a rule of life for most Big Ten teams), they at least want to look competitive against them. That wasn’t the case two weeks ago.
It’s okay for the Badgers to have slip-ups like this on occasion, but all three can’t happen in the same month following the warning signs of recent seasons. If Wisconsin had another average season, finished second or third in the west and went to a mediocre bowl game, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Jim Leonhard interim for the bowl.
But seeing Wisconsin move the first weekend in October should surprise everyone. That’s what SEC teams do because they’re crazy down there! Wisconsin aims to be a stable program with traditional Midwestern values! When Wisconsin is suddenly a program poised to fire its third-winning coach in the first month of the season despite never having a losing record, it can happen to anyone.
Chin up, coach.
coach of the week
Watching his Auburn team take a 17-0 lead at home against LSU, Bryan Harsin probably thought to himself, “Heh, I’m about to go 4-1 and these psychos are still gonna want to fire me. ” He was wrong on both counts. Well, for now anyway.
Auburn gambled away their 17-0 lead and lost 21-17. I went to bed Saturday night expecting the news that Harsin had been fired because that’s what every college football writer should think every time they lay their head on a pillow. Instead, it was Karl Dorrell and Paul Chryst who got the axe.
What do you think, what chances did you have over the summer that Chryst would lose his job before Harsin? I suspect Auburn would rather wait until they’ve lost to Georgia to switch to Harsin rather than carry it in the meantime, meaning all neutral observers should be firing for the Tigers against Georgia this weekend. How awkward would that be?
The hottest take of the week
That’s a spectacular grab from Liberty’s Jaivian Lofton and the defender’s look afterwards was even better, but are you ready for a shot so hot it could melt the screen you’re reading this on? if you dare to continue?
Receiver gloves are PEDs.
Seriously, think about it a little. With Aaron Judge recently setting the single-season home run record in the American League, there’s been a lot of silly arguments about who’s the real home run king because Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGwire all took PEDs, and we love faking that current athletes take nothing better, something these guys dreamed of.
However, I am not here to continue this debate. Barry Bonds is the home run king, and if you don’t see it that way, you’re a nerd and I don’t want to talk to you about it anymore. The only point I would like to make is that gloves as sticky as the pair of Lofton that all receivers wear these days are more effective than steroids in terms of performance. Football existed for over a century, and players couldn’t make catches like that. Still, for some reason we’ve seen them explode in the last decade, thanks to designer gloves created in a lab to give players superhuman abilities.
This is an attitude that started with a wink, but the more I thought about it, the more I began to believe in it. It’s not just gloves in football. Check out the improvement of equipment in all professional sports. Whether it’s the clubs that racquets use, the clubs that golfers use, or the gloves that recipients wear. All are designed to improve performance to make the athlete better and the game more fun.
celebration of the week
This is Ole Miss defensive coordinator Chris Partridge with his staff celebrating after Ole Miss’ Austin Keys pulled out Kentucky QB Will Levis in the last minute of the game to save a Rebels win. The Wildcats were down 22-19 and had a first-and-goal at the 12-yard line with 58 seconds to go when it happened. It looked like Ole Miss’s best hope was to force overtime. Instead, the Rebels won, replacing Kentucky in the top 10 in both major polls.
juke of the week
I hope UCLA QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson later apologized to their mothers for what he did to their boys. UCLA beat Washington 40-32 behind a great performance by DTR (315 yards passing, 53 rushing, four touchdowns total) to help the Bruins into the AP Top 25 for the first time this season and set them up for a big game against No. 11 Utah this week.
Heisman Winner of the Week
I don’t see many scenarios where TCU QB Max Duggan ends the year with Heisman votes, but if he continues to play like he did in TCU’s 55-24 frog stomp in Oklahoma, he could do it. Duggan completed 23 of his 33 pass attempts for 302 yards and three touchdowns. As if that wasn’t enough, he rushed for 116 yards and two more touchdowns. He is the second player in TCU history to throw for 300 yards and rush for 100 yards in the same game. Trevone Boykin became the first to throw for 301 yards and run for 124 yards in a 52-45 win over Kansas State in 2015.
That boykin performance saw the Horned Frogs go 5-0 that season, and they finished the season 11-2 and ranked No. 7 in the AP Top 25 poll. Duggan’s performance put the Horned Frogs 4-0 up. Where could it lead from here?
College football playoff projection of the week
Here’s what I think the selection committee would have if they released rankings this week.
See you next Monday after!