It’s the end of the college football season for most teams, and the yearly head coaching changes have started.
In all, there have been 14 coaching changes since the start of the season, but the SEC has been at the forefront with four coaches being fired and one coach leaving to replace another. The PAC 12 has three changes, and the Big Ten has one.
Perhaps the biggest story so far is the firing of Butch Jones at the University of Tennessee. Fans have been calling for his head for a while now, and after his 34-27 record including a 14-24 conference performance the school saw eye to eye with the fans.
Jones was 0-6 in conference this year and they fired him before the season was over, placing Brady Hoke as the interim head coach in the meantime.
Sunday of last week, Tennessee announced that Greg Schiano, currently the defensive coordinator for Ohio State, would be hired as the next head coach. However, due to campus wide protests and state public officials getting involved, they backed out of the deal on the same day.
The backlash was based on Schiano’s days as an assistant at Penn State working under Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky. Another assistant from the staff, Mike McQueary, mentioned in a deposition that he heard from Tom Bradley that Schiano had told Bradley he saw Sandusky “doing something” with a boy in a shower. However, no charges were brought against Schiano and him and Bradley both denied the allegations.
“The head football coach at the University of Tennessee is the highest-paid state employee,” said Jeremy Faison, a state representative. “They’re the face of our state. We don’t need a man who has that type of potential reproach in their life as the highest-paid state employee. It’s egregious to the people and it’s wrong to the taxpayers.”
UCLA has also fired their head coach, Jim Mora. Mora accrued an overall record of 47-30 with a conference record of 29-26 in his six years with the team. Taking his place is former Oregon Ducks, Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers head coach Chip Kelly.
“Conference championships are great, but I want us to compete for national championships,” said Troy Aikman, a former UCLA quarterback and NFL Hall of Famer. Aikman was a leading voice on the search committee.
Kelly made sure to hedge his bets, and made no outrages guarantees for the year.
“We’re going to open up next year and we’re not going to say, ‘In two or three years when we get our guys in here…,’” Kelly said. “I met with my guys today and I’m excited about those guys that are currently part of this program.”
Kelly was signed to a five year, $23.3 million contract. This puts him near the top of the list in highest paid college coaches.
Other fired coaches include Sean Kegler from UTEP, Gary Anderson from Oregon State, Tyson Summers from Georgia Southern, Jim McElwain from Florida, Joey Jones from South Alabama, Paul Haynes from Kent State, Bret Bielema from Arkansas, Mike Riley from Nebraska, Todd Graham from Arizona State, Kevin Sumlin from Texas A&M and David Bailiff from Rice. Dan Mullen has also left Mississippi State in order to take over the position at Florida.
Paul Helmers
Reporter