Forde-Yard Dash: This May Be the End for Several Coaching Greats

Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football, where sometimes winners get washed and sometimes they run sprints after the game.

First Quarter: When Your Forever Coach Stops Getting the Job Done

One of the beautiful things about college sports is that, on occasion, a gifted coach lands at a mid-level program and stays, elevating it beyond where it should logically fit in the hierarchy. It’s not easy building a consistent winner in places like Stillwater, Okla., and Iowa City, but those fan bases have enjoyed decades of it thanks to their forever coaches.

But there is always an expiration date, at which point a difficult reckoning is at hand. That seems to be rapidly approaching in those two locales, and possibly others. Let’s examine.

Mike Gundy (1) has won 170 games at Oklahoma State. That’s not just the most in school history; it’s 108 more than the next-winningest coach the Cowboys have ever had. He was also a star quarterback at the school, and an assistant coach there for a decade. Nearly his entire adult life has been inextricably tied to Oklahoma State, and it’s been a win-win proposition.

It’s no longer win-win. There are a lot of losses piling up, none of them uglier than the humiliation at Oregon on Saturday. In Week 1, the Ducks’ mascot lost his head running on the field, and in Week 2, Oregon beheaded Gundy’s Cowboys, 69–3.

It was the worst loss of Gundy’s 20-year tenure as head coach, and the worst the Cowboys have suffered since 1907. It was Oklahoma State’s 10th straight loss to an FBS opponent, the last two of them by a combined 118 points. The bottom has fallen out.

Gundy certainly sounded like a guy who saw the Eugene massacre coming last week, when he noted how much larger Oregon’s NIL war chest is than Oklahoma State’s. Gundy even suggested that when it comes to non-conference scheduling, the wealthy Ducks should pick on someone their own size, and not his poor little Pokes.

Oregon coach Dan Lanning (2), who isn’t the merciful sort, put his foot on Gundy’s neck early and kept it there until the fourth quarter Saturday.

Oregon is indeed blessed to have the financial backing of Nike founder Phil Knight—just as Gundy and Oklahoma State were blessed for many years to have the backing of T. Boone Pickens, who donated more than a quarter of a billion dollars to athletics at his alma mater. Gundy remembers those days, right?

The Stillwater Mullet has never been that easy for his administration to work with, but they were willing to accept the headaches in exchange for the program consistently punching above its weight. But the rope tying the two together is fraying. Last year was evidence enough, when the Cowboys went 3–9 and Gundy was coerced into a $1 million annual pay reduction and a flat, $15 million buyout over the next three years.

The Big 12 looks like a tub of live bait once again this season, so we’ll see who crawls to the top. Maybe the Pokes can get it together—they don’t play BYU or Arizona State, which should help. But it seems more likely that Oklahoma State will have another bad season, after which it might have to make a move.

Kirk Ferentz (3) is the only FBS head coach who has been in one place longer than Gundy. He’s in his 27th season at Iowa and working on a string of 11 straight winning seasons—not nearly the same point of drastically diminishing returns as Gundy. But his program is broken in one of the foundational elements of modern football, the passing game. And it doesn’t matter what changes—coordinators or quarterbacks—nothing is fixing it.

Iowa ranks 135th out of 136 FBS teams in passing yards per game and 131st in pass efficiency. Last year those rankings were 130th and 104th, respectively. In 2023, the Hawkeyes were 130th and 133rd (which was dead last). They haven’t been in the top 100 nationally in either category—a very low bar—since 2020.

Brian Ferentz, the head coach’s under-qualified and over-employed son, was considered the primary problem for many years. But even after he was forced out following the 2023 season, Iowa remains offensively inept and especially anemic throwing the ball. Iowa City is where quarterbacks go to die.

Iowa Hawkeyes head coach Kirk Ferentz watches his team warmup — Iowa has seen its offensive production dwindle recently under Kirk Ferentz. | Julia Hansen/Iowa City Press-Citizen / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Cade McNamara transferred there with a serviceable 137.4 career pass efficiency mark from his time at Michigan. In 13 games with the Hawkeyes in 2023 and ‘24, his efficiency rating was 112.54. This year’s big hope was South Dakota State transfer Mark Gronowski—a 10,000-yard career passer, the FCS Walter Payton Player of the Year award winner and a two-time national champion. Yet through two games, Iowa has changed Gronowski more than he has changed Iowa.

His efficiency rating is 84.53, last by a long way in the Big Ten. He’s averaging a microscopic 3.3 yards per attempt. Through two games, Gronowski has completed just one pass longer than 15 yards.

Iowa can probably muddle to another winning record on the strength of its defense and special teams, but that looks like the ceiling. It has now lost two straight to rival Iowa State for the first time since 2011–12, and three of the last four.

It cannot be fun rooting for a team that refuses to play modern football, nor can it be easy to recruit a quarterback to play there. Ferentz has been untouchable for decades, but he’s also 70 years old—the retirement rumors keep percolating. And former Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald (4) is just waiting out there for someone to hire him.

On a lesser level than Gundy and Ferentz, Kentucky is staring down the separation barrel with 13-year head coach Mark Stoops (5). Like the other two, Stoops is the winningest coach in school history. And like the other two, Stoops has hit a point of declining returns. He’s 19–21 in his last 40 games.

Not unlike Ferentz, Stoops is locked in a cycle of quarterback futility. Since Will Levis left in 2022, the Wildcats have flailed for answers in the transfer portal—first Devin Leary, then Brock Vandagriff, now Zach Calzada. Kentucky was 11th in the SEC in pass efficiency with Leary, last with Vandagriff and thus far last with Calzada. The ‘Cats and Stanford are the only two power-conference programs not to throw a touchdown pass yet this season.

After playing Eastern Michigan Saturday, Kentucky’s next five games are against ranked teams: at South Carolina, at Georgia, Texas, Tennessee and at Auburn. Like John Calipari in basketball, Stoops has a very large buyout that makes firing him daunting—if he could follow the Calipari script to the end by making a sideways move out of Lexington, everyone would probably be happy. Alum Jon Sumrall (6), who is crushing it at Tulane, would be the popular replacement choice.

Other College Football Coaches Verging on a Pink Slip

The above situations would be painful goodbyes to winning coaches. There are others that would require no such maudlin sentimentality on the way out the door.

Billy Napier (7) continues to flunk September, which continues to keep him on the hot seat at Florida. This is his fourth straight 1–1 start as coach of the Gators, and the spit-stained, 18–16 debacle against South Florida was the worst of those early losses.

In the SEC Hall of Infamy, Brendan Bett’s loogie is now enshrined alongside Florida defensive back Marco Wilson’s thrown cleat and Mississippi receiver Elijah Moore’s fake dog urination in the Impossibly Stupid Losing Move wing. It’s good to be known for something.

Napier survived last year by turning around the season against a brutal SEC schedule. He will have to do the same this year. There is not a single easy game remaining.

Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier — Florida’s loss to South Florida was a new low for head coach Billy Napier. | Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images

Brent Pry (8) somewhat surprisingly got a fourth season at Virginia Tech despite a 16–21 record, and he’s wasted no time squandering that extra chance. The Hokies are 0–2, with an offensively challenged opening loss to South Carolina and a brutal second-half beatdown at home against Vanderbilt on Saturday.

The score of the final two quarters was Vandy 34, Tech 0. The yardage: 321–21. It was a complete meltdown.

The schedule offers some rallying points: Old Dominion and Wofford are next up, and the ACC has its share of beatable teams. But at this point you have to figure the fan base has given up on Pry, and it’s hard to see a scenario where he wins enough to get them back.

Deshaun Foster (9) is just 14 games into the job at UCLA, but at 5–9 overall and 0–2 this season, it’s getting late early. Being routed at home by Utah was bad. Losing to UNLV was worse. UCLA hasn’t led at any point in a game yet this season. The Bruins’ final eight opponents of the season are all currently 2–0

The Bruins spent good money in the portal to land Nico Iamaleava from Tennessee, running off Joey Aguilar in the process. Current data from that trade: Iamaleava is 0–2 with a 119.75 passer rating; Aguilar is 2–0 with a 170.24 rating. (Iamaleava has outrushed Aguilar 106–34, for what that’s worth.)

The Dash’s College Football Playoff Bracket

The ground rules: If your team hasn’t yet played a power-conference opponents, it’s not getting in the Dash bracket. Playing somebody is the price of admission.

Interesting to construct a 12-team playoff with three from the Sunshine State, and none of them are Florida. Kudos to South Florida (10) on its serve-notice 2–0 start. Thus far, that is not the résumé of a No. 12 seed; its the résumé of a first-round host.