Pete Thamel reveals which coaches could be close to being fired

Nine coaches in the FBS have already been fired midseason over the past five weeks, with six of those being jobs in each of the conferences in the Power Four. And, with rumors swirling regarding other jobs across the country, college football could be looking at an all-time kind of coaching carousel.

On the ‘College GameDay Podcast’ on Monday, ESPN’s Pete Thamel was asked who could be the next coach to be fired. He noted that nothing is currently incoming, with that able to change at any time pending what happens on the field, but that Auburn’s Hugh Freeze and Florida State’s Mike Norvell being the coaches with the wrong kind of buzz being around them the most at the moment, with, ironically, each of their teams having opened at 3-0 but now sit at 3-4 overall after winless starts to league play in the SEC and ACC.

“I don’t know if anything is imminent. It’s such a week-to-week business now maybe more than ever,” said Thamel. “But, I do think there are conversations and consternation in both Tallahassee and in Auburn, Alabama sitting here at this moment on the trajectory that they’re on.”

Thamel went shorter on Freeze, who is at 14-18 (.438) overall, and 5-15 (.250) against the SEC, in two and a half seasons on the Plains. That includes the Tigers now being 3-4 this fall, having lost each of their last four, albeit all to Top-20 opponents and all by ten points or less.

“Auburn has been terrible in SEC play under Freeze, and they’re 0-4 this year,” said Thamel.

Norvell, though, is one who’s seat seemingly got very hot coming out of Saturday night’s loss at Stanford. That brings him a record of 36-31 (.537) overall, but 10-plus win seasons in 2022 and 2023 looking like very large outliers for him at FSU. That’s even worse with the Seminoles being 5-14 (.263) the past season and a half, including 1-11 (.083), having lost nine straight in the league, against the ACC – with the program’s recent history with the conference only making it that much more embarrassing of a stat for Norvell.

“Again, I said it earlier that I don’t think there’s a better way to describe Mike Norvell’s current conundrum than a nine-game ACC losing streak. Like, I’d be curious how many – and we could have our stats ninja look this up. How many schools have been on nine-game ACC losing streaks in the last decade, right? That is really low. At that place? That has, you know – it’s a five alarm fire. There’s no other way to say it. That’s just simply not acceptable,” Thamel said. “I mean, this is a place that was lobbying, fighting, and, like, browbeating the ACC to leave, and they’ve lost nine games in a row – a conference they patronized, took to court and now they’re at the absolute bottom of it. And, it’s just, it is not – that type of losing is not aligned with their clearly-stated goals to leave this league. So, let’s just say it’s fair to say there’s some snickering around the other sixteen corners of the ACC at Florida State – not necessarily at Norvell, who’s generally liked and popular, but at their board, president, etcetera for that the product has not met the brashness of the administration during the legal drama that unfolded in the last two years.”

That said, Freeze and Norvell aren’t the only coaches under fire right now going into the back half of this season. Rumors have swirled around several other names across the sport as more and more programs look to maybe reset where they stand, evidenced by how many coaches have already been dismissed, as we all try to get the best feel we can of where college football currently stands coming out of 2025.

“This business, guys, is so fragile right now. Everything about it is so fragile. What you knew doesn’t matter anymore. What it is right now has nothing to do with what it’s been. It is at an all-time inflection point for what is going to be,” said Thamel. “What we knew matters, but it doesn’t directly correlate to what it happening, right. Like, I’m not trying to erase history here, but what we knew in the past does not show up on Saturdays. And, in no other moment in the sport does one season have absolutely nothing to do with the next one. And, look. I love it. I think it’s an awesome moment. I think these are the glory days.”