Fortuna Files: Predicting every job opening
The regular season is over. Now we turn the page to the crowded job market.
It’s Black Sunday, the day that hot-seat coaches meet their unpleasant fates.
Will it really be that bad, though? With 14 schools having fired their coaches for various reasons between April and last weekend, it appears that most of the heavy lifting in the dismissal department has already been done.
Wisconsin is keeping Luke Fickell, Baylor is keeping Dave Aranda and Florida State is keeping Mike Norvell.
Mike Stoops has made it clear that he’s not stepping down from Kentucky, Steve Sarkisian has adamantly denied that he’s exploring other options and Lincoln Riley has said again and again that he doesn’t want to leave USC.
As for Lane Kiffin … well, that’s less clear. He sure seems LSU-bound, but just how (and when) he departs Ole Miss is the ultimate point of contention.
Perhaps Michigan State fires Jonathan Smith, but for the most part, expected openings in the coming days will be the result of coaches leaving their schools for bigger programs, or of unexpected retirements.
With that, let’s take a crack at looking at who fills the remaining 10 openings.
As a reminder, six jobs have been filled: Kent State (Mark Carney), Virginia Tech (James Franklin), Oklahoma State (Eric Morris), Colorado State (Jim Mora Jr.), Oregon State (JaMarcus Shephard) and Stanford (Tavita Pritchard).