College football Week 9 storylines: Coaching carousel chaos steals show with Hugh Freeze, Lane Kiffin in focus

If you can't get enough of the college football coaching carousel, which is already in full swing this season before Halloween, this is an important weekend on the schedule. 

We are at the point of the season where all it can take is one result to have a significant impact -- good or bad -- on a coach's standing at his current school or potential candidacy at another. 

James Franklin learned that the hard way after a shocking loss to Northwestern. Mike Norvell almost learned the same lesson last weekend after a Stanford loss had some Florida State boosters up in arms and pushing for his dismissal. 

It's not all negative, though. With seven Power Four jobs already open, there are plenty of school administrators and boosters keeping a close eye on how coaches fare down the stretch. Sometimes all it takes is a big win or two at the right time to propel you up a school's wish list. 

With that in mind, there are a few games this weekend that have the potential to have a real impact on this year's coaching cycle.

Let's start in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where Hugh Freeze takes an Auburn team that is winless in SEC play against interim coach Bobby Petrino's Razorbacks. Freeze is desperate for a win to keep his job. Petrino is desperate for a win to get the permanent job. 

Auburn AD John Cohen told AL.com before last weekend's loss to Missouri that firing Freeze wasn't his "expectation at this point" in a lukewarm statement of support that also included a bizarre analogy of a car starting or not. But Cohen has been notably quiet this week since Freeze said Monday that a public vote of confidence would be "huge" in the way that Florida State and Wisconsin did for Norvell and Luke Fickell, respectively. There are already Auburn boosters restless over Freeze's 3-4 start to the season, and a loss to Arkansas would kick that into overdrive like what we saw at Florida State last weekend. Cohen will feel a lot of pressure to make a move if that happens. 

Elsewhere, we get a taste of the "Goldilocks" nature of trying to hire a new coach in 2025. If your top target wins too many games, he might no longer be available. But if he loses too many, he loses luster and gets harder to sell to your fanbase. You have to time it just right. 

Two examples of that in play this weekend: Ole Miss' Lane Kiffin and Missouri's Eli Drinkwitz. 

Both, coincidentally, are considered top early names to watch in the Florida coaching search to replace Billy Napier. We already wrote at length about the Kiffin and Florida conversation here earlier in the week. 

What makes predicting who any school will hire on Oct. 24 such an impossible task is so much can change between now and when a hiring actually happens. If Kiffin's Rebels beat No. 13 Oklahoma this weekend -- they are 4.5-point underdogs, per DraftKings Sportsbook -- it makes it that much more likely Ole Miss will make the College Football Playoff. If Ole Miss does that, is Florida willing to wait knowing that no coach is going to commit to a new job when his team is still in the hunt for a national championship? The calendar can get tricky in a hurry. 

For instance, let's say Ole Miss wins a game or two in the CFP. Now, Kiffin is coaching into January. The transfer portal being pushed back to Jan. 2 this season helps, but waiting into late December/early January would still put a coach way behind on high school recruiting and create a mad rush to get a staff in place. With only one transfer portal window now, you have to capitalize on that January portal period. That's all assuming Kiffin is even interested in Florida, which is an entirely different topic. 

College football coaching carousel 2025-26: Ranking every FBS vacancy from Florida and Penn State to UAB

Shehan Jeyarajah

The same could be true for Drinkwitz and his Missouri Tigers. Missouri has only lost one game this season, a three-point loss to No. 4 Alabama, and has a chance for a road top 10 win against Vanderbilt this weekend. If Missouri keeps winning, it has a real shot at making the playoff. 

On the flip side, in addition to Vanderbilt, Missouri still has games against No. 3 Texas A&M, No. 13 Oklahoma, Mississippi State and Arkansas left on the schedule. If, somehow, Missouri loses just the games against ranked opponents, Drinkwitz could lose a little luster as a candidate, particularly for the national-championship-or-bust fanbases. 

It's what makes it all so interesting right now. If you're a booster or AD, you likely already have some sense of who you're interested in. You'd like those top candidates to keep winning enough so that the day you introduce one of them as your new coach, everyone is excited -- but not too much that they decide they are better off just staying where they're at or that you can't wait for them to finish the season. 

This weekend will get us a step closer to knowing who might be fired and hired this cycle, but just remember, we still have a long way to go. 

More Week 9 storylines …

Big playoff implications in Memphis

Even with Memphis' surprising loss to UAB last week, No. 18 South Florida at Memphis still has major implications. Not only could this game have a big impact on who wins the American, but the winner could be the eventual Group of Six entrant into the College Football Playoff. As the highest-ranked G6 team, South Florida is in the pole position right now. The Bulls have marquee wins over Florida, Boise State and North Texas. But Memphis, which has a Power Four win over Arkansas, is very much in the hunt and could leapfrog USF with a win. The Tigers imploded late against the Blazers last Saturday, but this is still a good football team.

The winner of USF-Memphis isn't guaranteed by any means to make the playoff. Tulane and Navy are very much in the hunt to win the American and grab that playoff spot, too. But Saturday's result in Memphis will have a significant impact on both areas.

Last chance for LSU to wake up

It's now or never, Brian Kelly. Considered a preseason title contender, LSU is already in a must-win situation even though the calendar still says October. With two losses already and no marquee wins, the Tigers' playoff hopes are hanging on by a thread headed into a top 10 clash against No. 3 Texas A&M. It would be particularly helpful for offensive coordinator Joe Sloan's long-term job security in Baton Rouge for the offense to pull it together against the Aggies. The offensive line has been a disaster for the Tigers this season, limiting the run game and putting a lot of pressure on quarterback Garrett Nussmeier. It's not particularly fair to say you have to beat a top three team or else. But if LSU loses again, all but killing the Tigers' playoff dreams, it's going to be a long offseason full of hard questions for Kelly.

Salty Talty

Each week this space will be my airing of grievances, my opportunity to let the audience know what has been really grinding my gears. Hopefully it'll be mostly college football-related, but it's a good bet travel, family and other day-to-day life annoyances will find a way in. 

We are entering what is both one of the best and most frustrating times of the year. 

It's peak pseudo insider season. Everyone claims to know someone who knows something. 

It can lead to incredible message board moments like we just saw with the Chipotle employee and John Mateer story. Growing up reading message boards, I've witnessed real plane trackings, photos of spotting a recruit or coach at an airport, accurately predicting a coach's hiring or firing a week before it happens and so much more. It's the best and why so many of us can't get enough. 

But I've also witnessed a lot of people falling into the confirmation bias trap of believing what they so desperately want to be true. Everyone wants to be an insider right now, and the vast, vast majority do not have real, credible information. 

So if a person you've never heard of is claiming on Twitter a coach is already a done deal to a new school, be skeptical. 

If someone claims to know the exact terms of a contract that can't be signed for months, pause for a second before popping the champagne. 

If immediately after a coach is fired, someone says the top target is already in town, maybe don't believe that.  

College football fans love coaching searches because they provide hope in an otherwise dark season. There's no tanking for top draft picks in college football. If you stink, hope only comes from future recruiting classes and the possibility a new coach will change things for the better. It's why so many badly want to believe any information that says their favorite coaching candidate is coming. 

This isn't me trying to be the Grinch of Coaching SZN. I'm just trying to protect our trusted readers from getting their hearts broken by a fake scoop. 

As Morgan Freeman's character "Red" says in The Shawshank Redemption, "Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane." 

If you're going to give in to the hope of a successful coaching search, make sure the information is real.