SEC football coach hot seat rankings: Where OU's Brent Venables stands in Year 3
Joe Mussatto
The Oklahoman
Based on what OU president Joe Harroz and athletic director Joe Castiglione
said last week, it appears as though
Brent Venables will remain the
Sooners’ head football coach entering next season.
For Venables, Year 4 will be make or break.
What about the rest of the SEC head coaching landscape? Like in the Big 12 —
which we covered Tuesday — things are fairly stable. Of course that could change in an instant.
We sorted every SEC coach into tiers to see if their seat is hot or not.
“You’ve really outdone yourself”
The SEC Coach of the Year candidates. Their hot-seat meter is at zero.
Shane Beamer, South Carolina
- Year: Fourth
- Record: 27-21 (15-17 SEC)
South Carolina won five SEC games for the first time since 2017. Not bad for a team picked to finish 13th in the conference. Beamer has done a fabulous job at South Carolina. The Gamecocks will be fortunate if they can keep him.
Mike Elko, Texas A&M
- Year: First
- Record: 8-2 (5-1 SEC)
Elko’s best attribute is that he’s not Jimbo Fisher. Elko is a big-time football coach whose no-nonsense approach is what the crazies at Texas A&M needed. If the Aggies win at Auburn this weekend, Texas A&M will face Texas with an SEC Championship Game appearance and College Football Playoff spot on the line.
Clark Lea, Vanderbilt
- Year: Fourth
- Record: 15-31 (5-25 SEC)
Lea is my pick for SEC Coach of the Year. In case you forgot, Vanderbilt beat Alabama! And there wasn’t anything flukey about it.
Commodores quarterback Diego Pavia is a stud, and Lea deserves immense credit for building a competitive roster at Vanderbilt. It might very well be the toughest job in the country. It’s cool to see Lea, a Vanderbilt alum, thrive in his role.
“We expected nothing less”
With two weeks to play, these coaches have their teams where we thought they’d be. None of them are on the hot seat. Not even the warm seat.
Kalen DeBoer, Alabama
- Year: First
- Record: 8-2 (4-2 SEC)
Yes, yes, I know they lost at Vanderbilt. We covered that. But before you say DeBoer’s debut season was disappointing, consider that Alabama is in terrific shape to make the College Football Playoff. And would anyone be stunned if the
Crimson Tide won the whole thing? Of course not. DeBoer is not Nick Saban, but neither is anybody else. Let’s give him some time.
Josh Heupel, Tennessee
- Year: Fourth
- Record: 35-13 (19-11 SEC)
Tennessee has backed up its preseason hype. The Vols took a bad loss at Arkansas, but their only other loss came last weekend at Georgia. And Tennessee beat Alabama for the second time in Heupel’s four seasons. Heupel has done more than enough to appease Tennessee fans.
Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss
- Year: Fifth
- Record: 42-17 (24-15 SEC)
Check that SEC record again. At
Ole Miss, that qualifies as exceptional. Ole Miss, my preseason pick to win the SEC, finishes at Florida and home against Mississippi State. The Rebels have an outside shot at the SEC title game, but regardless, a College Football Playoff bid is all but ensured for Ole Miss if it wins out.
Steve Sarkisian, Texas
- Year: Fourth
- Record: 34-15 (5-1 SEC)
Texas hasn’t looked as dominant as we thought it might, but the results are what they are. The
Longhorns’ lone slip-up came against Georgia. No shame in that. This is still a national championship contender. The pressure was on Sarkisian, and so far he’s delivered.
Kirby Smart, Georgia
- Year: Ninth
- Record: 102-18 (62-11 SEC)
Hell hath frozen over. After going 24-0 in regular-season SEC games from 2021-23, Georgia has lost two SEC games for the first time since 2020. Those losses? At Alabama and at Ole Miss. Meanwhile, Georgia has wins over Clemson, Texas and Tennessee. The Bulldogs have played a brutal schedule yet still have all their goals in front of them. Does any coach in the country have more job security than Smart?
“This isn’t quite what we envisioned”
Coaches who underperformed this season, leaving them little margin for error in 2025.
Eli Drinkwitz, Missouri
- Year: Fifth
- Record: 34-24 (19-20 SEC)
The Tigers failed to take advantage of a soft schedule by SEC standards. Missouri was unimpressive even in games it won. Now, having said that, Missouri is going to finish 9-3 (5-3 SEC) if it wins at Mississippi State and vs. Arkansas to close the season. That will look better on paper than it did in reality. Drinkwitz is safe.
Brian Kelly, LSU
- Year: Third
- Record: 26-11 (15-6 SEC)
Kelly might be a jerk, but he’s one heck of a coach. The Tigers would be fools to fire him even after what’s been a disappointing season. LSU will finish 5-3 in SEC play just as long as it wins its remaining home games against Vanderbilt and Oklahoma. That will put Kelly’s SEC record at 17-6. Pretty darn good.
Jeff Lebby, Mississippi State
- Year: First
- Record: 2-8 (0-6 SEC)
OK, this
is what we envisioned for Lebby, but I didn’t want to put the first-year coach in a tier of his own. Mississippi State is the only SEC team without a conference win. The Bulldogs haven’t played a conference foe within double digits. We knew Year 1 was going to be rough for Lebby, the former OU offensive coordinator. But at Mississippi State, Year 2 doesn’t figure to be much easier.
“Maybe we should go our separate ways”
Twelve years is a long time.
Mark Stoops, Kentucky
- Year: 12th
- Record: 66-71 (28-61 SEC)
No one has won more games at Kentucky than Stoops, who led the Wildcats to eight consecutive bowl games from 2016-23. But the challenges of the Kentucky job have seemed to wear on Stoops. He dismissed rumors that he might retire, but don’t be surprised if Stoops wants a change of scenery. He thought he had the Texas A&M job last offseason. As crazy as it sounds, Kentucky fans are ready for Stoops to step aside. Big Blue Nation wants Tulane coach Jon Sumrall back in the Bluegrass, only this time as head coach. Sumrall played at UK and coached under Stoops.
More:OU football coach Brent Venables has 'sense of urgency' in offensive coordinator search
“You have one more year to figure this out”
They’ll be coaching for their jobs in 2025.
Hugh Freeze, Auburn
- Year: Second
- Record: 10-13 (4-10 SEC)
Auburn should be asking itself why it hired Freeze in the first place, but alas. Assuming Auburn loses out to Texas A&M and Alabama, Freeze will be 4-12 in SEC play. Freeze’s incoming recruiting class helps his case. It’s No. 4 in the SEC, according to 247Sports, behind only Georgia, Alabama and Texas.
Billy Napier, Florida
- Year: Third
- Record: 16-19 (9-14 SEC)
Florida plans to bring Napier back for a fourth season. He deserves it. The Gators have played well against a rugged schedule. After getting blown out at Texas, Florida responded with a big win against LSU.
Brent Venables, Oklahoma
- Year: Third
- Record: 21-15 (1-5 SEC)
Can OU keep things close against Alabama and LSU? If so, maybe the Sooners can have
something positive to cling to entering 2025. Venables has to nail his offensive coordinator hire. If the OU offense doesn’t improve, next year is likely to be Venables’ last in Norman.
“Sadly, we have to make a change”
It’s time to say goodbye.
Sam Pittman, Arkansas
- Year: Fifth
- Record: 28-30 (14-27 SEC)
Not once has Pittman finished better than .500 in SEC play. Yeah, that’s a tough bar to clear at Arkansas, but not doing it once in five years will get you fired. Arkansas beat Tennessee and was competitive in losses to Texas A&M and Texas, but even if the
Razorbacks rally to beat Missouri in their season finale, I think Pittman is more likely than not to get the boot.
Joe Mussatto is a sports columnist for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joe? Email him at jmussatto@oklahoman.com. Support Joe's work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
