CFB Newsletter: Who's About to Take Over a Good Roster?
A roundup of our week at Split Zone Duo, plus a question: Of the schools hiring new coaches, who might be able to offer a competitive Year 1 roster?
Welcome to the College football Newsletter where unlike UCLA (allegedly), we still like the Rose Bowl.
The 2025 season will probably be remembered for all the firings that happened so early. We’ve already talked about the former coaches, prospective hires, and The Jobs. And despite how much we tend to focus on the politicking, college football is about the players. These coach firings affect them more than they do any fan or athletic director. Some of these rosters will get overhauled, while others might stay relatively intact. So with all these vacancies, I had to ask Alex: which existing rosters could give a coach a chance to be good right away?
Heavy emphasis on chance here, because we’re just throwing darts at a board if we try to figure out which players will want to stick around for which coaches. But I think Auburn will have an interesting roster for a new guy to take over, even if Cam Coleman does what he probably should do and bounces to another school that can guarantee a real QB and help him buff up his draft stock. I don’t expect the new coach to have them in the national title game in his second year a la Kalen DeBoer at Washington, but the bounce could come quickly if Auburn makes a good plan and executes it.
This one is off the beaten path, but I’m wondering what happens if Cal finishes on a five-game losing streak and goes 5-7. That would be a clear reason to fire Justin Wilcox, and the new coach would be coming into a situation that has 1) a highly empowered GM in Ron Rivera and 2) a thrilling young QB in Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele. Would the coach have JKS for more than his first week on the job? Not my department to guess. We don’t usually think of college jobs’ attractiveness as hinging on who the QB is, the way we often do when NFL gigs come open. And we shouldn’t, because QBs don’t stay at the same place for that long in college. But in this case, I’d be tempted to hire someone I thought would get this QB to hang around.
Last week, we talked about how Jeff Landry could play a huge role in LSU’s coaching search because the school didn’t have a permanent president. Now, Verge Ausberry is in as LSU athletic director. Newly hired president Wade Rousse said he’s removed the “interim” tag from Ausberry but also has made it sound like Ausberry isn’t the “permanent” athletic director yet. Weird, but it now sounds like LSU is cleaning that up and Ausberry is the permanent AD. Got that? In any case, Ausberry brings baggage with him to the job: The school once suspended him for 30 days after an investigation into the athletic department’s handling of sexual misconduct. Many details in here, from Brody Miller’s 2021 story at The Athletic.
Here’s what the SZD crew dropped into your podcast feeds this week:
It’s mailbag time! An episode should be live in your podcast feeds featuring questions that subscribers asked about the coaching carousel.
For the Tasting Menu, Richard and Alex previewed Week 11’s games, including some that could establish a few quarterbacks as Heisman candidates for later in the year.
Shehan Jeyarajah joined us for The Main Course presented by Modelo to talk about BYU vs Texas Tech and how the Red Raiders bought one of the best rosters in college football today. You can watch this segment over at our YouTube channel.
Hugh Freeze and Auburn split, so the gang held a not-so-emergency episode for the occasion on Sunday night.
Our hosts also write a lot, including about non-CFB subjects
Richard and his CBS Sports colleagues have a huge new report out on the coaching carousel: Here are 88 coaches you should know.
Hey, did you hear that the Los Angeles Dodgers are back-to-back champions!? Yes, I’m from Los Angeles. Why do you ask? At Hang Up and Listen, Alex pondered if this World Series was one of the best ever. He also wrote about the Dodgers here.
For Slate, Alex interviewed Will Stancil (if you know, you know) about the state of social media, in particular Twitter and TikTok.
Thanks for reading. Have fun watching the games this weekend, and we’ll see you on Sunday.