The first coach has already fallen, and with Mike Locksley out at Maryland, the rest of the sport is watching to see whether anybody else gets pushed over before the season ends.
Locksley’s dismissal came in a year that had gone without a single firing until now. The Athletic even asked the question out loud on October 16 - why hadn’t any college football head coaches been fired yet this season? Not long after that, the answer arrived.
Maryland made the move during its bye week, which gave the program a clean window to regroup with an interim coach. Rutgers had a similar opportunity on its bye week, at least in the eyes of some observers, but the axe never came down there. For now, the sense is that if Greg Schiano is going anywhere, it would be after the season, not in the middle of it.
That’s where the larger conversation sits now: not just who is under pressure, but whether firing a coach midseason still makes financial sense for schools. The Athletic’s reporting highlighted a market in which even schools with real resources are running into spending limits and asking harder questions about whether a coaching change is actually the answer.
One agent told The Athletic, “It’s a combination of losing a roster and finding the budget to compete while also paying absurd buyouts,”
That tension is forcing programs to weigh the full cost of change. Is the problem the coach?
The roster? The money that wasn’t spent?
Or the money that would have to be spent to start over?
Wisconsin was cited as a case study. Luke Fickell was in trouble with the fan base last year, but instead of moving on and absorbing the costs that come with a new coach, the school boosted its roster budget.
The result, according to the article, is that things are “once again good in Madison.” Virginia offered a similar example the year before, choosing the roster route and then making a run to the ACC title game.
That’s why another in-season firing now feels less likely than ever. Short of something truly extreme, the economics don’t seem to favor pulling the plug before November runs out.
Rutgers remains part of that conversation, though the clock looks different there now. If Keli Zinn studies the same examples Wisconsin and Virginia provided, the decision could go one of two ways: treat the problem as a coaching issue, or treat it as a roster-budget issue and try to buy more help instead. The article also points to Kentucky’s post-season firing of Bob Stoops last year, a move that preceded its current 15th-ranked, 5-1 team.
For the moment, Locksley is the first domino. The question now is whether he’s the only one.
In Other News...
Rutgers Has A Rare Chance To End A Brutal Ranked Drought
Rutgers heads into a tricky road test with a chance that has been hard to find for nearly two decades: a shot to beat a ranked opponent. The Scarlet Knights are preparing to face Northwestern in Evanston, and the matchup has drawn plenty of attention because it represents a rare opportunity to measure themselves against a team sitting in the national poll.
The setting adds to the pressure, with the game coming at Northwesterns Ryan Field and the result carrying more weight than a typical conference trip. Writers around the matchup have already started breaking down key players and possible outcomes, but for Rutgers the bigger storyline is simpler - a chance to finally turn a long, frustrating trend against ranked teams in the other direction. [Read more 🡒]
Rutgers Gets A Rare Opening Against A Ranked Northwestern Team
Rutgers heads to Evanston with a chance to keep some momentum rolling after its recent conference win, and the matchup comes with an unusual opening against a ranked Northwestern team. The Scarlet Knights have spent too long trying to snap a long skid against ranked opponents, so this one carries more than the usual Big Ten weight, especially with a Wildcats squad that has been steady on both sides of the ball under David Braun and quarterback Aidan Chiles.
The opportunity for Rutgers gets a little more interesting because Northwestern is dealing with some notable injuries on defense, which could affect how the game is played at the line of scrimmage and in the secondary. For Rutgers, the challenge is simple enough to say and harder to solve: take advantage of the moment, avoid letting a ranked opponent settle in, and turn a solid conference performance into something bigger on the road. [Read more 🡒]
Greg Schiano Keeps Cleaning Up Rutgers Messes Fans Know Too Well
When a national outlet starts ranking the roughest coaching tenures of the last half-century, Rutgers inevitably shows up in an uncomfortable place. The Athletics latest look back at the 25 worst stretches included the kinds of failures Scarlet Knights fans have spent years trying to forget, and it is a reminder of how often the program has had to climb out of its own wreckage before it can even think about moving forward.
Greg Schiano has been the one constant in that effort, twice walking into a Rutgers job that needed stabilizing before anything else. His track record there is tied to patience, damage control and incremental progress, which makes the current challenges around athletic director Keli Zinn and the schools NIL resources feel familiar in a frustrating way. For Rutgers, the hard part has never just been finding a coach. It has been giving that coach enough support to escape the same cycle. [Read more 🡒]