Tennessee Vols will face 3 coaches in 2024 that are on the 'hottest seats' in college football
The Tennessee Vols will face a few coaches in 2024 that are going to be coaching for their jobs. CBS Sports recently detailed the nine coaches in college football that are on the "hottest seats" and three of those coaches are on Tennessee's schedule in 2024. Arkansas' Sam Pittman, Florida's Billy Napier, and Vanderbilt's Clark […]
The Tennessee Vols will face a few coaches in 2024 that are going to be coaching for their jobs.
CBS Sports recently detailed the nine coaches in college football that are on the "hottest seats" and three of those coaches are on Tennessee's schedule in 2024.
Arkansas' Sam Pittman, Florida's Billy Napier, and Vanderbilt's Clark Lea are each on CBS Sports' list of the nine coaches with the hottest seat in the sport. And they each will face Tennessee in 2024.
The Vols will take on Arkansas on October 5 before facing Florida on October 12. Tennessee will end the regular season against Vanderbilt on November 30.
Of those coaches, it seems that Napier is the most likely to be fired at some point in 2024, though it's certainly possible that all three could be looking for a new job in December.
Napier, though, is in the toughest spot. The expectation at Florida is to win SEC championships and reach the playoff. And so far, Napier hasn't even come close to achieving either of those goals after going 11-14 in his first two seasons in Gainesville.
Florida hired Napier with the idea that he could be the offensive version of Nick Saban. But instead, he's closer to the offensive version of Jeremy Pruitt (Pruitt was actually better through his first two seasons as the head coach at Tennessee, going 13-12 before the COVID pandemic interrupted the momentum the Vols built near the end of the 2019 season).
Pittman can probably go 6-6 and save his job. Lea just needs to win more than two or three games. Napier, however, probably needs to win at least eight or nine games — and even then he still might get fired by the Gators (just ask Dan Mullen).
Regardless of what happens with those three coaches, it goes without saying that Tennessee absolutely can't afford to drop a game against a coach that's on the hot seat. If that happens, the Vols can kiss their playoff hopes goodbye.
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