Who needs patience when you have television money? The latest weekend of college football saw two more Power Five coaches lose their jobs, with Colorado moving on from Karl Dorrell and Wisconsin surprising everybody by dumping Paul Chryst. It marked the fourth Sunday in a row in which at least one Power Five coach was shown the door, following Nebraska's Scott Frost, Arizona State's Herm Edwards, and Georgia Tech's Geoff Collins.
All five were let go with the idea that the schools firing them wanted to get a "head start" on finding their replacement, which is a common motivator leading to coaches being fired earlier and earlier every year. If Nebraska had waited until October and fired Frost on the same day Dorrell and Chryst were fired, it could've saved itself $7.5 million. Wisconsin will reportedly owe Chryst more than $16 million to no longer do his job. Wisconsin athletic director Chris McIntosh says Chryst's buyout is "significantly less" than reported, so it may drop somewhere between $8 and $10 million. What a bargain!
It seems as if coaching buyouts are like crypto. Nobody knows what they are, they only know they exist, and somebody is supposedly paying for them.
Whatever the case, seeing so many coaches being let go so quickly in the season is still jarring, and Chryst's firing might be the most jolting of all. Frost entered the season on the hot seat with a reduced salary. He was in a win-or-else position and then lost to Northwestern and Georgia Southern. He was begging to get the boot. Herm Edwards entered the season with an NCAA investigation hanging over his head, which put him on shaky ground even if his boss was his former agent. Geoff Collins hadn't won more than three games in his first three seasons at Georgia Tech and was always likely to be fired. Colorado looked like one of the worst teams in the country -- not just the Power Five -- and was 4-13 since the start of 2021. It was only a matter of time for Dorrell.
But Chryst? Chryst won at least 10 games in four of his first seven seasons with the Badgers and went 9-4 last season. He won three Big Ten West titles (but lost all three Big Ten Championship games, twice to Ohio State and once against Penn State), a Cotton Bowl and an Orange Bowl. His Badgers went to the Rose Bowl following 2019.
Chryst went into the weekend with 68 wins at Wisconsin, the third-most in program history. He was one win shy of tying Bret Bielema for second-most behind the man who hired them both, Barry Alvarez. He then lost by 24 points at home to a Bielema-led Illinois team and was fired by Alvarez's replacement.
None of which is to say that Wisconsin made a mistake or there weren't warning signs. I have no idea what Wisconsin will be from here. It could continue being one of the Big Ten's better programs and compete for playoff berths in an expanded field, or it could be lost in the shuffle of a changing conference. One that will likely be scrapping divisions when it adds USC and UCLA.
Wisconsin realized this and decided to make a move when it saw signs of decline. The Badgers haven't won the West since 2019, have struggled against ranked opponents in recent years, and the staff changes that were supposed to improve the offense this offseason have only seemed to make things worse. The Badgers aren't supposed to lose nonconference games at home as they did against Washington State. They aren't supposed to lose by 24 points at home to Illinois. While they can accept losing to Ohio State (that's just a rule of life for most Big Ten teams), they would at least like to look competitive against them. That wasn't the case two weeks ago.
It's fine when the Badgers have slip-ups like those occasionally, but all three can't happen in the same month after the warning signs of the last couple seasons. If Wisconsin had another average season, finished second or third in the West, and gone to a mediocre bowl game, I wouldn't have been surprised to see Jim Leonhard serving as an interim for the bowl.
But to see Wisconsin make the move on the first weekend of October should surprise everybody. That's the kind of thing SEC teams do because they're nuts down there! Wisconsin is supposed to be a stable program with traditional Midwestern values! If Wisconsin is suddenly a program willing to fire its third-winningest coach in the first month of the season even though he's never had a losing record, it can happen to anybody.
Keep your head on a swivel, coaches.
Coach of the Week
Bryan Harsin watched his Auburn team jump out to a 17-0 lead at home against LSU and likely thought to himself, "heh, I'm about to be 4-1, and these psychos will still want to fire me." He was wrong on both counts. Well, for now, anyway.
Auburn blew its 17-0 lead and lost 21-17. I went to bed Saturday night expecting to receive news that Harsin had been fired because that's what every college football writer should think every time they lay their head down on a pillow. Instead, it was Karl Dorrell and Paul Chryst who got the ax.
What kind of odds do you think you could've gotten over the summer that Chryst would lose his job before Harsin? I suspect that Auburn would rather wait until after it loses to Georgia to move on Harsin rather than make the interim wear it, which means all neutral observers should root for the Tigers against Georgia this weekend. How awkward would that be?
Hottest Take of the Week
YOU'RE KIDDING @jaivianlofton 😱
— Liberty Football (@LibertyFootball) October 1, 2022
One-handed, in the back of the end-zone.
🔥 TOUCHDOWN FLAMES 🔥 pic.twitter.com/MBcymM2O5X
This is a spectacular grab by Liberty's Jaivian Lofton, and the staredown of the defender afterward was even better, but are you ready for a take so hot that it could melt the screen you're reading this on if you dare continue?
Receiver gloves are PEDs.
Seriously, think about it a little. With Aaron Judge recently tying the American League single-season home run record, there's been a lot of stupid discourse about who The Real Home Run King is because Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire all took PEDs, and we love to pretend that current athletes aren't taking stuff that's even better anything those guys could've dreamed about.
Anyway, I'm not here to continue that debate. Barry Bonds is the home run king, and if you feel differently, you're a nerd, and I don't want to talk to you about it anymore. The only point I want to make is that gloves as sticky as the pair Lofton and all receivers wear these days are more effective than steroids regarding performance. Football existed for over a century, with players unable to make such catches. Still, for some reason, we've seen them explode over the last decade thanks to designer gloves created in a lab to give players superhuman abilities.
This is a take that started tongue-in-cheek, but the more I thought about it, the more I started to believe it. It's not just gloves in football. Look at the improvement in equipment across all professional sports. Whether it's the bats hitters use, the clubs golfers use, or the gloves receivers wear. All are designed to enhance performance to make the athlete better and the game more entertaining.
Celebration of the Week
The reaction from the Ole Miss coaches booth after forcing a turnover to put the game away 😅pic.twitter.com/sOeIqzyH4j
— 247Sports (@247Sports) October 1, 2022
That's Ole Miss defensive coordinator Chris Partridge front-and-center with his staff celebrating after Ole Miss' Austin Keys stripped Kentucky QB Will Levis in the final minute of the game to preserve a Rebels win. The Wildcats trailed 22-19 and had a first-and-goal at the 12-yard line with 58 seconds left when it happened. It looked like Ole Miss' best hope was forcing overtime. Instead, the Rebels won, and replaced Kentucky in the top-10 of both major polls.
Juke of the Week
DORIAN THOMPSON-ROBINSON CAUSED THE TWO DEFENDERS TO COLLIDE 😲 pic.twitter.com/AHLc1c9kmw
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) October 1, 2022
I hope UCLA QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson wrote an apology to their moms afterward for what he did to their boys. UCLA went on to beat Washington 40-32 behind a terrific performance from DTR (315 yards passing, 53 rushing, four total touchdowns) to help get the Bruins in the AP Top 25 for the first time this season, setting them up for a big game against No. 11 Utah this week.
Heisman Winner of the Week
I don't see many scenarios in which TCU QB Max Duggan finishes the year receiving Heisman votes, but if he keeps playing like he did in TCU's 55-24 frog-stomping of Oklahoma, he just might. Duggan completed 23 of his 33 pass attempts for 302 yards and three touchdowns. As if that wasn't enough, he rushed for 116 yards and two more touchdowns. He's the second player in TCU history to throw for over 300 yards and rush for over 100 in the same game. Trevone Boykin was the first, throwing for 301 yards and rushing for 124 in a 52-45 win over Kansas State in the 2015 season.
That Boykin performance improved the Horned Frogs to 5-0 that season and they'd go on to finish the season 11-2 and ranked No. 7 in the AP Top 25 Poll. Duggan's performance improved the Horned Frogs to 4-0. Where might it lead from here?
College Football Playoff Projection of the Week
Here's how I think the selection committee would have things if it released rankings this week.
Until the next Monday After!