Norvell, Fickell, Aranda Top 2026 FBS Hot Seat Rankings
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- Mike Norvell (Florida State), Luke Fickell (Wisconsin) and Dave Aranda (Baylor) each received a unanimous 5.0 hot-seat rating — the maximum on CBS Sports' 0-to-5 scale — from all 10 expert voters in the 2026 rankings.
- Maryland's Mike Locksley scored 4.9, South Carolina's Shane Beamer earned 4.3, and North Carolina's Bill Belichick received 4.1, marking the coaches facing the next tier of pressure as the 2026 season approaches.
- Last season, five of the eight coaches who entered with a 4.1-or-higher rating were fired during or after the season, including Hugh Freeze, Sam Pittman and Mike Gundy, while Oklahoma's Brent Venables and Arizona's Brent Brennan used strong seasons to reverse their trajectories.
- Brian Kelly was dismissed midseason despite a 3.33 preseason rating, and James Franklin was fired by Penn State with a 1.33 preseason mark — cases the source cites to show a low hot-seat score does not guarantee job security.
- Sonny Cumbie's Louisiana Tech entered last year with a 5.0 rating, then finished fourth in Conference USA and won the Independence Bowl, dropping to 3.2 for 2026 and offering a precedent for the three coaches now at the top of the list.
- CBS Sports college football experts — Matt Zenitz, Shehan Jeyarajah, Brandon Marcello, John Talty, Tom Fornelli, Chris Hummer, Chip Patterson, Austin Nivison, Cody Nagel and Brad Crawford — each rated all 138 FBS coaches, with averages producing the final scores heading into a season roughly two months from kickoff.
Why it matters: Norvell, Fickell and Aranda face the rarest designation in CBS Sports' polling — a unanimous 5.0 — and the source notes that more than 60% of coaches who entered last season at 4.1 or higher were fired, meaning each of the three 5.0 coaches enters 2026 with a historically high probability of dismissal if results don't improve. Yet the Cumbie case (5.0 → 3.2 after one winning season) shows the rating measures pressure, not inevitability.
