July 16, 2026
By CBS Sports Staff: Every college football coach is under some amount of pressure to win, but heading into 2026, only an unfortunate few find themselves squarely in the “hot seat” conversation. Widespread coaching changes over recent years have left more than half of the FBS in a position where their coaching outlook seems pretty stable, barring something crazy. But for a trio of power-conference coaches, hot-seat talk will dominate the conversation until results change.
Florida State coach Mike Norvell, Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell and Baylor coach Dave Aranda each received a 5.0 hot-seat rating average during the annual polling of CBS Sports experts for our 2026 Hot Seat Rankings. That’s the hottest possible seat on our 0-to-5 scale, and the unanimous rating across all of the experts drives home the urgency these coaches face to improve.
With Maryland coach Mike Locksley close to unanimous at 4.9, South Carolina coach Shane Beamer at 4.3 and North Carolina coach Bill Belichick scoring a 4.1, you can quickly identify the places where the pressure is starting to get turned up the most.
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