Adam RittenbergDec 26, 2025, 04:50 PM ETCloseCollege football reporter; joined ESPN in 2008. Graduate of Northwestern University.Follow on X
play0:51Lane Kiffin to LSU, Pete Golding to lead Ole MissAdam Rittenberg reacts to Lane Kiffin’s decision to take LSU’s job and Ole Miss replacing Kiffin with defensive coordinator Pete Golding.
play0:32Paul Finebaum: Is Virginia Tech an upgrade for James Franklin?Paul Finebaum weighs in on James Franklin reportedly being hired as Virginia Tech’s next coach.
Tannenbaum: Kyle Whittingham brings instant credibility to Michigan (2:36)Kevin Clark, Mike Tannenbaum and Ryan Clark explain why Kyle Whittingham would be a great hire for Michigan. (2:36)
Lane Kiffin to LSU, Pete Golding to lead Ole MissAdam Rittenberg reacts to Lane Kiffin’s decision to take LSU’s job and Ole Miss replacing Kiffin with defensive coordinator Pete Golding.
Adam Rittenberg reacts to Lane Kiffin’s decision to take LSU’s job and Ole Miss replacing Kiffin with defensive coordinator Pete Golding.
Paul Finebaum: Is Virginia Tech an upgrade for James Franklin?Paul Finebaum weighs in on James Franklin reportedly being hired as Virginia Tech’s next coach.
Kyle Whittingham agrees to five-year deal with Michigan
Stanford hires former Cardinal QB Tavita Pritchard as coach
New hires always come with hope and optimism, grand proclamations and the chance to get programs on the right track. But not all hiring processes are the same. The financial component with jobs is essential — what schools are willing to spend not just on their head coach, but the assistants and support staff and, perhaps most important, the team roster.
We will be reviewing all of the major coaching hires in the 2025-26 cycle, evaluating how each coach fits in the job, their major challenges and what it will take to be successful. We will also assign an initial letter grade for each hire.
Lupoi arrives at a place that is comfortable with mediocrity. There is a culture in place — in the region, at the school, in the athletic department, on the team — where the Bears are not truly expected to compete for championships. It’s part of why Justin Wilcox lasted nine years despite losing five games in his best season (2019). Cal has the necessary ingredients to be competitive in the ACC, but without broadly raising expectations things won’t change.
This is a comfortable move for Klein in a lot of ways. He knows all the opportunities and obstacles for winning big at Kansas State and has already worked with Klieman’s coaches. It’ll be interesting to see how many current assistants and staffers Klein retains and who he wishes to bring in as he gets started.
Klein will have to be aggressive in restocking the roster when the portal opens in January, especially with how many senior offensive and defensive linemen are graduating. And then he’ll have to get to work building up a program culture on par with what he experienced under Snyder and Klieman. The margin for error is always extremely small in the Big 12, and K-State lost five games decided by one-score margins this season. But if anybody knows the secret to success there, it’s Klein. — Olson
Northwestern never recovered after Fitzgerald fired longtime offensive coordinator Mick McCall in 2019 and veteran defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz retired in 2020. The Wildcats won four games combined in 2021-22. The Big Ten is also different from when Fitzgerald last coached. Oregon, Washington and USC — combined with the emergence of Indiana — have made the Big Ten that much tougher for programs like Northwestern and Michigan State. — Jake Trotter
When Foster was hired to be UCLA’s next head coach after Chip Kelly’s departure, the challenge was making UCLA attractive again. The Bruins opted for familiarity with a former player and first-time head coach and it backfired. Now, they’ve gone outside the box to a coach who hasn’t spent any time on the West Coast. There lies Chesney’s biggest challenge.
UCLA may not be able to immediately recruit or use the transfer portal with the likes of USC and Oregon on this side of the college football world, but Chesney has the pedigree of being able to develop players at lower levels and win wherever he has been. How he can harness that into not only excitement around the program, but also substance and results will be crucial.
It never quite felt like Foster was able to do just that, and though interim Tim Skipper did infuse life into the team after Foster’s firing, this is a program that needs a clear, viable and effective long-term directive. The question is whether Chesney can concoct the right recipe to turn a fledgling brand into more than just a Big Ten also-ran. — Paolo Uggetti
Although Golding has shown his talents in recruiting and with schematics, how will he handle the media? How does he do in front of donors and other key stakeholders with the university? Perhaps he just needed the chance, which he now has, but assistant coaches that are shielded from the media often take some time to get fully comfortable.
He has led Memphis since late 2019 but has been at the program since 2016, so he understands the recruiting landscape and where Arkansas must look for players. Arkansas’ location can be a challenge for acquiring talent, but Silverfield shouldn’t be intimidated by it. He also brings a strong background on offense to Fayetteville and should compile a staff that has similar knowledge to the area and possibly the SEC.
Silverfield’s consistency and success tended to go under the radar at a program such as Memphis, where people have grown accustomed to really strong seasons. But his steady leadership style, shown in 2023, 2024 and most of this year, should help an Arkansas program that needs clear direction. He hasn’t coached in the SEC, and there could be a learning curve, but he shouldn’t be surprised walking in the door at Arkansas after spending so much time with Memphis. — Rittenberg
Golesh also brings an offensive background that should energize Auburn fans, especially after how poorly things went on that side of the ball under Freeze. Golesh spent time with Matt Campbell early in his career then with Josh Heupel at both UCF and Tennessee. South Florida ranks in the top five nationally in both scoring and total offense this season, and its defense shined in wins against Boise State and Florida.
Pritchard, 38, was part of Stanford’s seismic shift under Jim Harbaugh, quarterbacking the team to a signature win against USC in 2007. He then witnessed Stanford’s rise to a consistent contender and, more importantly, saw how things went downhill so quickly after COVID and in the portal/NIL era. His ability to learn from those difficult times and ensure Stanford avoids them will be important. But again, he’s not doing this alone, as he comes in immediately aligned with Luck. — Rittenberg
Generating momentum. Few people share as close an association with some of the biggest moments in Stanford history as Pritchard, but during those heights, the Cardinal never truly resonated broadly within a competitive San Francisco Bay Area sports market. With the collapse of the Pac-12 and six losing seasons in the past seven years, Stanford football has essentially become irrelevant locally. Building a program under those circumstances is difficult.
Beyond the structural challenges, this is just a team that needs a talent upgrade. They don’t have the players right now to compete at a high level. — Bonagura
Morris played and coached in the Big 12 at Texas Tech and spent time at Houston early in his career, so he won’t be unfamiliar with the key characteristics of a program like Oklahoma State. He’s not a Gundy disciple, but he can respect what Gundy did to elevate the program, while implementing his own vision, which worked both at Incarnate Word and at North Texas. — Rittenberg
The answer here is twofold: 1) Morris must live up to the unprecedented levels of consistent success his predecessor brought Oklahoma State; 2) Morris will also have to figure out exactly how to take the Cowboys’ football program to the future.
Morris is only 40 (cue the Gundy memes), hasn’t been a Power 4 head coach, and before this season had only middling results with North Texas. His quarterback track record is his superpower, though, and Oklahoma State needs a renaissance at the position after things fell off too sharply. Morris can recruit Texas and build up the roster. Time will tell if he has the expertise to win one-score games in a league where programs are extremely similar. — Rittenberg
Paul Finebaum: Is Virginia Tech an upgrade for James Franklin?
Paul Finebaum weighs in on James Franklin reportedly being hired as Virginia Tech’s next coach.
When Franklin was fired and almost immediately announced his intentions to coach in 2026, Virginia Tech emerged as a natural landing spot for the 53-year-old. He has spent most of his career near the mid-Atlantic region, twice serving as a Maryland assistant, leading programs in Vanderbilt and Penn State and even working within the state at James Madison in 1997.
Virginia Tech’s two post-Frank Beamer hires were a coach who had not led a Power 4 program (Justin Fuente) and a first-time head coach (Brent Pry). In Franklin, Virginia Tech gets a proven winner from the Big Ten and SEC, who knows the region extremely well and will be extremely motivated to compete for league titles and CFP appearances.
Franklin’s big-stage shortcomings are a concern but perhaps not as much for a program like Virginia Tech, which is seeking to become a consistent conference title contender again. — Rittenberg
After the latest in a string of embarrassing scandals, Michigan needed an experienced coach who could primarily provide an element of stability and an adult in Schembechler Hall. Whittingham would bring a steady hand to Ann Arbor, and he’s also a future Hall of Fame coach with decades of success. He guided Utah from the Mountain West to the Pac-12 to the Big 12, recording 10-win seasons in all three leagues with a No. 2 finish in 2008, consecutive Pac-12 titles in 2021 and 2022, and a nice bounce-back season this fall after a momentary slip. Whittingham’s style of play will resonate with Michigan and its fans, as his teams typically thrive along the line of scrimmage and are known as being among the nation’s most physical outfits. Despite not landing top-10 recruiting classes, he consistently put players in the NFL, as Utah has had 21 selections in the past five drafts.