For people concerned about firing Scott Frost due to competing for coaches with LSU and USC, this is a very normal Power 5 coaching cycle year.

I have seen some repeated consternation around the fact that LSU and USC will be/are doing coaching searches this year and how that may factor into us firing or not firing Scott Frost. There seems be a fear with two of these other schools also having open positions. But what people need to remember is that there are other big jobs open every single year. So let’s look at some history of the Power 5 openings each year:

Year | ACC | Big Ten | Big XII | Pac-12 | SEC
—|:—-:|:—-:|:—-:|:—-:|:—-:
**2021** *Potential* | *Duke* | ***Nebraska***| *West Virginia* | *Arizona* | ***Florida***
||***Miami***|||*Cal*|**LSU**
||*Syracuse*|||**USC**|*Mississippi State*
||*Virginia Tech*|||Washington State|
**2020** (6 of 13)| **Florida State** | Illinois | Baylor | **Washington** | **Auburn**
|||Rutgers|**Texas**||Arkansas
||| Michigan State ||| Mississippi State
||||||Missouri
||||||**Ole Miss**
||||||**Tennessee**
**2019** (2 of 11)| Georgia Tech| Maryland| Kansas| Colorado| N/A
||Louisville|**Ohio State**|Kansas State||
||**Miami**||Texas Tech||
||North Carolina||West Virginia||
**2018** (8 of 13)| **Florida State**| **Nebraska** | N/A | Arizona | Arkansas
|||||Arizona State|**Florida**
|||||**Oregon**|Mississippi State
|||||Oregon State|**Ole Miss**
|||||**UCLA**|**Tennessee**
||||||**Texas A&M**
**2017** (4 of 9)| N/A| Indiana| Baylor| Cal| **LSU**
|||Minnesota|**Oklahoma**|**Oregon**|
|||Purdue|**Texas**||
**2016** (3 of 13)| **Miami** | Illinois | Iowa State | **USC** | **Georgia**
||Syracuse |Maryland|||Missouri
||Virginia|Minnesota|||South Carolina
||Virginia Tech|Rutgers|||
**2015** (4 of 8)| Pittsburgh | **Michigan** | Kansas | Oregon State | **Florida**
|||**Nebraska**|||
|||**Wisconsin**|||
**2014** (4 of 7)| Louisville| **Penn State** | **Texas** | **Washington**| Vanderbilt
||Wake Forest|||**USC**|

In the table, you will see all of the Power 5 job openings by year and by conference. The schools in bold can be roughly considered equivalent or better than Nebraska in the coach search market based on my own nebulous view of conference, recent history, access to recruits and money behind the program. The ones who we would realistically be competing with in a job search. Those can obviously be debated.

Looking at the normal year, there are an average of 10 Power 5 jobs that come open with with 4 of them being in that “roughly equivalent or better than Nebraska” camp. This year, LSU and USC have already fired their coaches and will be/are in coaching search mode. Washington State obviously joined that list too. Looking at the tea leaves around college football, I have included other potential names with two of the bolded names in that inclusion: Miami and Florida. Florida feels unlikely to happen this year for Mullen, but it is talked about. Miami seems more likely.

TLDR: The only reason people seem to be debating this topic is the fact that LSU and USC jumped the normal gun on their coaching searches. This is shaping up to be a very typical Power 5 hiring/firing cycle.

View Reddit by HentaiHerbie – View Source