You Die Now: Fired Coaches of the BCS

A few additions
 
You are only keeping this job if you have incriminating photos the AD: Charlie Weis
I cannot believe we are thinking of keeping this guy: Mark Mangino
We really don’t want to fire you, but…: Ralph Friedgen

Predictions for the Notre Dame Job (in order of likelihood):
1) Brian Kelly: not their first choice, but probably the best coach that will take the job)
2) Jim Harbaugh: unlikely they would want to go the Stanfurd well again, but he is a hot name
3) an NFL coach: after the Weis debacle doubt they would want to try again, unless its Gruden/Cowher/Shanahan
4) Will Muschamp: only college coordinator with a shoot
5) Bob Stoops: can’t believe he would go
∞) Urban Meyer: no chance in hell

Officially Fired:

Steve Kragthorpe
Al Groh

Pending Announcement:

Bobby Bowden
Charlie Weis

Just Waiting For the Other Shoe To Drop:

Mark Mangino

He Has To Be Fired, Right?

Ron Zook

Execution Stayed (Until About October of Next Year):

Dan Hawkins

The coaching carousel during the offseason is going to be off the hook.

http://www.sbnation.com/2009/12/2/1183065/georgia-football-coaches-fired-2009

Who would have thought that Georgia would have fired its completely incompetent DC before Georgia Tech fired its possibly even less competent DC?

ESPN

Coach: Charlie Strong
University: Louisville
Status: As soon as the ink dries.

Depending on whom you ask, the most baffling career coordinator in college football is about to step out on his own. The superlatively decorated coordinator from Arkansas by way of a trail of carnage and destruction running through the SEC is a supposed lock for a school rallying from the mortal disappointment of the Steve Kragthorpe regime. Strong inherits a mixed bag; on the one hand the remaining athletes of Bobby Petrino’s last and best recruiting class graduate at the end of 2010, leaving Strong to play Kragthorpe’s lukewarm recruits. On the other hand Strong enters a school in a wide-open (pending the decision of Brian Kelly to jump to Notre Dame) conference, close to fertile recruiting grounds, and headed by an aggressive and evidently well-monied Athletic Department committed to excellence. Strong could conceivably fill the obligatory “Big East Head Coach Destined For Greater Things” spot previously held by Bobby Petrino, Rich Rodriguez, and briefly Greg Schiano and soon to be vacated by Brian Kelly. (Or he could fizzle out like his predecessor. One or the other.)

Coach: Mike London
University: Virginia
Status: Signed, sealed, delivered.

A slam dunk choice if there ever was one. A native of Virginia who coordinated a feted defense under now-fired Al Groh in 2006 before leaving for Division 1AA Unversity of Richmond, where he accrued a 24-5 record in two seasons, with a national championship in his first year and a Colonial Athletic Association Conference Championship and a playoff quartefinal appearance in his second. Like Strong, London enters a perennially wide-open conference located near well stocked recruiting grounds, however unlike Strong London will have to negotiate the difficulties of having to field a winning football team at an academically rigorous (at-least-that’s-what-they-say) university. London joins coaches of note Paul Johnson, Brian Kelly, and Jim Tressel as FBS coaches who have won lower-division National Championships. (Johnson and Tressel in the FCS, Kelly in Division II.)

Coach: Turner Gill
University: Kansas
Status: Well, it sure as hell isn’t going to be Cap’n Giggity

Merely a prospect at this point to fill the oversized, well-indented chair of disgraced coach Mark Mangino, Gill nevertheless combines the best aspects of economy, chance of hiring, and chance of success among the rumored candidates for the job, at least in my outsider’s opinion. A hero in Nebraska and the current patron saint of University of Buffalo football Gill would constitute a hire not without substantial risk (only one winning season as a head coach, leading the 2008 Buffalo squad to the MAC Championship on an 8-6 record). All else aside the Kansas Athletic Department’s assessment of Gill’s suitability for the job will likely come down to how they view Gill’s tenure at Buffalo: a near Herculean accomplishment in bringing a school from obscurity to conference relevance, or a fluke occurrence untranslatable to a football program expecting to compete on the highest level. The Kansas coaching search is one I will observe with particular interest.

Coach: Brian Kelly
School: Notre Dame
Status: I’m willing to go out on a limb.

Notre Dame is pursuing Brian Kelly, Brian Kelly is receiving Notre Dame. I really only think there’s one way that this can end. I don’t believe there’s any particular intangible allure for the Notre Dame job that will have Kelly jumping at the opportunity to coach there, but it comes down to whether Kelly is willing to put up with the frustration and difficulty inherent in trying to drag a football program in to the 21st century. Assuming that Kelly is interested in the bottom line of coaching; wins, championships, and contracts (as opposed to Our Father Tedford, who seems considerably more invested in the somewhat peripheral pursuit of building a competitive football program where there previously was none), then he will take the Notre Dame job.

If (or when) he signs his name on the dotted line, the recruits are waiting. Kelly sooner or later be in an excellent position to [insert Notre Dame mumbo-jumbo that loosely translates to “win”], provided the formidable coaching talents he displayed at Grand Valley State, Central Michigan, and Cincinnati were not a mirage.