With college football Week 3 over, most of the 136 FBS teams have completed a quarter of the 2025 season. While the pace of passing weeks with football is a scary, upsetting sentiment, what’s even scarier is being a fan of a program with a coach on the college football hot seat. After some abysmal performances in Week 3, these coaches might not be at the helm much longer.
Deshaun Foster, UCLA
It was past 1 a.m. ET when Deshaun Foster trudged disconsolately off the field at a barren Rose Bowl. One of college football’s great stadiums hasn’t even come close to being sold out for a UCLA Bruins game for what feels like forever, and in its current state, the program is unlikely to be able to fill out the epic amphitheater anytime soon. A complete change is required.
After another embarrassing defeat, that change might be coming sooner than later. Foster was already considered on the college football hot seat before Friday night’s shambolic defeat to the New Mexico Lobos. The Mountain West outfit was 0-22 since it last beat a Power Conference team in 2008, but dropped the hammer on the Bruins in their own backyard.
Foster returned to his alma mater as the head coach ahead of the 2024 season, with his connections to the program providing an air of optimism. But the reality has been anything but. They started the campaign 1-5 before salvaging some respectability midway through the year, which provided only light relief. Their play in a 0-3 start to 2025 hasn’t shown any sign of rallying.
It’s not just the on-field product or a 5-10 overall record that contains no wins over ranked opposition that casts a shadow on Foster. The Bruins were on the wrong side of the offseason quarterback saga with Nico Iamaleava, and the head coach’s refusal to play the game with the local media has alienated him from the people best-positioned to promote the program.
Brent Pry, Virginia Tech
Brent Pry was hailed as a man who could unite the factions within Virginia Tech Hokies football, and that is partially true. Right now, every fan of the ACC football program wants to see the back of a man who was expected to bring success but has failed to elevate the program during his four-year tenure. After losing to the Old Dominion Monarchs, Pry is now 16-24 at VT.
There have been some positives. Pry took the program to successive bowl games in 2023 and 2024, a feat not seen in Blacksburg since 2019. Yet, the Hokies’ head coach has consistently failed to extract the best from a talented roster, has struggled to compete in the ACC, and a gutless performance against the Monarchs, riddled with questionable coaching moments, puts him firmly on the college football hot seat.
With a reasonably low $6 million buyout, Pry is a relatively low-cost coach to remove from office, and there are presumably plenty of boosters in Blacksburg willing to loosen their pockets.
Billy Napier, Florida
Even if the Billy Napier-led Florida Gators had smashed the LSU Tigers off the park on Saturday night in Death Valley, I’m not 100% convinced fans of the program would feel any differently about its direction. As it turned out, that’s not what happened, and the much-maligned head coach remains firmly planted on the college football hot seat after another error-strewn loss.
Last week, a college football stain was left on the history of a once-great program, and after the USF Bulls were shellacked in a weather-delayed matchup against the Miami Hurricanes, that loss seems even more significant for Napier’s future in Gainesville. A Floridian football hierarchy has been set, and the Gators are further down the totem pole than anyone ever imagined.
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The following passage was written in the wake of the defeat to USF, but its theme, its messaging, and its core, are a tenure-long indictment on Napier:
If a team is a reflection of its head coach, Billy Napier might be in more trouble than even his position on this college football hot seat suggests. On Saturday night, the Florida Gators were undisciplined, unruly, and unlike a team with any right to call themselves one of the best in the nation. From multiple penalties to a spitting incident to poor play calling, the loss was a disaster.
Rinse. Repeat. Napier remains on the hot seat.
Trent Bray, Oregon State
Trent Bray inherited an undesirable situation at the Oregon State Beavers last season, and he earned himself the opportunity to prove himself amongst conference realignment turbulence and with a roster that had been decimated by the departure of the previous regime. He even engineered a 4-1 start with a Power Four win. However, he’s since gone 1-9, including 0-3 in 2025.
It isn’t just the overall record that puts Bray on the college football hot seat ahead of college football Week 4. It’s the manner of defeat. It’s the failure to establish an identity. As a former linebacker who led the Pac-10 in assisted tackles in 2005 and who was the architect of the Beavers’ 16th-ranked defense in 2022, you expect some defensive stability and ferocity.
Yet, the Beavers have conceded 30+ points in each of their last four games, and have only twice held their opponent under 20 points, while they’ve ranked 120th and 76th in PFSN’s College DEFi metric through the first two games of the year. As the program enters a new Pac-12 era next year, it might not do so with its current head coach.