Author : college football/basketball writer @MattZemek, Editor at @TrojansWire .
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Scott Satterfield of Louisville cooled off his hot seat in Week 3 of the college football season, but elsewhere in the ACC, coaching hot seats became crackling fires of chaos and discontent.
Mike Norvell is in real trouble at Florida State after getting smoked by Dave Clawson and Wake Forest. 0-3 is completely unacceptable, and if this season unravels into a 3-9 catastrophe, would FSU fans meekly accept another year of Norvell in 2022? That’s an open question, but I’m sure plenty will not stand for it.
Manny Diaz is in all sorts of trouble at Miami after an embarrassing loss at home against Michigan State. This was supposed to be the year the Hurricanes put the pieces together around D’Eriq King. Quality quarterbacks don’t regularly play for The U these days. King is a special talent, and Diaz — both through his lack of defensive coaching and through the inability to unlock the talent on his offense (with Rhett Lashlee struggling as offensive coordinator) — is wasting that potential. Miami can’t finish 7-5 without consequence. Diaz looks woefully out of his league as a head coach. A few USC fans I know think that with Clay Helton gone, Diaz is now the worst Power Five coach in the country. It’s possibly true. He’s certainly in the top (bottom?) three.
Justin Fuente lost to West Virginia in ugly fashion. That rivalry with the Mountaineers means a lot to Virginia Tech fans. Hokie backers have to be at the end of their rope, emotionally speaking, after another dud performance from a coach who was supposed to have all the X-and-O answers. This tenure seems to be on its last legs. The goodwill created by the win over North Carolina? Gone. POOF. Virginia Tech-Miami will likely be a hot-seat elimination game this year. Loser out in 2022. Both coaches might still get fired by the end of 2021.
Pat Narduzzi might not be on the hot seat, but Pitt’s 44-41 loss to Western Michigan after beating Tennessee is Pure Pitt. My goodness. The idea that Pitt will turn the corner anytime soon was crushed by this humiliating defeat. Narduzzi lost a lot of leverage and security with this face-plant.
Virginia fans are really mad at Bronco Mendenhall after his defense no-showed against North Carolina. Cavalier fans want a change at defensive coordinator, but if that’s the case, they might as well want a change of head coach, since that is Bronco’s stronger side of the ball as a coach.
North Carolina State played Furman in Week 3, so the Wolfpack didn’t create a hotter seat for Dave Doeren. Yet, the Week 2 stumble against Mississippi State — which subsequently lost in Week 3 to Memphis — won’t make N.C. State fans happier. This is a situation which requires a few key wins, most notably over North Carolina, for Doeren to feel at least somewhat comfortable about his standing in Raleigh.
Georgia Tech almost beat Clemson, but in spite of that reality, the ineptitude of Geoff Collins’ offense has Atlantans pining for something much better in the head coaching spot. Collins does not seem to understand a lot of the components which are part of successful modern-day offense in college football.
Hot seats! Get your flaming hot seats right here! It’s ACC football, and the season is just three weeks old with conference play only just beginning.
Strap in and drink plenty of water! It’s going to be wild — and burning hot — ride in the coming months.
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