In what has already been a crazy college football coaching carousel, there are some marquee jobs open. The big four are Auburn, Florida, LSU and Penn State. It begs the question though, what are some pros and cons of each job?

Auburn Tigers

Pro: Strong NIL Support

Auburn has shown it can get high profile players like wide receiver Cam Coleman and transfer quarterback Jackson Arnold to the plains, thanks to its good NIL program. Now, while Coleman has worked out wonderfully, Arnold not so much. The NIL is there for whoever wants the Auburn job, they just need to get the results on the field that Hugh Freeze couldn’t.

Con: Auburn Boosters

Boosters do have a voice in every college athletic department, but the ones at Auburn are on another level. After firing their last three head coaches in the span of six years Auburn will pay a $52.55 million buyout on head coaches alone, as well as more for other personnel. This is due to the meddling Auburn boosters who are greedily chasing that high of 2010 again, churning through cash in the process. Instead of waiting and directing cash onto the field to try and get that next national championship on the plains they burn it basically. 

Florida Gators

Pro: Easy Place to Win At

Nearly anyone can win at Florida. Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer won national titles, and even coaches like Will Muschamp and Jim McElwain managed to win ten games in The Swamp. The Gators have recently completed a facilities upgrade along with upgrading their NIL budget giving even more advantages to whoever is the next head man in Gainesville. Not to mention the natural advantages that come with being nicely situated in the fertile recruiting ground of Florida.

Con: Coaching Instability 

Florida has churned through coaches post Urban Meyer, as no head coach has lasted longer than four years in Gainesville. This despite each coach besides Billy Napier posting at least one double digit win season, so even winning isn’t enough to stay safe in Gainesville. 

LSU Tigers

Pro: It’s LSU

This might seem to be oversimplifying things, but LSU is LSU. There are only a handful jobs in college football that will make a coach want to leave his current job.  LSU falls into that handful. This is a program that has won a national championship under three different head coaches this century alone, and it’s not just Nick Saban. Even coaches like Ed Orgeron won a championship here. LSU has anything and everything a coach could want out of a program, that’s why it’s clearly the best job this cycle. 

Con: Louisiana Politics

The governor of Louisiana has injected himself into the search directly. It’s never a good thing to see anyone except the Athletic Director have this much influence on a coaching search, but having a governor of a state is a whole different level of dysfunction. 

Penn State Nittany Lions

Pro: Easy Conference

The biggest thing working in Penn State’s favor is it’s the only high-profile job open in the Big Ten and barring any more shocking coach firings, it is likely to stay that way. Outside of Ohio State, who’s a clear number one, you could argue Penn State is the second highest caliber program in the Big Ten. That’s something you won’t see in the SEC, and the Big Ten still has the prestige of a power two conference where that isn’t the case in the ACC or Big 12. 

Con: Unrealistic expectations

You could make a case that all of these programs have unrealistic expectations, but the other three have won a national title within the past twenty years. That isn’t the case at Penn State, with their last national title coming back during the 1986 season. This is a program that just fired a coach in James Franklin, who despite his flaws won double digit games consistently. Struggling programs would kill for that, and Franklin clearly still has coaching chops seen as how quickly Virginia Tech made him its next head coach, barely a month after he got fired. Would a coach really want to step into an environment where even winning ten or more games isn’t enough to stay off the hot seat?