As the Big 12 enters October, pressure is mounting on several coaches across the conference, with Kansas’ Lance Leipold and Colorado’s Deion Sanders facing particularly important weekends.
Thirteen of the 16 teams in the league are in action this weekend, including a pair of teams that were in London two weeks ago to play the Big 12’s first international conference game.
Each week here at Heartland College Sports I’ll point out four hot seat coaches going into the next slate of games. I’ll explain why.
Why Lance Leipold Is Feeling Pressure at Kansas
The Kansas Jayhawks are coming off their bye week after their loss to Arizona State on London and they’re hosting Middle Tennessee on Saturday. The Jayhawks cannot lose this game. Period. If they do, Lance Leipold is going to have issues.
Middle Tennessee has beaten Murray State (38-14) and Nevada (27-20) and lost to Marshall (28-26) and Jax State (23-13). The Blue Raiders have played three close games, and they should have the ability to bug Kansas throughout the game.
I really don’t care how much the Blue Raiders “bug” the Jayhawks as long as Kansas wins. If it doesn’t, well, it’s going to be a long year in Lawrence and Leipold better watch his back, so to speak.
Rich Rodriguez Needs a West Virginia Bounceback
This isn’t about his job — he’s safe. You don’t bring the prodigal son home and put him on the job security hot seat in Year 2. The heat is after how poorly West Virginia’s defense played last week against Oklahoma State. The Mountaineers gave up more than 600 total yards it absorbed their first loss of the season.
Rodriguez and his defensive staff must figure out how to shore up a defensive line that proved incredibly leaky against Oklahoma State’s run game and a secondary that had a complete breakdown defending the deep ball in the second half against Cowboys quarterback Drew Mestemaker in his stable of wide receivers.
More: West Virginia vs. Iowa State Prediction and Preview
Why Deion Sanders Needs Progress from Colorado
I’m not working under the illusion that Colorado can win this game, even though it’s in Boulder and Texas Tech, to me, is not firing on all cylinders. But what I need to see out of the Buffaloes is improvement across the board. Perhaps changing over to Isaac Wilson as quarterback will help them. It seemed to in the second half against Baylor last weekend.
I believe one or two more losses and Sanders’ job may be on the line. As I’ve written here, the bloom is off the Rose. I think Sanders was right about what he said on Saturday which is that his team is better than the score indicates. But the scoreboard is what we all look at and, right now, the scoreboard is not his friend.
Kalani Sitake Faces a Potential Trap Game at TCU
There’s no job security hot seat here. It’s all about the situation. The Cougars are undefeated, coming off a bye week and facing a TCU team that’s ticked off after losing to UCF last weekend. Horned Frogs quarterback Jaden Craig led a team meeting earlier this week as he and the captains tried to get the Horned Frogs back on track.
TCU has its backs against the wall. Another conference loss and they can kiss any margin of error for a Big 12 championship game berth goodbye. It’s a recipe for a trap game for BYU and Sitake needs to make sure his Cougars are ready to roll or else it could be a rough weekend in Fort Worth.
