The mid-point of the 2026 college football season is this weekend and the Big 12 has some big games on the schedule. A Top 25 showdown. Two rivalry games. And a Top 10 showdown between Notre Dame and BYU. All kinds of good stuff this weekend. Each week here at Heartland College Sports I’ll point out three hot seat coaches going into the next slate of games. I’ll explain why for each. And remember — it’s not always about job security.
Sonny Dykes, TCU
Welcome back from the bye week, Sonny. Things cooled down in Fort Worth? No? Well, I guess that’s how it goes.
You know what cools the seat down? Winning. You’ve got a good chance on Saturday against Baylor. Your arch-rival. The Revivalry. It’s a great opportunity to right the ship — a little bit at least.
Baylor enters the game coming off a bye week but in much better shape. The Bears are undefeated in the Big 12 and, if things fall right, there’s a path for them to really shake up the race to the conference title game. A loss to TCU isn’t part of the plan.
Rivalry games can bring out the best in the team that is seen as down and that’s TCU. If Dykes can’t get his team out of this doom loop they’ve been in since Big 12 play began then that seat is only going to get hotter.
Deion Sanders, Colorado
So, to be clear. It wasn’t a playbook. It was a set of play sheets. Deion Sanders talked about the much-discussed play sheets that were reportedly found in a hotel bar before their game with Texas Tech. Among the nuggets:
“I don’t think we have a whole playbook.”
“Why would we [look into it]? It’s over.”
“We probably know a lot more than you think we do.”
“That happens sometimes.”
“We scored on the first drive, so I guess it didn’t work.”
Did he forget they lost 29-7? Perhaps the play this week against Utah is to just leave the whole game script in the hotel bar for the Utes to find? If so, I nominate Pasta Jay’s in downtown Boulder. Not a hotel bar but great, old-style Italian. Have the bison ravioli. Yum.
If Colorado loses to Utah, it will have lost four straight games. At what point does new athletic director Fernando Lovo start thinking about pulling the trigger?
I’m not sure what worries me more — that the play sheets were left in a bar or that Colorado doesn’t have a playbook?
Joey McGuire, Texas Tech
McGuire has been on this list before and like last time it’s not about job security. He’s not going anywhere.
The Red Raiders are coming off a bye week. He and his staff got two weeks to correct some of the issues that have ailed the offense. In terms of timing, this was a good place to take a break and get some things reset.
Based on that, the pressure is on. Bigger games are coming up against Arizona, Oklahoma State and Baylor. Every week the Red Raiders stay undefeated the bigger the target gets on their collective back. So far, they’ve handled it well. But handling that pressure week to week is tough.
But the “hot” part about his week is all on Tech’s part. Why? The Red Raiders went 8-1 in league play last year. Remember which team beat them? You know you do.
Arizona State. Don’t let the desire for revenge derail you from the overall goal, Raider Nation.
