Both Ryan Day and Lincoln Riley enter 2024 under some intense pressure after what could be considered disappointing seasons for their teams in the Buckeyes and Trojans in 2023. With hopes of proving themselves as the rightful men to lead their teams for the foreseeable future, winning has become paramount for the 2024 season. They're not the only ones, though, as a handful of other head coaches are facing the same kind of pressure this season in what has become the ever-changing landscape of college football.
Below we'll have five college football head coaches that are under the most pressure in 2024, starting with Day and Riley.
Ryan Day, Ohio State
There's a different standard at Ohio State, where losing, especially to arch-rival Michigan, is simply not tolerated. That goes doubly if you're not winning national titles. Though Day has an impressive 56-8 record by most standards, in Columbus, that may not cut it much longer.
Ohio State fans perhaps remember the losses more than they do the wins. And for Day, that's detrimental. Though Day has led the Buckeyes to nothing less than a top 10 finish since he took over for Urban Meyer at the end of the 2018 season, he is 1-3 in the College Football Playoff, 2-4 in bowl games, and worst of all, 1-3 versus Michigan.
Is it any wonder Day went out and made major transfer portal additions during the December cycle? Or that he lured Chip Kelly away from UCLA in a demotion to join the staff as an offensive coordinator? Day feels the pressure to win and win now.
Lincoln Riley, USC
At first, those in Norman, Oklahoma, were seething mad at Lincoln Riley for suddenly uprooting his family and leaving for sunny California. But entering Year 3 of his tenure with USC, Sooners fans' thoughts could be changing.
After leading USC to its best season in years in 2022, going 11-3, the Trojans quickly faltered in 2023, going 8-5 and falling way short of expectations that were put on them, which included winning the Pac-12 and making the College Football Playoff.
Going into the 2024 season, Riley will be without his safety net in the soon-to-be No. 1 overall draft pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, Caleb Williams. He'll also be without, for good reason, his defensive coordinator last season in Alex Grinch, who is being replaced by D'Anton Lynn. Lynn will be asked to help what was one of the worst defensive units in the country last season, which gave up a 117th ranked 34.4 points per game, according to Team Rankings.
What's next for Riley and USC? Oh, nothing but moving the team to the daunting Big Ten conference in a year where the program is in a minor reset. Piece of cake.
Billy Napier, Florida
Out of anyone on this list, there's perhaps no one under the immense amount of pressure that Billy Napier is at Florida. Since leaving the University of Louisiana and coming to Gainesville to coach the Gators, Napier has yet to have a winning season. Coaching the Ragin' Cajuns for four seasons, Napier was 40-12. In just two seasons with the Gators, he's 11-14.
What's worse is that it seemed the Gators actually took a step back in 2023, winning one less game, going 5-7 and not making a bowl game. Similar to the standards that Ryan Day is facing at Ohio State, those at the University of Florida will not tolerate this type of football for much longer. But it's not going to get any easier for Napier in 2024.
With the SEC expanding to 16 teams, adding Oklahoma and Texas, that makes the schedule even tougher for the Gators, which will likely make wins hard to come by. Florida goes on the road to face Texas, Tennessee, and Florida State, while hosting Texas A&M, Georgia, LSU, and Ole Miss, plus an out-of-conference game against Miami. Will the Florida administration and its fans be merciful if the best that Napier and the Gators can pull out is a seven or eight-win season? No pressure, Billy.
Dabo Swinney, Clemson
Clemson's Dabo Swinney isn't quite under that same vile pressure that the previous coaches mentioned on this list are, but it's definitely starting to cook in Death Valley.
No one has done more for the Clemson football program than Swinney. He completely changed the stigma of the Clemson brand by altering the term “Clemsoning” from an underperforming talented football program to that of winning two national championships in four years and being continuous players in the College Football Playoff.
However, once the college football landscape started to abruptly change due to the additions of the transfer portal and NIL, Swinney has remained more or less the same. The results haven't quite translated successfully either. The Tigers went from finishing with six top 5 AP finishes from 2015-2020 to finishing no better than 13th from 2021 to last year finishing their worst since 2011 at 20th.
Now begs the question of will Swinney eventually adjust, or will he wait for the game to pass him by even further, and lose his job in the process?
Mario Cristobal, Miami
When is there not pressure in Miami to win? Somehow that hasn't changed in all this time, even though the Hurricanes have yet to ever reach the College Football Playoff, have only won one bowl game in the last 16 years, and haven't had an AP top 10 finish since 2003.
Mario Cristobal was brought in to change all those things. But needless to say, his work has been cut out for him thus far. Even in a weak ACC conference, Cristobal in his two seasons in Coral Gables has led Miami to just 5-7 and 7-6 records. Unfortunately, that's been all too familiar for Miami and their fans, who have had only one double-digit win season in nearly two decades.
Cristobal was lured away from Oregon to come back home to rejuvenate what used to be one of the premier programs in the entire country. Expectations will once again be fairly high for the Hurricanes, especially with the addition of highly-touted transfer portal acquisition Cam Ward as their starting quarterback.
“It's going to be the best QB situation they've had there in several years. I have no doubt about that,” Josh Pate said on a recent episode of Late Kick.
Hype and expectations don't change at Miami. Cristobal needs at least a nine or 10-win season for it to be deemed successful.
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