It didn't take long for angry Florida State fans to start burning up the message boards and social media on Sunday and Monday with demands (or at least suggestions) that Willie Taggart be fired following Saturday's loss at Wake Forest.
The offline rumor mill (phone calls and text messages) also was hitting on all cylinders, with various stories being circulated about FSU pulling together the resources to buy Taggart out of his contract and/or negotiating with him to part ways.
Is any of it true? Who knows? I've been told unequivocally that FSU has not had any conversations with Taggart's representatives about negotiating a buyout, despite what at least one media outlet reported. At the same time, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Florida State's top administrators are at the very least considering their options now that the Seminoles have fallen below .500 for the second consecutive season under Taggart, and there's now a very real possibility that they will again fail to make the postseason.
It would actually be more surprising -- if not an outright dereliction of duties -- if FSU President John Thrasher, Athletics Director David Coburn and Board of Trustees chair Ed Burr were not closely surveying the situation.
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But would they actually consider firing Taggart midway through his second season? Would they start putting plans in place to make a change if the rest of this season goes down the tubes the way last season did?
While I can't answer those questions definitively, I can provide some context that I believe will shine some light on the situation.
Before we go any further, I think it's important that we consider what other schools have done in these types of situations in the past. With that in mind, I took some time recently to research what every other Power 5 college football program has done when they've hired a new head football coach and then seen him get off to a slow start.
I was curious how many of those schools made a change after two years, three years or four years, etc. I also wondered how many of those coaches overcame slow starts and then enjoyed success later in their tenures.
I'm not going to recap all of the data right now -- I'll probably do so in a follow-up article or post on the Tribal Council -- but I do want to share how rare it is for a coach to be fired during or after his second season at a school. Just for perspective.
(Note: This research included coaches hired at Power 5 programs during the BCS and College Football Playoff era, when the pressure to win immediately started rising in conjunction with massive coaching salaries.)
During this 20-year time period, from the late 1990s through today, a grand total of four coaches have been fired during or after their second seasons at a school.
Four. Of all the coaches who have been hired by the 65 Power 5 schools in the last two decades.
Colorado fired Jon Embree after he went 3-10 in his first season and 1-11 the following year. Kansas fired Turner Gill after he went 3-9 and 2-10. Stanford parted ways with Walt Harris when he followed up a 5-6 season with 1-11. And Washington made the decision to fire Keith Gilbertson late in his second season; he went 6-6 and 1-11.
So three of those coaches posted 1-11 records in their second seasons, and one went 2-10.
Now, obviously, these weren't the only coaches to get off to slow starts. During the past two decades at Power 5 schools, more than 75 different coaches have posted a losing record during their first seasons on campus. And a great many of them struggled in their second and third seasons as well. Yet, including the four coaches mentioned earlier, only 20 coaches have been fired by the end of their third seasons on a campus.
Interestingly enough, only once has that happened in the ACC during that time period. Every other coach in the Atlantic Coast Conference has at least made it into his fourth season before being fired.
Here's a look at how quickly coaches have gotten the hook at each of the Power 5 conferences:
