The Texas 20, No. 11: Is anyone on the college coaching hot seat?

[caption id="attachment_17924" align="alignleft" width="300"]Photo by Henry Garcia Photo by Henry Garcia[/caption] This is the Texas 20, DCTF’s countdown of the 20 biggest storylines heading into the 2015 football season.No. 20: Is there a college sleeper in Texas?No. 19: Which Texas high school football records will be broken? No. 18: State title games headed to Houston No. 17: Will anyone play defense this season? No. 16: Can Allen keep dominating without Kyler Murray? No. 15: Cameron Yoe’s chase for a fourth straight title No. 14: New coaches at SMU and HoustonNo. 13: Can DeSoto finally get over the hump?No. 12: What will be the best region in the state?Today, we’ve reached No. 11: Is anyone on the college coaching hot seat? To be fair, it’s truly difficult to declare that anyone at the 12 FBS programs is sitting on a particularly hot seat this season. It seems more accurate to say that some may be warm, and will get a lot hotter if things don’t go well in the weeks and months ahead. Because of recency and/or success, we feel pretty safe saying that based on performance alone, Art Briles, Gary Patterson, Chad Morris, Tom Herman, Dennis Franchione and David Bailiff are in the clear. Charlie Strong probably is, too, but if for some reason the Longhorns are as bad or worse than last year’s bunch, then things will get uncomfortable in a hurry. Sean Kugler is 9-16 overall at UTEP in two seasons, but a 7-6 mark last year means there’s optimism for this year at a program where that doesn’t come easily. Last year was immensely disappointing for North Texas after the 2013 campaign, and the Mean Green will no doubt be fighting for a bounce back season. But even if Dan McCarney’s crew struggles, it sure feels like he’s earned enough goodwill to keep marching on. We’d also say the same for UTSA, coming off a volatile 4-8 2014, but with Larry Coker still sitting at a remarkable 23-23 at the helm of a program since its inception. That brings us to Kevin Sumlin. Sumlin’s head coaching record speaks for itself at 63-28. It’s a fantastic mark. But the Aggies have gone from 11-2 to 9-4 to 8-5 in three years under his helm. The arrival of John Chavis is expected to stem some of the defensive issues the Aggies dealt with during those seasons, and with home games against Alabama and Auburn this season, there’s solid reason for optimism bordering on expectation for an improvement. Even if Texas A&M has a rough go of it, Sumlin is probably safe. But if they struggle or do worse than last season, the question will probably be asked. And then there’s Kliff Kingsbury, who was hot out of the gate with an 8-5 record at Texas Tech, watched over a quarterback mutiny, and then followed it up with a 4-8 record and arguably his best quarterback sitting out a year to play for Oklahoma. Entering his third year at the helm, the answers don’t look any clearer, and it’s not like the conference is getting easier. Still, much like Sumlin, anything short of a disaster probably sees Kingsbury at Texas Tech for at least another year. Now that we've declared everyone safe, it's worth noting we likely would have entered 2014 feeling like June Jones was safe under most circumstances. Then absolute disaster happened. So while it may not seem like there are any hot seats right now, if a team is suddenly abysmal through the halfway point of the season, all bets are off.