In accordance with annual tradition, CBS Sports has updated its annual coaching hot seat rankings. Where do the Conference USA Football coaches fit in?
Before digging in much deeper, here are the hot seat rankings from CBS Sports for every Conference USA football head coach.
| School | Coach | Years | Record | 21 Rating | 20 Rating |
| UTEP | Dana Dimel | 3 | 5-27 | 4 | 5 |
| MTSU | Rick Stockstill | 15 | 94-92 | 3 | 2 |
| FIU | Butch Davis | 4 | 23-21 | 3 | 1 |
| FAU | Willie Taggart | 1 | 5-4 | 2 | 2 |
| LA Tech | Skip Holtz | 8 | 61-41 | 2 | 1 |
| North Texas | Seth Littrell | 5 | 31-31 | 2 | 1 |
| WKU | Tyson Helton | 2 | 14-11 | 2 | 1 |
| Rice | Mike Bloomgren | 3 | 7-23 | 1 | 2 |
| UTSA | Jeff Traylor | 1 | 7-5 | 1 | 2 |
| Marshall | Charles Huff | — | 0-0 | 1 | 1 |
| Old Dominion | Ricky Rahne | 1 | 0-0 | 1 | 1 |
| Southern Miss | Will Hall | — | 0-0 | 1 | 1 |
| Charlotte | Will Healy | 2 | 9-10 | 1 | 0 |
| UAB | Bill Clark | 5 | 40-22 | 0 | 0 |
Hot Seats
Out of the 130 coaches on the total list, only nine coaches had rankings of four or higher. The lone C-USA coach to make that inauspicious list was Dana Dimel, who actually improved from “win or be fired” status last year to “start improving now” status in 2020. Four of the Miners’ first five games come against teams that didn’t play football last fall, giving him a decent shot (or a lack of an excuse) concerning improvement this coming season.
The only other coaches within the vicinity of the hot seat, according to CBS Sports, are MTSU’s Rick Stockstill and FIU’s Butch Davis and that seems about right. Both programs have arguably flatlined (at best) and things are starting to go stale. Finding a reason that 2022 will be different rather than more of the same is paramount, making the “pressure is mounting” tag for Level 3 fitting.
On the lookout
The bottom half of this list seems more or less untouchable. Bill Clark isn’t getting let go, regardless of how 2021 turns out. The remaining coaches on that half of the list have one (or fewer) years of head coaching experience. It’s the middle tier of Willie Taggart (FAU), Skip Holtz (Louisiana Tech), Seth Littrell (North Texas), Tyson Helton (WKU) and Mike Bloomgren (Rice) that has the potential to be interesting.
A bowl berth, or somewhere in that vicinity, probably keeps all of those coaches safely employed in 2021, but an unexpected down season would put them right up near the 4s or the 5s in 2021.