One of the most underrated winners from Week 5 was quite honestly Luke Fickell. Not only did he still get paid, but Wisconsin did not lose a game either! That is because the Badgers were on the first of their two annual byes heading into an arduous road date at Michigan this upcoming weekend. More importantly, other coaches' seats started to get turned up a little more, while Fickell's "cooled" down.
Across the Power Four, Sam Pittman's at Arkansas reached a boiling point in Fayetteville. David Braun nearly cost Northwestern a home game vs. UCLA. As far as what is happening at Auburn, Hugh Freeze picked the wrong quarterback in the transfer portal in the one-dimensional Jackson Arnold. He is going to cost Freeze his job down on The Plains at some point. So Fickell was living large, right?
Well, he was ... until Pittman got the ax on Sunday afternoon at Arkansas. Apparently, losing back-to-back-to-back games to Ole Miss, Memphis and Notre Dame was too hot to handle. Even though the Rebels, Tigers and to some degree the Fighting Irish could be playoff teams, Arkansas had seen enough out of Pittman. What this effectively does is put even more pressure on Fickell in Week 6.
With Pittman out of the way, that brings us to four Power Four head coaches to be out in September.
Luke Fickell needed Sam Pittman to take on more heat, but not get fired
It could have been a perfect weekend for Fickell, but Pittman's termination at Arkansas puts Fickell back into the line of fire. Yes, he has company near the bottom of the Power Four coaching profession with Braun, Freeze and of course, Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier. However, Fickell really needed Pittman to take some of the arrows that are sure to go his way in this brutal Big Ten gauntlet.
So is Fickell the next head coach to be fired? Napier's seat is probably the hottest, but keep in mind that Pittman skipped the line this past week. Yes, he was under pressure, but it did not seem like he would be canned before Fickell or Napier would. Then again, Pittman had been in Fayetteville longer than Fickell has been in Madison and Napier in Gainesville. We reach our breaking points eventually.
Ultimately, Fickell's seat is still quite hot, but maybe not to the degree that everyone thinks it is. The combination of his buyout figure, Wisconsin's brutal schedule and his working relationship with athletic director Chris McIntosh may likely keep him in this job until the end of the season. Then again, we all know that what we are seeing out of the Badgers program under Fickell is not good enough.
So while it was a perfect weekend for Fickell for a while, the Pittman firing certainly left a damper on it.