Hot Seat Watch, Week 7: Luke Fickell gets paid millions to effectively forfeit games

There has never been a better time to go to a pumpkin patch with your significant other if you happen to root for the Wisconsin Badgers than now. This is the worst the football team has looked in multiple generations. Luke Fickell should have been out of his job after the Maryland debacle at home. After what he did in the second half and in the final minutes vs. Michigan should have led to his dismissal.

He essentially short-circuited at the podium after Saturday's huge embarrassing failure to the Wolverines. Fickell is leading the worst team in the Big Ten right now. As one who subscribes to Hanlon's razor, let's not mistake incomptence for malice. Fickell is trying his hardest to screw in a lightbulb, but he keeps breaking the damn thing with his block-handed, bonehead-ness buffoonery.

Here are the latest betting odds for the next head coach to be fired at any level of competition.

• Wisconsin Badgers head coach Luke Fickell: +150
• Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier: +300
• Oregon State Beavers head coach Trent Bray: +325
• Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze: +425
• Kentucky Wildcats head coach Mark Stoops: +900
• Maryland Terrapins head coach Mike Locksley: +1000
• Penn State Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin: +1200
• Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney: +1700

The fact Fickell is rapidly approaching even odds says everything you need to know about his status.

So without further ado, let's see what kind of miserable company Fickell is keeping up with this week.

5. Penn State Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin

Entering this season, the Penn State Nittany Lions were among the surest of locks to make the College Football Playoff. They win 10 games annually under The Driver that is James Franklin. With a loaded roster, they should have cake walked into the playoff. Too bad they had to play Power Four teams. Penn State's unbelievable road loss to previously winless UCLA is such a total indictment.

Under Franklin, Penn State has crossed the Mark Richt Rubicon of good, but never great college football head coaches. When expectations are sky high, he always shrinks. While Richt rarely made excuses at Georgia, Franklin is handing them out like Halloween candy. This team needs a new voice, but his buyout is pricey. Penn State is not making the playoff this year and may win only eight games.

Franklin is not likely to get fired this season, but he may exit stage right and leave on his own accord.

4. Kentucky Wildcats head coach Mark Stoops

The longest tenured head coach in the SEC may not be that after this season. Mark Stoops' Kentucky Wildcats took their annual beating from Georgia in Athens last week. While Stoops' teams always play Georgia hard, the Wildcats rarely have an offense capable of hanging with the big boys in SEC play. Big Blue Nation has taken notice. Rarely having any feel for offense is why Stoops is not long for UK.

As is the case with James Franklin at Penn State, he might have other options after this season should it continue to go in a downward spiral. Stoops has strong ties to plays like Iowa and Florida State. In a weird way, he might be exactly what Wisconsin needs. Truth be told, Stoops' time in Lexington feels like it is coming to an end, but it may not happen to until after losing to rival Louisville.

Stoops is feeling quite a bit of pressure, but again, Kentucky is not as high pressure of a job as others.

3. Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze

Saturday would be a bad time for Hugh Freeze to lose. If Auburn were to lose The Deep South's Oldest Rivalry at home to Georgia, that could be the beginning of the end for Freeze, it is was not trending in that direction already. Having three straight SEC losses is not how you would impress the boosters to give you yet another season. Auburn has already fallen to Oklahoma and Texas A&M.

Auburn may have a pass rush, but Freeze is an offensive-minded coach. Under his direction, Jackson Arnold has not gotten better as a quarterback since transferring over from Oklahoma. This team does have weapons for him to work with, but he is looking more and more like Payton Thorne with each passing week. Auburn may be a bowl-caliber team, but this team needs to be more than that.

Freeze has won everywhere else he has coached before, but Auburn is proving too tough for him.

2. Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier

Had the Florida Gators not gotten it done vs. the Texas Longhorns at home, Billy Napier might already be out of a job. He was sitting on arguably the hottest seat in all of college football entering last week. Clearly, his players are still interested in playing hard for him. This was the best game of DJ Lagway's brief, but promising college football career up to this point. Napier is still on the hot seat, regardless.

With two more tough opponents coming up before their second bye in Texas A&M and Mississippi State, Napier might be able to coach in The Cocktail Party vs. Georgia after all. This is a team that had a nine-win ceiling, but it may have to take it one day at a time. Again, Napier is an incredibly effective coach when his back is against the wall. Let's see if he can back this up with another SEC win or two.

Other coaches may be feeling more heat than Napier this week, but he has been under it a while now.

1. Wisconsin Badgers head coach Luke Fickell

There was no other choice. Unless we wanted to include non-Power Four coaches like Trent Dilfer at UAB or Trent Bray really struggling at his alma mater of Oregon State, it has to be Fickell. What makes Fickell the head coach sitting on the hottest seat in college football right now has everything to do with how awful the Wisconsin program has become under his watch. He is only a Group of Five coach.

His teams always start slow because they are never prepared to enter battle. Defensively, they can only hold their own for so long because this offense is reminiscent to all the bad offenses we have seen at Iowa and Northwestern in recent years. Fickell should have been asked to leave after the first bye, but we ma not get our wish until even after the second one. This is a 2-10 team we are watching.

Nobody wants to admit that they are wrong, but Wisconsin made one of the worst hires of all time.