Rapid Fire: Focus on Willingham, Bowden, Ferentz, Prince & Fulmer

“Rapid Fire” at Football Rumor Mill focuses on multiple coaches around the country who are in serious jeopardy. The latest edition centers on no less than five jobs which could soon be open…

Tyrone Willingham

Tyrone Willingham is still situated in the big office up on the third floor of the Graves Annex, but that doesn’t mean minds aren’t wandering. One name that keeps coming up to be on the nameplate of that office next season is that of Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp. A couple national experts on Muschamp, who was the defensive coordinator at LSU when current UW president Mark Emmert was chancellor and current UW athletic director Scott Woodward were in Baton Rouge: * Tom Dienhart, Rivals.com’s senior college football writer: “At this point, if I’m the president… I’ve got to have to open the door to guys like Muschamp, a hard-nosed, tough as nails, defensive kind of guy. He was a hot commodity a year ago. ” * Matt Hayes, The Sporting News’ national college football writer: “It’s certainly possible for a coordinator to come and do well (at Washington) but it has to be a guy like Will Muschamp. He’d definitely be a guy that could do a good job. He’s the kind of guy you sit down and talk with and you think, ‘Wow, this guy has it going on.’ He’s a tough guy, knows football, knows people skills, has social skills… and that is so important when you’re talking about a coach and developing relationships with the community.” * Joe Schad, ESPN college football reporter: “Muschamp is the coordinator most deserving of a head coaching job.” – Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Tommy Bowden

Clemson’s much-hyped season arrives at a major crossroads tonight in the Piedmont Triad. A campaign that started with so much promise — a preseason No. 9 ranking, predictions of the first ACC title since 1991 — is teetering on the brink heading into tonight’s 7:45 p.m. kickoff at Wake Forest’s BB&T Field, nationally televised by ESPN. Following a head-scratching 20-17 defeat to Maryland, Clemson is 3-2, 1-1 in ACC play. Beat the No. 21 Demon Deacons (3-1, 1-0) tonight, and the Tigers control their path to the ACC title game. Lose, and making a title-game appearance becomes unlikely at best, if not impossible. Can tonight’s importance be overstated? That, too, is pretty tough to do… Clemson coach Tommy Bowden — whose own job security was called into question following the Maryland loss — refuses to buy into the must-win hype. “Every game’s important, and this game, there’s some importance to this one, no doubt, anytime you have a conference loss,” Bowden said. “But they play a 12-game schedule, not a 6-game schedule. – Independent Mail

Kirk Ferentz

I love Kirk Ferentz. He is one of my dearest friends. I’d take a bullet for the guy. But at the same time, he is dangerously unbalanced. He’s bad at his job and mentally unstable. Actually, the best explanation I’ve seen for Iowa’s recent struggles comes from Marc Morehouse of the Cedar Rapids Gazette. As you may recall, the Hawkeyes went 31-7 from 2002-04, and they did it with largely unheralded, blue-collar recruits. In early 2005, Ferentz landed his first truly decorated recruiting class. I was at the U.S. Army All-American Bowl that year — the annual ego-inflating event where high-school kids get treated like heads of state — in which seven participants became future Hawkeyes. As Morehouse detailed, that class, for various reasons (injuries, disciplinary problems, flat-out busts) has produced only two of Iowa’s current starters. Considering those are the team’s fourth-year players, that’s a pretty gaping hole in the roster. Just ask Bobby Bowden or Larry Coker what can happen when even a couple of highly rated recruiting classes fails to pan out. The good news for Ferentz’s team is that they aren’t that far off. As John noted, every loss has been close. RB Shonn Greene is having a fantastic season (six-straight 100-yard games) and Iowa’s defense has been stout. If the Hawkeyes had even a semi-decent passing game they’d probably be at least 5-1 right now. There seems to be young talent coming up the ranks; the question is whether Ferentz will still be around to coach it. A $3 million salary is a lot to pay for 6-6 seasons. – SI.com

Ron Prince

The Kansas State football program is in a state of disrepair just five years removed from winning the Big 12 Conference championship, and the man responsible for such a drastic downfall needs to be shown the door. Ron Prince, now in his third season as the successor to the legendary Bill Snyder, has taken a program that had risen from the depths of the college football world to become one of its most successful programs in the 1990s and early 2000s and smashed any resemblance of its once rock-solid foundation. To put it bluntly, Prince doesn’t belong as a Division I head coach, and this season is exposing that very fact. Prince came from a program in Virginia that had experienced marginal success under Al Groh, whom Prince constantly credits as his mentor. Prince was an assistant coach at a weak BCS school for less than five years before he smooth-talked his way into the job as K-State’s coach, and as K-State fans are now painfully finding out, Prince talks a good game, but he has shown little ability to coach one. Prince might have succeeded had he been humble enough to hire assistants that had the experience he lacked and the knowledge necessary to field a competitive Big 12 program. But Prince, being arrogant, hired friends and cohorts from college football afterthoughts like Cornell, South Dakota State and Hofstra, thinking his master plan was good enough to overcome his staff’s shortcomings… The harshest comparison I could make would be one all fans in this area could remember. Ron Prince is K-State’s version of Terry Allen, the completely inept Kansas football coach who preceded Mark Mangino. Kansas State football is in need of a change, because if Ron Prince is allowed to further his destruction of the Wildcat program, it might take nothing short of the second coming of Bill Snyder himself to lift the program back up again. – Emporia Gazette

Phillip Fulmer

It’s hard to figure out just who is under the most pressure this week-Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville or Tennessee’s Phillip Fulmer. It would be a close race, although Fulmer would probably get the nod since his Vols made the mistake of playing before several thousand empty seats last Saturday. At least Auburn fans haven’t started showing their displeasure by staying away from games… yet. But make no mistake about it, both coaches are feeling the heat this week. Auburn’s case is a puzzling one. Auburn fans spent the summer working themselves into a frenzy over the new “spread” offense that new offensive coordinator Tony Franklin was bringing to the Plains. They envisioned 500-yard, 50-points-plus games with Kodi Burns running all over the field or throwing it to any number of receivers who would be running free all over the field. It hasn’t happened. Not even close. If you want numbers, try this one-16. That’s the total number of points that Auburn scored in games against Mississippi State and Vanderbilt, two of the SEC’s perennial doormats. – Randolph Leader