Hot Seat Rankings: Sleep with one eye open, gripping the hot seat tight

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1. Brent Pry - Virginia Tech (0-2) (Last week: 1)

A week after losing to Frank Beamer's son in a way that came straight out of a movie, Virginia Tech was 30 minutes away from turning down the heat on Brent Pry. Tech looked fantastic in the first half against Vanderbilt, scoring on four of their five possessions, taking a 20-10 lead into the break.

It's a credit to how far Vandy's risen that beating them would be the biggest win of the Pry era, and arguably Tech's most important as a program over the past five years. Pry's teams have infamously failed at closing games, so this was the perfect opportunity to flip the script. They had Lane Stadium rocking in prime time versus an SEC opponent, with a ten-point halftime lead. It was about as now-or-never a situation as a coach on the hot seat can have.

With everything on the line, Tech not only failed to close once again, but played the worst half of football of any team in the country so far this season. Here's how the drives went for each team:

• Vanderbilt: 11 plays, 75 yards - TOUCHDOWN
• Virginia Tech: 3 plays, 9 yards - PUNT
• Vanderbilt: 7 plays, 75 yards - TOUCHDOWN
• Virginia Tech: 3 plays, -13 yards - PUNT
• Vanderbilt: 8 plays, 56 yards - TOUCHDOWN
• Virginia Tech: 3 plays, 0 yards - PUNT
• Vanderbilt: 3 plays, 72 yards - TOUCHDOWN
• Virginia Tech: 4 plays, 6 yards - DOWNS
• Vanderbilt: 7 plays, 31 yards - TOUCHDOWN
• Virginia Tech: 4 plays, 19 yards - FUMBLE
• Vanderbilt: 2 plays, -2 yards - END OF GAME

Tech was outscored 35-0 and outgained 307-21 in the second half, falling 44-20. It was Vanderbilt's largest win after trailing by 10+ points in at least 80 years, per the broadcast. These shots of Pry on the sideline say it all:

I said last week that there's nuance to losing while you're on the hot seat. It's almost as much about how you lose as the losses themselves. Brent Pry entered the season on a scorching seat already. Through two games, Virginia Tech's given up a game-winning punt return TD to a team coached by Frank Beamer's son, then got outscored 35-0 in the second half at home in prime time. 0-2 against South Carolina and Vanderbilt isn't awful on its face - it's how the 0-2 happened that'll do Pry in.

Pry takes the top spot over Billy Napier because he doesn't have the path to salvation that Napier does. Florida could (in theory) upset LSU and Miami the next two weeks and once again save Napier from certain doom like they did last year. Meanwhile, Virginia Tech's next two games are Old Dominion and Wofford. Do even two dominant wins –God forbid they lose either– change anything for Pry? I don't think so. The damage from these first two losses is enough that Pry is this season's first "When, not if" firing situation in the country. He's auto-locked into the top spot until Virginia Tech inevitably decides to make the move.

2. Billy Napier - Florida (1-1) (Last week: NR)

It's understandable that Billy Napier's getting more attention than Pry right now. Florida's a national program, plus the job itself is one of the best in the country. Add in the Gators stumbling over themselves against USF in vintage Napier fashion and you've got the juiciest hot seat storyline in the country. He's also feeding the beast himself by pulling a classic "If the ship is going down, I'm going down with it" move:

If I were a Florida fan, I'd want Napier out yesterday. He's 20-20 in four seasons, has a 10-14 SEC record, and the variance between the games his teams are great and the ones they're terrible makes Ron Zook look like a beacon of program stability. (Zook had a 23-14 record at Florida, by the way.) Napier's Gators can beat anyone (LSU and Ole Miss last year) and lose to anyone (Arkansas 2023, Vanderbilt 2022). He earned the right to come back after last season's strong finish, but the USF loss crystalized that his program is still too unreliable. Would you be shocked at all if they upset at least one of LSU, Miami or Texas in the next three weeks, then lost to Mississippi State and/or Kentucky later in the season?

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At some point, you are what you are. Napier's a .500 coach in Gainesville. His teams either fail in critical moments in each phase of the game –like they did against USF– or pull a rabbit out of their hat and live to see another week. Maybe they do the latter against LSU on Saturday, but I predict much more of the former with what's left on their schedule:

3/4. Trent Dilfer - UAB (1-1) (Last week: 2)/Joe Moorhead - Akron (0-2) (Last week: 5)

Every now and then, the universe aligns to give you something you never knew you needed. It's doing exactly that for the hot seat rankings this week with Trent Dilfer and Joe Moorhead:

🔥HOT SEAT GAME OF THE WEEK 🔥