Sportsfrog.com

Unsurprising:

Houston Nutt out at Arkansas. I’m officially on record as mocking Arkansas fans for forcing Nutt out. They’re delusional if they think they’re going to be able to entice a big name coach to Fayetteville and have Arkansas winning more games than Nutt won. This falls under the category of “being careful what you wish for.” Hogs fans wanted Nutt’s scalp and they got it. Now the hard part is finding a miracle worker who will be able to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.

Chan Gailey out at Georgia Tech. Gailey was 0-6 against Georgia. That probably says all you need to know about this decision. Another failed experiment at trying to recreate the success of Pete Carroll by grabbing a mediocre NFL coach. Still, an overall amusing experiment since it led to the genius that is Charlie Weis.

Ted Roof fired at Duke. Yeah, it’s probably the hardest place in college football to win, but six wins in four-plus years is just not going to get it done.

Pretty shocking:

Jeff Bower leaves Southern Mississippi. Bower had been at USM (his alma mater) for 17 years and had led the Golden Eagles to 14 straight winning seasons and bowl games for nine of the last ten years. That’s a remarkable streak of consistency for a mid-major, even if it fell short of what a lot of USM fans would like. Those same fans are likely to rue this day.

Joe Novak at Northern Illinois. Unless Novak is leaving of his own accord (which is possible), this is a horrible decision by NIU. Novak turned a laughing stock (even by MAC standards) into one of the conference’s premier programs in this decade. The Huskies slid to 2-10 this season, but a lot of that was due to injuries and being hit especially hard by graduations last season. NIU will be hard-pressed to replace Novak.

In:

Mike Sherman at Texas A&M. The Aggies didn’t waste any time replacing Dennis Franchione. Kind of a surprising hire as Sherman has little college experience, but he was an underrated coach at the pro level and should be able to get the most of out whatever talent he’s able to lure to College Station.

Bill Lynch at Indiana. Arguably the biggest feel-good story of the college football season, Lynch was rewarded for taking Indiana to its first bowl since 1993 and fulfilling the stated goal of late coach Terry Hoeppner.