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College football coaching carousel is spinning along

USC Football Coach
Posted at 2:16 PM, Dec 09, 2021
and last updated 2021-12-09 16:31:15-05

The college football coaching carousel keeps spinning right along this season.

Next year, the college football landscape will look slightly different, with familiar faces landing in new places.

Southern California fired their head coach, Clay Helton, in September. Then in December, they shocked the college football world by luring University of Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley away from Norman to coach the Trojans.

In October, Louisiana State University announced that head coach Ed Orgeron would not be back two years after he won a national title. They hired Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly in December to replace him.

Notre Dame wasted no time promoting defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman to replace Kelly.

Oklahoma brought back a familiar face when they named Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables their 23rd head coach. Venables was part of OU's staff from 1999 to 2011.

Another big name that made a splash was Mario Cristobal, who left Oregon to take over for Manny Diaz at the University of Miami.

TCU (Gary Patterson), Washington (Jimmy Lake), and Virginia Tech (Justin Fuente) were relieved of their head coaching duties before the season ended.

Dan Mullen was fired from Florida one week before the Gators were to play in-state rival Florida State. The Gators then named Billy Napier as his replacement.