Ole Miss has had arguably one of the most tumultuous months in all of college football as it has juggled a postseason run, the transfer portal, and a slew of assistant coaching departures in the wake of Lane Kiffin’s abrupt exit.

But that chaos didn’t stop the Rebels from making it to their first College Football Playoff semifinals in program history. They’ll face off against No. 10 Miami at the Fiesta Bowl on Thursday night for a spot in their first CFP national championship.

Earlier this week, head coach Pete Golding told reporters he believes the players have sent a message with their performance that the coaches who left them amid their playoff run were replaceable. “But I don’t have shit to say to anybody else,” he said.

It all started on Nov. 30, when Lane Kiffin’s abrupt departure from Ole Miss ahead of their College Football Playoff run threw the entire coaching staff into chaos. 

Ole Miss quickly replaced him with Golding, the Rebels’ then–defensive coordinator, which provided some immediate stability. But throughout the postseason, Kiffin and LSU have been working to poach assistants—several of whom have agreed to take jobs at LSU. As a result, these coaches have been juggling two jobs: recruiting for LSU while coaching Ole Miss in the Playoff. 

A few left Ole Miss during the week in between their quarterfinal win against Georgia on New Year’s Day and their semifinal matchup against Miami. Tight ends coach/co-offensive coordinator Joe Cox and receivers coach/passing game coordinator George McDonald, for example, have already left for LSU. 

“Do they want to be here? You’re damn right they do,” Golding told reporters. “But again, the situation that it is—they got a job to do, and they need to build a team where they’re at.”

Meanwhile, others pulled double duty. Offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr.—considered one of the Rebels’ most valuable assets—stayed with Ole Miss for the Miami game, but he still had to fulfill obligations at LSU. Weis, along with running backs coach Kevin Smith, who will also eventually leave the Rebels for LSU, reportedly made a brief trip to Baton Rouge on Monday for recruiting visits, returning to Oxford that night to continue game preparation. 

As all this plays out, the Rebels are also working behind the scenes with their NIL collective to secure next year’s roster of coaches. Golding has already announced multiple new hires, including several former LSU employees: former interim head coach Frank Wilson, former associate AD of football Austin Thomas, and director of player personnel Jai Choudhary.

As is the case with all FBS programs, Ole Miss is simultaneously deep in recruiting mode with the transfer portal. And that’s not just to recruit players but also to retain current ones. Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, for example, has signed a conditional offer to remain with the Rebels next year if the NCAA grants him a waiver to play a sixth season. 

But for now, the focus for the players is Thursday night’s semifinal—and, in the words of Golding, the coaches who have stuck around and will be “running them out of the tunnel.”

The Dolphins fired Mike McDaniel on Thursday, bringing the number of NFL teams making head coaching changes this offseason up to eight—25% of the league.

Dolphins owner Stephen Ross announced he had decided that the organization was “in need of comprehensive change” following “careful evaluation and extensive discussion since the season ended” Sunday. 

Miami finished 7–10 and missed the playoffs for a second consecutive year. McDaniel’s firing follows the firing of GM Chris Grier on Oct. 31. The biggest question for the next Dolphins regime will be what to do with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who has a $56.4 million salary cap in 2026.

Tracking Team Moves

Below is a tracker of all the other head coaching and GM firings made since the beginning of the 2025 season.

Ravens: Baltimore parted ways with John Harbaugh on Tuesday after 18 seasons. He was the second-most-tenured coach in the league, behind the Steelers’ Mike Tomlin, and led Baltimore to a Super Bowl XLVII title. Harbaugh had signed a three-year extension prior to this season and is under contract through the 2028 season. He earned $16 million this year, tied for fourth highest in the league.

Browns: On the heels of a 5–12 season, Cleveland’s second straight without a playoff appearance and fourth such campaign in five years, Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam on Black Monday fired coach Kevin Stefanski. In six years with the Browns, Stefanski won the leaguewide honors in 2020 and again in 2023, but overall, he posted a 45–56 record and was expected to be fired as the end of the regular season approached.

Raiders: Las Vegas owner Mark Davis dismissed coach Pete Carroll on Monday after a single season in which he went 3–14. That performance gave the Raiders the first pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, but Carroll won’t be a part of it. Instead, GM John Spytek will “lead all football operations in close collaboration with [part-owner] Tom Brady, including the search for the club’s next head coach.” That decision will give Brady, also the lead on-air analyst for Fox’s NFL coverage, his biggest presence to date in the team’s functions.

Cardinals: Arizona parted ways with Jonathan Gannon on Monday after three years. Posting a 15–36 record over that time, the fate of the former Eagles defensive coordinator was largely sealed as the Cardinals finished the 2025 season with nine straight losses. Cardinals GM Monti Ossenfort will lead the search for Gannon’s replacement. 

Falcons: Atlanta dismissed head coach Raheem Morris and GM Terry Fontenot on Sunday night. Morris went 16–18 in two years with the Falcons, missing the playoffs both years with the team. Fontenot had been with the Falcons since 2021, but he also failed to have a winning season or a playoff berth. Rich McKay, the longtime right-hand man of owner Arthur Blank, is also stepping down as CEO, and the franchise is creating a new position, president of football, and it is widely expected to be former Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan, who is currently an NFL analyst for CBS Sports.

Giants: New York is in the market for the franchise’s fifth head coach in the past decade, after firing Brian Daboll on Nov. 10, following a 2–8 start to the season. The Giants finished the season 4–13, but owners John Mara and Steve Tisch reiterated in a statement on Black Monday that Joe Schoen will remain the team’s GM and continue to lead football operations and the search for the next head coach. 

Titans: Tennessee became the first NFL team to fire its head coach this season, letting go of Brian Callahan on Oct. 13 after a 1–5 start, and just 23 games in charge of the team (he exits with a 4–19 overall record). The quick trigger from Titans controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk increases the organization’s recent high-turnover rate, which includes eight hirings and firings involving the head coach position and front office since December 2022. Strunk on Jan. 2 announced a restructuring of the front office that will see GM Mike Borgonzi now have final say on the team’s 53-man roster, as well as be tasked with leading the head coach search. Borgonzi and the president of football operations, Chad Brinker, will both report to Strunk.

Joseph Maiorana-Imagn Images

Safe, for Now

Beyond the firings, the Bengals on Monday announced coach Zac Taylor and director of player personnel Duke Tobin (the team doesn’t have a GM) will be retained for the 2026 season. The Colts released a similar letter to fans, announcing GM Chris Ballard and coach Shane Steichen will return. 

Todd Bowles is returning to the Buccaneers as head coach for the 2026 season, but on Thursday, the team announced that his staff would look much different as it parted ways with five assistant coaches.

The NHL’s selection of Utah and Rice-Eccles Stadium for the 2027 Winter Classic wasn’t just about finding another picturesque venue for the league’s showcase outdoor event. It was also a clear sign of league approval for what the Mammoth and owner Ryan Smith have achieved in less than two years. 

The league said that the Mammoth and Avalanche will play the next Winter Classic at Rice-Eccles Stadium, a 51,444-seat venue that is the home of the University of Utah football team and features a dramatic backdrop of the nearby Wasatch Mountains. Choosing that locale, and the Mammoth as the host team, arrives as the Smith and his organization have quickly and firmly established hockey in the Beehive State.

Since the spring 2024 move of the former Coyotes franchise to Utah, Smith and the Mammoth have:

• Sold out every game at Delta Center, though the venue continues to have blacked-out seats for hockey due to its original construction for basketball
• Begun a significant retrofitting of the arena this past summer to help address those sightline issues for hockey
• Developed a large-scale training facility in suburban Sandy, Utah, that will soon be joined by a parallel facility for the NBA’s Jazz, also owned by Smith
• Completed a renaming process from the temporary Utah Hockey Club moniker, pivoting after an original choice of Yeti ran into trademark issues
• Struck a large-scale deal with Live Nation Entertainment to build a companion music venue near the Delta Center 
• Developed a playoff contender that is just one standings point out of the final Western Conference wild-card slot, a marked turnaround after five years out of the postseason dating to the prior franchise tenure in Arizona

“If I would have suggested such an announcement three years ago, before this team even existed, people would have thought we were making it up,” said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. “The fan response and the corporate response and the community response [to the Mammoth] has been incredible. We’re delighted to share this event with this great community.”

Bettman’s comments followed similar ones he made in October at an NHL Board of Governors meeting, where he said of Smith and the Mammoth, “They have done everything right, they’ve done everything first class, and everything they’ve accomplished in the time frame that they’d done it in is nothing short of remarkable.”

A specific date for the upcoming game has not yet been chosen, and could be influenced by scheduling for other adjacent events on the sports calendar, including the College Football Playoff and the next NFL season. 

Viewership Issues

The 2026 Winter Classic at Miami’s loanDepot park, meanwhile, struggled in generating broad viewership—despite significant success in and around the game itself, and more broadly, hockey in Florida.

The broadcast on TNT, truTV, and HBO Max averaged 1 million viewers. While that’s up 6% from last year’s all-time low for the event, it’s below historical norms for the event. This year’s increase could also be largely explained by the expansions in Nielsen’s methodologies to track viewership, including the arrival of Big Data + Panel. 

A runaway 5–1 victory by the Rangers over the Panthers also didn’t help, as third-period viewership fell 27% compared to the first two periods.

For the last two Winter Classics, the NHL moved away from its traditional New Year’s Day slot to avoid competition for viewers from college football. Those shifts may have ultimately hurt more than helped, as they moved away from a tradition now nearly two decades old. Bettman said a return to New Year’s Day for the Utah game next year is possible. 

A subsequent Jan. 4 game between the Penguins and Red Wings on ABC, a normal game that wasn’t part of any special event, averaged 1.6 million viewers.