College football nearly made it to October without a coaching change, but Rutgers had seen enough after its latest blowout loss.
Rutgers on Sunday fired coach Chris Ash, who went 8-32 at the school and ended with 14 consecutive Big Ten losses, the latest a 52-0 whipping Saturday at Michigan. Ash entered the season on the hot seat, and after the team's recent struggles -- outscored 112-16 since opening the season with a 27-point win over UMass -- his exit was inevitable.
More moves are likely in October, especially if certain coaches can't change troubling trajectories. Not surprisingly, the landscape looks different than it did before the season, when Auburn's Gus Malzahn was a prominent name on hot-seat lists, Florida State's Willie Taggart was, at best, a fringe hot-seat coach, and Tennessee's Jeremy Pruitt and Arkansas' Chad Morris among others appeared totally safe.