The football programs at Auburn, UAB and Samford have one thing in common. Each is completing the 2025 season under an interim head coach after firing the coach who began the season.

On Oct. 12, the University of Alabama at Birmingham fired Trent Dilfer as its head coach, naming offensive coordinator Alex Mortensen as its interim coach. The Blazers opened the season with a 2-4 record.

Auburn University fired head football coach Hugh Freeze on Nov. 2 due to the team’s poor performance. The Tigers were 4-5 overall at that point. The final straw was a 10-3 home loss to Kentucky that dropped the team’s conference record to 1-5. D.J. Durkin was appointed the interim head coach. He continues to serve as the team’s defensive coordinator and linebackers coach.

Samford University completed the coaching trilogy a week later, firing head football coach Chris Hatcher on Nov. 9. A day later, Samford named Scot Sloan as the school’s interim head football coach for the remainder of the season. Sloan is in his first season as Samford’s defensive coordinator.

Not so many years ago, colleges and universities might have waited until the end of the season before parting ways with a head football coach and beginning the search for his successor. But not today.

Samford Athletic Director Martin Newton said Hatcher did a “tremendous job” during his 11-year tenure, which included an 11-2 season in 2022.

“He’s going to leave here as the all-time winningest coach (62-59), which is a testament to his ability to coach,” Newton said. “I’m really thankful and grateful to him for all that he did here and how he represented Sanford University.”

The Bulldogs athletic director said consistency suffered the past two seasons.

“The transfer portal at this level has really affected things,” he said. “It used to be you could get kids that would transfer down from the FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) and play at this level immediately. Now that they can transfer FBS to FBS, you’re not getting as many of those kids. Having to adjust how you play, how you scheme, how you do things has been a real challenge for FCS (Football Championship Subdivision) programs.”

UAB Athletic Director Mark Ingram said in a statement that the FBS Blazers’ on-field performance has not lived up to the standard of winning the school has. Dilfer was 9-21 in not quite three seasons, failing to win a single road game during his time on Birmingham’s Southside.

“This decision will allow us to move forward in the best long-term interest of the program,” Ingram said, adding his best wishes for his now former coach. “While his efforts did not translate into a winning record, each young man who played for him will be a better person as a result.”

Former UAB coach Bill Clark talked about Freeze’s firing on the Nov. 7 edition of The Coach Bill Clark Show on WJOX-FM.

“No offense to anybody (but) this is just the world we live in and the world I come from, where results matter,” Clark said. “I think Coach Freeze will be the first to tell you he was given every opportunity and change was made.

“And I think as we’ve seen other places go ahead and make these changes in the middle of the year,” Clark continued. “You would assume there’s a limited number of coaches that are felt like (they) could do something at that level, in the elite spots. I think that’s why they decided to go make the change now.”

Don Jackson is a sports attorney in Montgomery who teaches sports law at Samford. He said what’s happened in Alabama can be seen across the country.

“It’s not just here in the state of Alabama,” he said. “Virginia Tech fired their head coach first, then Penn State fired their head coach, and then Virginia State is considering Penn State’s former head coach. The reality is the whole landscape of college sports has changed because of the timing of the transfer portal.”

The transfer portal is the door through which players will leave one football program for another. NIL, the ability to pay players for the use of their name, image and likeness, is the invitation that gets them to leave one school for another.

“I think the hard part coaches have is the fact that people are reaching out to players during the season, which I hate,” Clark told BirminghamWatch. “But you’ve got to understand the landscape, and this is what we’re dealing with now.

“The good news is if you’re (a coach) coming in a program, you’ve got a chance to remake that whole program,” the former Blazer coach said. “The bad news is everybody is looking at everybody’s players constantly. It’s a crazy time. You do have the ability to come into a new place and make a substantial change to your roster.”

For college football, the main transfer window for the 2025-2026 season is Jan. 2-16, 2026. Athletes on teams that reach the national championship game will have an additional five-day window from Jan. 20 to Jan. 24, 2026, to enter the portal.

The NCAA has eliminated the spring transfer window, consolidating it into a single January window with an exception for players still competing in the title game of the College Football Playoffs.

“Because of the timing of the transfer portal, it’s almost necessary now to make these decisions a lot earlier than before,” Jackson said. “Players are going to be making decisions about where they’ll be transferring to almost immediately after the season. Some actually will likely even make the decisions — or narrow the decisions — during the season.

“I think that’s just one of the things that we’ll start to see over the next several years in college football,” he continued. “I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing. I think it’s really more of a paradigm shift that’s caused the whole employment process to be changed.”

Jackson said he hates to see coaches lose their jobs under any circumstances. That said, decisions must be made.

“Gone are the days when you could wait,” the attorney said. “Mid-majors, at one point, would wait until after Christmas, January, sometimes even February. HBCUs would wait even longer to make hiring decisions. Those days are gone. At this particular point, you’ve got to make decisions fairly quickly.”

Jackson cited LSU’s firing of head football coach Brian Kelly on Oct. 26, following a loss to Texas A&M. The decision came after a 5-3 start to the season, which was viewed as a disappointment because of lofty expectations for the program.

Said Jackson: “If you’re not productive, schools are going to be forced to make hiring and firing decisions.”

Clark said coaches are expected to “win now.”’ Meanwhile, young players who might have waited their turn to get into the lineup expect to “play now.”

“That whole landscape is so mobile,” he said. “There are so many people in their ears. They’ve all got agents. It’s a constant management of that world.”

Thus, coaches who see potential in a player may not see that potential realized on their roster.

“People develop him and then don’t get to see him (on their team) because somebody else with a lot of money gets to go take him,” Clark said. “You hate to see that.”