re: What are each teams' 2026 floor expectation?

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That's just not true lol

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Oh but it is.

If you go back and see my statement, I clearly said "was fired or was majorly on the hot seat... especially if they didn't have any hardware to show for".

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Mike Donahue in year 11: 2-5 (not fired) coached another 3 years

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Really? You're having to go back to 1918 to find an example? Even so this clearly passes my caveat... Mike Donahue was 61-14-4 in those first 10 seasons and had won four conference titles.... surely having a 5-loss season in Year 11 was tolerated having won 81% of his games that first decade.

This is in no way close to your current Heupel situation.

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Shug Jordan in year 15: 5-5-1 (not fired) coached for another 10 years

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Shug Jordan had a national title under his belt and had won 76% of his games in the previous decade... he was also two seasons removed from an AP Top 5 finish.

Again, this is no where close to Heupel's situation at Tennessee.

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Pat Dye in year 11: 5-6-1 (not fired) coached for another year

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This absolutely proves my point. Arguably our best coach in history who had won 4 SEC titles finally had a bad season in 1991 and immediately went on the hot seat. The slump continued in 1992 so he was canned. Despite four SEC titles.

You are literally proving my point for me.

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Tommy Tuberville in year 5: 8-5 (not fired) coached for another 5 years

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LOL. Do you remember 2003? If you don't think Tubs was majorly on the hot seat after five losses in Year 5, you are beyond help. Boosters flew up and met with Bobby Petrino to try to pull a coup on Tuberville, and Tubs barely escaped with his job. He was forced to fire all coordinators and was told he better win big in 2004 to keep his job.

Again, you are proving my point.

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Gus Malzhan in year 6: 8-5 (not fired) coached for another 2 years

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This was already covered. Gus was 100% on the hot seat from 2015 onwards despite having an SEC Championship trophy in the case and playing for a national title. From 2019 through late November 2020, his Auburn teams were ranked in 27 out of the previous 29 AP poll releases. He then lost his final four games of the season and was canned.

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But acting like Auburn would fire a coach who just had 8 wins is insane.

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Why? History shows it would for sure happen.

In the past 75 years Auburn has literally never let a single head coach get through Year 6 unless they had won an SEC Title or were winning 70+% of their games in the most recent season. Literally not one.

Shug Jordan won a National Title in Year 7 but probably only made it to that year because he went 8-2-1 in Year 5 and 7-3 in Year 6.

Doug Barfield was fired in 1980 one year removed from an 8-3 season in Year 4... after 5 seasons he had failed to win the SEC so he was canned.

Pat Dye won four SEC titles in his first 10 seasons. That gave him a little leeway to have one bad season in Year 11 but a second bad season in Year 12 got him fired.

Terry Bowden was fired in the middle of Year 6 despite winning 79% of his games in his first five seasons.

Tuberville had the hottest seat possible going into Year 6 because he hadn't won an SEC Title (though he did get a team to the SEC CG)... he won the SEC in Year 6 and that saved him a few years.

Gene Chizik was fired after 4 seasons despite winning 75% of his games up until his final Year and having a National title trophy.

Gus had an SEC Title in Year 1 which is the only thing that bought him as much time as he got.

Harsin was fired after 2 seasons.

Freeze was fired in the middle of Year 3.

There is absolutely ZERO chance that Josh Heupel wouldn't at the very least be on the hottest seat imaginable if he were at Auburn and had done here what he's done at Tennessee in the first five seasons. It'd be SEC title or your fired going into Year 6. Meanwhile Tennessee is as happy as Heupel at a buffet with his performance.