Bottom 10: Hot seats keep getting hotter ... just ask Brian Kelly

Inspirational thought of the week:

Take this job and shove it
I ain't working here no more
My woman done left
And took all the reasons
I was working for

You better not try to stand in my way
As I'm a-walking out the door
Take this job and shove it
I ain't working here no more

-- "Take This Job and Shove It," Johnny Paycheck

Here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located behind the wall of industrial-sized cooling fans used to keep Pete Thamel's phone and laptop labeled "Coaching Carousel News Breakers" from overheating and exploding like the Death Star, we are following what would appear to be a good plan for anyone and everyone who has even the tiniest line of crossover into the Venn diagram of college football: wearing a hardhat and hiding under our desks as everyone around us shouts, "Timber!" as yet another FBS head coach falls.

No less than eight Power 4 coaches have been relieved of their duties as of the writing of this week's rankings. That count hits an even dozen when you include the jobs lost in the Gang of 6 leagues, as we always do around here.

It's fitting that this is all peaking just before Halloween. Because a year ago, I dressed in a costume as a college football coach, circa 2007 "I'm a man! I'm 40!" Mike Gundy. That night I was a little overserved and didn't realize that I had placed my metal folding chair directly over a smoldering fire pit and wound up burning my Cowboy Orange butt because, yes, I as Mike Gundy unknowingly had been on a hot seat.

Oklahoma State and Brian Kelly have a chance to do the funniest thing ever pic.twitter.com/SFab173DGe

With apologies to Ball State wide receiver Trey Firestone, former UCLA kicker Joseph Firebaugh, Syracuse defensive lineman Kevin Jobity and Steve Harvey, here are the post-Week 9 Bottom 10 rankings.

1. UMess (0-8)

The Minuetmen took a break from their Pillow Fight of the Week marathon, losing to five-win Central Michigan. Now they hit a two-game stretch that in preseason felt like a surefire PFOW doubleheader, but Akronmonious had the Akrondacity to win three games. However, the next opponent, Northern Ill-ugh-noise has hovered between the Bottom 10 Waiting List and the actual Bottom 10 all season, even earning us a mention in a recent write-up about the team's woes since beating Notre Dame, which happened on Sept. 7, 2024, but with the Huskies' record sitting at 8-11 since then, it feels more like Sept. 7, 1924.

2. Sam Houston, We Have a Problem (0-7)

Speaking of Pillow Fights, with all due respect to the Bearkats' upkoming Halloween kostume kontest with the kajun-speaking kin of Louisiana, our fokus is already on the next weekend's kruise west to kompete with ...

3. Oregon Trail State (You have died of dysentery) (1-7)

The Beavs spent their bye week celebrating their Week 8 win over the Lafayette Leopards and resting up for Phase 1 of their in-season home-and-home with fellow 2Pac member Wazzu. But in between those two games are matchups with Sam Houston and another Bottom 10 flirt, Livin' on Tulsa Time.

4. Novada (1-7)

The Woof Pack's past six games were lost by margins of 1, 15, 3, 34, 2 and 21. So expect this weekend's trip to Utah State to be a single-digit defeat and the next week's visit from San No-se State to be a double-digit loss. It's the best roller coaster in Reno since the one my parents put me and my brother on one at the Circus Circus Hotel & Casino in 1979 while Mom ran down to the floor to play the new Burt Reynolds-themed slot machines.

5. LS-Yew (5-3)

After spending more than a decade working tirelessly to somewhat successfully repair his onetime Notre Dame public image of being about as huggable as a cactus, last summer Brian Kelly hired an image consultant to help him get his efforts over the top. Unfortunately, it was a former NASCAR PR exec from the late 2000s. That's like hiring one of the guys from the lookout tower of the Titanic to help you steer your yacht out of the sales dock.

6. Georgia State Not Southern (1-7)

Georgia State Not Southern lost back-to-back Pillow Fights of the Week, to Georgia Southern Not State and the South Alabama Redundancies. It was the first time a Bottom 10 team had accomplished such a feat since ... checks notes ... Penn State last month.

7. Charlotte 1-and-7ers (1-7)

I love this time of year on cable television because all the networks start running midweek nighttime Halloween marathons. Like Hulu showing all the Alien movies. Or AMC showing the Friday the 13th series. Or the ESPN networks showing Charlotte 49ers football.

8. Muddled Tennessee State (1-6)

Speaking of stuff jumping out from the dark and scaring the bejesus out of us, make sure you carry a flashlight into the shadows of Week 13. That's when MTSU hosts Sam Houston State.

9. Bah-stan Cawledge (1-7)

If Wake Forest can play North Carolina and NC State can play Virginia as nonconference games against in-conference opponents, then why can't we add a mid-December non-ACC, Bottom 10-sanctioned #goacc Mega Bowl between the BC Headache Powders and the 2-5 UNC Chapel Bills? I imagine a bunch of New Englanders at the front end of their winter's Sam Adams-fueled hibernation might have some things they'd like to say to Coach Belichick if he came to Newton for the holidays.

10. Ughlahoma State (1-7)

Full disclosure, we were going to put Livin' on Tulsa Time in this spot after Tulsa lost to Temple, one month after losing to Tulane, meaning that TU lost to both TU and TU, the second in OT. But then we remembered that one of TU's TW's (two wins) came at OSU, which just lost to TTU by 42.

Waiting List: Livin' on Tulsa Time, Colora-duh State, Can't-ucky, Arkansaw, South Alabama Redundancies, San No-se State, UTEPid, Worst Virginia, Northern Ill-ugh-noise, EMU Emus, Wisconsin Bad-gers, Akronmonious, UNC Chapel Bill, the USC-Notre Dame series ending.