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Paul Finebaum: Two Big Ten Coaches Under Most Pressure in College Football Playoff

Some familiar names will be feeling the heat.

Kyle Koster

Ohio State University football coach Ryan Day.
Ohio State University football coach Ryan Day. / Doral Chenoweth/The Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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The field for the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff has been revealed. Sunday was for seeing the bracket and allowing a bunch of coaches who lost three games this season to cry foul that they were not invited to the dance. But now it's time to move on and discuss which of these coaches who have led their teams to the only postseason play that matters in the sport is facing the most pressure to win in the tournament

Paul Finebaum had opinions on Mondays' Get Up, identifying Ryan Day of Ohio State and James Franklin of Penn State as the two guys most feeling the heat.

"Ryan Day has his job on the line. If he gets knocked out in the first round I think that's it for him. He's not going to make it and he'll be fired. The other coach who has enormous pressure is James Franklin. We can always count on James Franklin of Penn State to blow a big game and he did it the other day. You saw the graphic on the screen, he's something like 1-14 against Top-5. He won't have to worry about that with SMU but somehow if he loses that or the next game I think the heat on him is going to be ratcheted up to an all-time high."

It's not entirely fair to say Franklin and Penn State blew the Big Ten Championship Game against Oregon because the Ducks are clearly the best and most accomplished team in the sport right now. But it's also difficult to defend Franklin and Day when it comes to their track record in games against elite opponents. It's going to be weird when a college coach is eventually fired for an early playoff exit yet in Day's case it would be expected.

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Kyle Koster
KYLE KOSTER

Kyle Koster is an assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated covering the intersection of sports and media. He was formerly the editor in chief of The Big Lead, where he worked from 2011 to '24. Koster also did turns at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he created the Sports Pros(e) blog, and at Woven Digital.

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