Willie Simmons
Also coached below FBS: Prairie View A&M 2015–17; Florida A&M 2018–23
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 0-1
2025First Responder BowlL 20-57
As of Fri Oct 23
- Last gameL 23-26 vs. Middle Tennessee Tue Oct 20
- This season3-4 lost 2 straight
- Hot seat8% 51st of 137
- On track for6-6 regular season
- Nextat Liberty Sat Oct 31 (no game this week)
- Stature122nd of 138 FBS programs
Win and he’s at 5%. Lose and he’s at 8%.
No game this week · at Liberty, Sat Oct 31, 3:30 pm ET CBS Sports Network · Liberty is 6-1 · Simmons vs. Jamey Chadwell: 1-0 · Florida International’s chance to win: 11% (the site’s model)
- If Florida International wins: 5%, 60th of 137
- Now: 8%
- If Florida International loses: 8%, 51st of 137
Is he getting fired?
8% chance he’s out after the season · 51st of 137 FBS head coaches · Cool
If he finishes…
Bar: how likely that finish isNumber: his chance of being out
- 3-918%
- 4-812%
- 5-78%
- 6-65%
- 7-53%
- 8-42%
Why his number is where it is
Our hot-seat model, on his record so far, the win chances for every game he has left, and his contract (a bigger buyout, relative to pay, makes a change costlier). Ranked against the 137 FBS head coaches with 3+ games this season.
Now right where 2025 was at this point.
His hot seat, week by week
The chance he’s out by the end of that season, as it stood after every week of his tenure here, by today’s model.
Earlier seasons price the games left with power ratings rebuilt after those seasons ended.
What drives his number
The biggest factors, each against the typical FBS job today.
- ▲ Hotter$1.6M buyout (imputed from pay) · 2.1× his pay, a multiple among the smallest in FBS — cheap to move on
- ▲ Hotter3-4, outscoring opponents by 27
- ▼ CoolerRegional Program program · the bar going in
What happened to coaches like him, 2004–2025
A different comparison: past coaches, not today’s, grouped by one fact at a time. Neither line knows the games he has left or his contract, so they can sit above or below his chance.
- Were 3-4 after 7 games
- 13% pushed out over results · of 522 coaches
- Were in year 2, after 7 games
- 5% pushed out over results · of 473 coaches
How good is this number? Checked on every FBS coach from 2010 to 2025, with its percentages calibrated each season on earlier years only: they track what happened — coaches it put near 25% were out about a quarter of the time — and a version pricing the games left with the previous season’s ratings ranked jobs as well as the ranking this page used before. Each week it learns from coaches who were still on the job at that point, so a firing during the season counts. In the Boiling zone it has run a few points high. Every job, and the method.
1 headline named him in the last 7 days
82nd of 138 FBS head coaches
The headlines, Oct 21–23
FIU AthleticsFootball | Postgame Media Availability | Willie Simmons | Middle TennesseeWed Oct 21
Offense: 110th of 138 per play. Defense: 45th.
5 games left
- Sat Oct 31at Liberty (6-1)CBS Sports Network11%
- Sat Nov 7vs. Missouri State (2-5)78%
- Sat Nov 14at Delaware (3-4)36%
- Sat Nov 21at Kennesaw State (1-6)63%
- Sat Nov 28vs. Sam Houston (1-6)71%
Percent: Florida International’s chance to win, from the site’s model. Records are through today. Networks as announced; the rest are set closer to kickoff.
How the season got here
Where Florida International stood among 138 FBS programs by stature after each game (1st is the highest; the CFB Zeitgeist ledger).
- Oct 12–18L 24-27 at Jacksonville State0 headlines
- Oct 5–11W 22-3 vs. New Mexico State0 headlines
- Sep 28–Oct 4No game0 headlines
- Sep 21–27 · rebuiltW 20-3 vs. Long Island University0 headlines
- Sep 14–20 · rebuiltL 10-16 at Florida Atlantic0 headlines
- Sep 7–13 · rebuiltW 33-20 vs. Buffalo0 headlines
Each week as this page showed it at the time. Weeks marked rebuilt came before this page existed: they were built afterward from only what was known by the end of that week.
Watch the biggest plays from Florida International’s games, ranked by how much each moved the chance to win.
6 stories about him in the last 60 days
Bye week. Next: Liberty, Sat Oct 31
from 1 outlet
Willie Simmons Coach’s Show Previews VICE Night on Monday Evening
FIU Athletics Oct 4 · 1 outlet
What they’re talking about
Game preview2 stories
- FIU AthleticsWillie Simmons Coach’s Show Live Monday Night Ahead of Shula BowlSep 13
- FIU AthleticsWillie Simmons Coach’s Show Previews VICE Night on Monday EveningOct 4
6 stories about him this season
from 1 outlet
Willie Simmons Coach’s Show Previews VICE Night on Monday Evening
FIU Athletics Oct 4 · 1 outlet
What they’re talking about
Game preview2 stories
- FIU AthleticsWillie Simmons Coach’s Show Live Monday Night Ahead of Shula BowlSep 13
- FIU AthleticsWillie Simmons Coach’s Show Previews VICE Night on Monday EveningOct 4
10 stories about him across 2 seasons
Is he on the hot seat? Could another school hire him? What has he said?
Stories are headlines grouped by what they are about, counted through Oct 23.
In his own words
Awaiting signal — no quotes collected from this staff yet this cycle.
Hires into jobs like this
Hired into 8–9, Regional Program V. Rough match, not calibrated yet — ranked on what the job inherited alone. Coaches hired into this same job aren’t used as comps.
- Mike MacIntyre20224–8-1.9
- Butch Davis20178–5+0.7
- Ron Turner20131–11-3.4
- Mario Cristobal20071–11-2.7
Poach watch
This winter
Our poach model, on his record so far, the win chances for every game he has left, his program, his pay and his background. Ranked against the 137 FBS head coaches this season. The zone words describe the market’s interest; none of them says he is leaving.
What drives his number
The biggest factors in his profile, each against the typical FBS head coach today. The games he has left are priced into the number, not listed here.
- ▲ HigherPaid $750,000 in 2025, the 10th percentile of published FBS head-coach pay
- ▼ Lower7-6 over his previous season here
- ▲ HigherA Group of Five program · 11th percentile of FBS in program stature last season
How good is this number? It ranks a head coach who leaves for another head-coaching job ahead of one who stays 78 to 82% of the time, and its average came within a point of the share who actually left. What it can’t do
Tested on every FBS head coach from 2012 through 2025, each season scored by a model fit only on the seasons before it. From three games on, given one coach who left for a head-coaching job elsewhere or an NFL coordinator job and one who stayed, it ranked the one who left ahead 79 to 82% of the time; in a season’s first two games, 78%. Its average chance came within a point of the share who actually left. It counts a move a coach makes while he still holds the job; when his school ends it, that doesn’t count, even if another school then hires him.
- The live number prices the games he has left with the power model’s ratings from this season. The test priced them with each team’s rating from the season before, because ratings made during past seasons were not kept, so this live version could not be replayed.
- Programs new to FBS have no FBS record before this season in the data it reads, so their coaches are scored without one.
- It is frozen: it learns nothing from 2026 until a deliberate refit.
- A coach hired in December needs his background (age, alma mater, the state he was born in) added before his first game, or he shows as not rated.
Coaching career
Followed Mike MacIntyre (2022–2024).
| Season | 2025 | 2026 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||
| Record | 7-6 | 3-4 | |
| Postseason | L bowl | — | |
| Coordinators | |||
| OC | Nick Coleman | Nick Coleman | |
| DC | Jovan Dewitt | Jovan Dewitt | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||
| Offense | 41 | 21 | |
| Defense | 43 | 68 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||
| 1st-down pass% | 44.6 | 45.7 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 38.2 | 47.5 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 34.1 | 40.0 | |
Performs about as expected for his recruiting talent, on both sides of the ball.
Typical size for position, once adjusted for position mix.
Recruits younger transfers than most — more of a development bet.
AI Narratives — “Florida International — stat check”.
Big games
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Called about what the situation called for.
876 run and pass snaps at Florida International, 2025–2025, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
How good is he so far?
Three numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
His recruiting, really
His one ranked Florida International class of his own finished #102 nationally.
His class — he had the full signing cycleTransition — he was hired mid-cycle
Rank is each signing class’s national recruiting rank (#1 is best). Only a class he had a full signing cycle to build counts as his; inherited and mid-transition classes still show here, faded, but stay out of the average.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2026 roster arrived on his watch — 91 of 109 players. The other 18 are holdovers from before he was hired.
Of his own players on this roster, 25% came through the transfer portal; the rest are non-portal arrivals (high-school signees, JUCO transfers, walk-ons).
Everyone he has brought in, 2025–2026Counting players who have since left: 27% of the 115 arrivals we can classify came through the portal.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 37 of 46 signees (80%) across his 2025–2026 tenure, drawn from 6 states in all. Next: GA (4).
89% of his signees come from FL and its 2 border states (GA 4).
Off this map: 3 signees to the west (KS 2, TX) and 1 to the north (PA).
- median hometown distance
- 111 mi
- within 100 mi
- 49%
- within 500 mi
- 74%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 10%
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.