There is no profession in the world in which people are more overpaid to do a job they are mediocre at than college football head coaches on a general scale. NFL coaches are the only ones who could beat them. Our Football IQ segment returns for 2025, and the entertainment just never stops. Here are the five dumbest head coaching decisions of Week 0 and Week 1.

5. Marcus Freeman doesn’t get Jeremiyah Love the ball

You’ve got to love having a Heisman contender on offense at running back with an elite offensive line when you’re on the road. It’s a way to help take the crowd out of the game. Well, Marcus Freeman and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish coaching staff decided to do the exact opposite when they visited the Miami Hurricanes Sunday.

With highly touted Jeremiyah Love at running back and an elite offensive line, Freeman and co. thought it would be a good idea to put the game in new quarterback C.J. Carr’s hands early. They threw it seven times on their first eight plays and gave Love the ball once. Love finished the game with just 10 carries. Sure, he only had 33 yards, but if they used him early, they likely could have set a tone.

4. Frank Reich puts it in the air for no reason

Stanford Cardinal fans are dealing with what Indianapolis Colts and Carolina Panthers fans dealt with. Frank Reich loves to show off brilliant play-calls he made to the detriment of winning games, and he’s taken that to the college football level. In a Week 0 23-20 loss to the Hawaii Warriors, Stanford had driven to the Hawaii 24-yard line leading 20-17 with six minutes to go.

The Cardinal were approaching 200 yards on the ground and getting more unstoppable as the game went on. So what did Reich do? He put it in the air with a complex pass designed for a quarterback who hadn’t played well all game. Of course, it was intercepted, and Hawaii was able to turn that into a field goal drive. They then won 23-20 in OT. If Stanford just keeps it on the ground, they win.

3.Steve Sarkisian fourth down play-calling

Going for it on five fourth downs and just hitting one of them was brutal for the Texas Longhorns’ loss to the Ohio State Buckeyes. However, Steve Sarkisian’s aggression isn’t the problem. On two of those plays, the fourth down pass was there, but Arch Manning overthrew one and made the wrong read. The real issue were his play-calls.

Sark called the tush push on a 4th and goal from beyond the one-yard line with Arch Manning on one play. It was way too long a yard and not going to work. Two other fourth downs only happened because Sark didn’t give the ball to Quentrevion Wisner, who had 16 carries for 80 yards and was picking up steam with 11 carries for 59 yards in the second half.

Manning was struggling, but Sark kept putting the ball in his hands instead of Wisner’s, and at the same time he was being careful with Manning’s passes. It was all most egregious on Texas’ final drive. Wisman gained five yards on a first down. Sark then dialed up a passing play three straight times, all of which fell incomplete. RUN…THE…BALL!!!

2. Blake Harrell of ECU WASTES 4th down timeout

Welcome to your classic burning timeouts to talk about a play. The East Carolina Pirates had a chance to upset the N.C. State Wolfpack. Trailing 24-17 late, they drove down inside the N.C. State 10-yard line, and a 4th and 1 came up with 1:21 to go. ECU had all three timeouts left. Blake Harrell then let the clock run all the way down to 41 seconds and then burned one of his timeouts.

That allowed N.C. State to run out the clock after they failed on their fourth down.

Look, there is method to the madness of running down the clock there, because if you do score, you don’t want the Wolfpack to have a chance to drive down for a game-winning field goal. However, there was NO reason to burn that timeout. Keeping it would’ve left one more faint chance in ECU’s pocket, but Harrell stupidly blew it.

1. Deion Sanders doesn’t use timeouts

Just as Harrell was set to win our Les Miles clock mismanagement award of the week Thursday, Deion Sanders outdid him Friday. Starting a new quarterback in Kaidon Salter and entering a new era, Coach Prime had a few things go against his Colorado Buffaloes in their 27-20 loss to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, but they were given one last chance thanks to GT stupidity.

GT quarterback Haynes King got a first down and ran all the way down the field with the score tied at 20. If he goes down at the one, GT can run down the clock and kick a chip shot field goal, but he stupidly scored. That gave Colorado the ball with one minute and seven seconds to go and two timeouts. You just knew they would score.

Prime took those timeouts home with him. His explanation was that they went out of bounds on one play and got multiple first downs on other completions, but that wasn’t true. The first play was a two-yard completion in bounds, and it ran 23 seconds off the clock. It was coaching malpractice and easily the dumbest decision to open the college football season for any coach.