Coaching carousel arrives, plus CFB weekend schedule guide New York Times (Online) Jason Kirk Until Saturday Newsletter 🏈 | This is The Athletic 's college football newsletter. Sign up here to receive Until Saturday directly in your inbox. Congrats to Delaware, Marshall, Middle Tennessee and New Mexico State, winners already this week. Derek Mason is 4-3 in Year 3 at MTSU, already his best season there. Nice rebound from the hot seat, unlike … Last year's coaching carousel, which included 10 open FBS jobs before Halloween, was unusually berserk. ( Previous 15-year average : three.) Was that early stampede of sackings the beginning of a new trend? As pretty much always, the answer likeliest to make you end up feeling smart was: “We'll see.” Because one year after that meltdown, this season had zero firings before yesterday. That indicates there might be interesting counter-trends — I'm guessing 4-2 Wisconsin feels OK about doubling down on Luke Fickell — along with these things generally being cyclical. At 2-5 Maryland, Mike Locksley is out with a 38-49 record over an eight-year stint. This season's losses were each uniquely awful, and any could've served as the definitive finale. Inevitable, for a month now. But to me, his exit was less about doing a bad job and more about having a hard job. (He also did much better than he once did at New Mexico, one of the 25 worst tenures of this half-century.) The DMV native recruited two of the Terps' three top-25 classes of the last 20 years, but if someone this connected to the area couldn't win there, I'm not certain who can . Who might be next? Several potential names , with USC and (as always) Florida State the biggest jobs facing real uncertainty at the moment. Let's also review Chris Vannini's list of 20 coaches who'll be mentioned as candidates for a variety of jobs over the next year or two, including Northwestern OC Chip Kelly. Also, the arrival of the carousel always feels like the equivalent of a trade deadline in other sports, a good time for a check-in around the middle of the season. So let's do just that. 🎧 “In the moment, it can be like, 'Holy s—, what the f— are we doing? How is this a billion-dollar industry?'” Everything going on with coaching staff headsets , on the sidelines and in the booth. NFL story, relevant for college fans. (Ah, that's where former Miami head coach Al Golden is!) 📰 News: Seven days ago, I said this past weekend looked like it'd be one of the biggest and possibly wildest of the season. I'm not quite saying the same about the upcoming schedule. But! As always, we're gonna have fun. There's a ton going on, albeit without much headliner-level stuff. I've updated the spreadsheet, and remember, it's partly about what else is going on at the same time as your team's game: And let's do some quick notes. Weeknight: Undefeated JMU at App State intros a big weekend for the G6. Each current odds favorite in those leagues (the Dukes, along with Boise State, Liberty, New Mexico, North Texas and Western Michigan) is on the road and/or facing a point spread of under a TD, with some against fellow conference contenders. Saturday early: Pitt's visit will be Miami's first game as the No. 1 team since _______. (Answer below.) Saturday middle: This trip to UCF will be BYU's first game as the No. 2 team since _______. (Same for this one.) Primetime: It could get bad quickly for No. 19 Texas (-3.5). Can Steve Sarkisian's laborious offense keep up with No. 7 Ole Miss? Could an early three-and-out lead to the home crowd booing the struggling Arch Manning ? Saturday late: Big week for the Big 12 all around, with all three of its undefeated teams (half of FBS' six) in potential tough spots. BYU and No. 8 Texas Tech are far from home, and to close the day, No. 10 Utah is just a touchdown favorite in SLC against No. 14 Houston. Now here's a clip from Stewart Mandel's new mailbag . Can you help me understand the pragmatic reasoning (i.e., the money) behind why the Big Ten pushed so hard for a 24-team Playoff? — Sean F. It's definitely not for the money. ESPN is paying $345 million a year for 10 extra games. (They already owned the rights to the two extras in a potential 16-team CFP under the new contract.) The conferences are collectively losing around $250 million from the canceled conference championships. So they're making an extra $95 million, split (unevenly) across 138 FBS schools, minus the overhead of staging 12 new on-campus games. Pennies, really. The main drivers: Of course, we know how that will go: Making the 24 might feel like a success at first, but soon enough it won't feel satisfying either, and coaches will get fired for not advancing far enough. And the first set of schools that feel they got snubbed out of the last at-large berths will immediately campaign for 32. More mailbag by Stew here , including on this year's SEC being far from fraudulent, no matter how upsetting that might be to fans of teams from elsewhere. Trivia: Miami's last game with the No. 1 ranking was 2002's national title loss to Ohio State, the one with the penalty , and BYU has actually never been No. 2 before. Misdirection! Late in the Cougars' 1984 title season , they jumped straight from No. 3 to No. 1. See you Sunday. Email me at untilsaturday@theathletic.com about whatever. Love Until Saturday? Check out The Athletic 's other newsletters , too.