Which Power 5 conference goes through the most head coaches? We wonder …

Even before the SEC’s regular season ended Saturday, four of the league’s head coaches had received a pink slip this autumn: Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss, Jim McElwain at Florida, Butch Jones at Tennessee and Bret Bielema at Arkansas.

The SEC is the land of potential glory for coaches, but it’s also a snake pit. Remember Gus Malzahn being on the hot seat this season? Now he has the Auburn Tigers one win from a conference championship and a possible College Football Playoff spot.

So, how many coaching changes have been made at Power 5 schools plus Notre Dame in the past decade (defined here as since the beginning of the 2008 season)? A ton. In fact, 114 in all. Only seven schools out of the 65 listed have had the same coach in each of the past 10 full seasons including 2017, and just one in the SEC — Nick Saban at Alabama, of course.

A couple of notes: Interim coaches, even ones there for a full season — like Luke Fickel at Ohio State in 2011 and Matt Luke this year at Ole Miss — are not included. Otherwise, all coaching changes are included even when a coach left of his own volition, such as Chip Kelly bolting Oregon for the NFL or Paul Chryst jumping from Pitt to Wisconsin. Also, this chart reflects current conference lineups even if a coaching change took place when a school was in a different conference. This list does not include coaches in place for any games before the start of the 2008 season.

Here are all the new coaches since 2008 up to and including Saturday, when UCLA hired Chip Kelly and Nebraska fired Mike Riley:

SEC: 28 changes (average 2.0 per school)

Alabama: None

Arkansas: 4 — Bobby Petrino, John L. Smith, Bret Bielema, TBA

Auburn: 2 — Gene Chizik, Gus Malzahn

Florida: 3 — Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain, TBA

Georgia: 1 — Kirby Smart

Kentucky: 2 — Joker Phillips, Mark Stoops

LSU: 1 — Ed Orgeron

Mississippi State: 1 — Dan Mullen

Missouri: 1 — Barry Odom

Ole Miss: 3 — Houston Nutt, Hugh Freeze, TBA

South Carolina: 1 — Will Muschamp

Tennessee: 4 — Lane Kiffin, Derek Dooley, Butch Jones, TBA

Texas A&M: 2 — Mike Sherman, Kevin Sumlin

Vanderbilt: 3 — Robbie Caldwell, James Franklin, Derek Mason

ACC: 23 changes (1.6 per school)

Boston College: 2 — Frank Spaziani, Steve Addazio

Clemson: 1 — Dabo Swinney

Duke: 1 — David Cutcliffe

Florida State: 1 — Jimbo Fisher

Georgia Tech: 1 — Paul Johnson

Louisville: 2 — Charlie Strong, Bobby Petrino

Miami: 2 — Al Golden, Mark Richt

North Carolina: 1 — Larry Fedora

North Carolina State: 1 — Tom O’Brien, Dave Doeren

Pittsburgh: 3 — Todd Graham, Paul Chryst, Pat Narduzzi

Syracuse: 3 — Doug Marrone, Scott Shafer, Dino Babers

Virginia: 2 — Mike London, Bronco Mendenhall

Virginia Tech: 1 — Justin Fuente

Wake Forest: 1 — Dave Clawson

Big Ten: 26 changes (1.9 per school)

Illinois: 3 — Tim Beckman, Bill Cubit (initially interim, then full-time, then fired), Lovie Smith

Indiana: 2 — Kevin Wilson, Tom Allen

Iowa: None

Maryland: 1 — Randy Edsall, D.J. Durkin

Michigan: 3 — Rich Rodriguez, Brady Hoke, Jim Harbaugh

Michigan State: None

Minnesota: 3 — Jerry Kill, Tracy Claeys, P.J. Fleck

Nebraska: 3 — Bo Pelini, Mike Riley, TBA

Northwestern: None

Ohio State: 1 — Urban Meyer

Penn State: 2 — Bill O’Brien, James Franklin

Purdue: 3 — Danny Hope, Darrell Hazell, Jeff Brohm

Rutgers: 2 — Kyle Flood, Chris Ash

Wisconsin: 2 — Gary Andersen, Paul Chryst

Big 12: 14 changes (1.4 per school)

Baylor: 2 — Art Briles, Matt Rhule

Iowa State: 2 — Paul Rhoads, Matt Campbell

Kansas: 3 — Turner Gill, Charlie Weis, David Beaty

Kansas State: 1 — Bill Snyder (second stint)

Oklahoma: 1 — Lincoln Riley

Oklahoma State: None

TCU: None

Texas: 2 — Charlie Strong, Tom Herman

Texas Tech: 2 — Tommy Tuberville, Kliff Kingsbury

West Virginia: 1 — Dana Holgorsen

Pac-12: 22 changes (1.8 per school)

Arizona: 1 — Rich Rodriguez

Arizona State: 1 — Todd Graham

California: 2 — Sonny Dykes, Justin Wilcox

Colorado: 2 — Jon Embree, Mike MacIntyre

Oregon: 3 — Chip Kelly, Mark Helfrich, Willie Taggart

Oregon State: 2 — Gary Andersen, TBA

Stanford: 1 — David Shaw

UCLA: 3 — Rick Neuheisel, Jim Mora, Chip Kelly (hired starting 2018)

USC: 3 — Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkisian, Clay Helton

Utah: None

Washington: 2 — Steve Sarkisian, Chris Petersen

Washington State: 2 — Paul Wulff, Mike Leach

Independent

Notre Dame: 1 — Brian Kelly

Final analysis

So, if it feels like the SEC is America’s biggest coaching graveyard, that’s because it is. The league’s 28 coaching changes are the most for any conference, edging the Big Ten by two. Even taking into account that more changes are likely in a 14-team league than a 10-team or 12-team conference, the SEC still has the highest average, an even two per school. The bottom line is, the SEC is tougher on coaches than any other league.

Jim Tomlin

Longtime newspaper veteran Jim Tomlin is a copy editor and writer with SaturdayDownSouth.com.