North Carolina State Fires Tom O'Brien

The Wolfpack announced Sunday that head coach Tom O'Brien is no longer head coach in Raleigh.

The first name getting mentioned as a replacement for NC State is current Vanderbilt coach James Franklin. Franklin has been rumored to be a candidate for several jobs, including Arkansas, but Franklin has ties to the current Wolfpack athletic director, leading many to believe he'd be a natural fit there.

This is one of the most frustrating parts of the coaching search. Now that several programs are also on the hunt, timing gets much more complicated. It was so much cleaner when Arkansas was the only school looking! It's unknown what other names are on NC State's list, but it's surely many of the same ones we've been discussing since April and other schools have been discussing as well. There are only so many names to go around.

With the firing, North Carolina State joins Arkansas, Tennessee, Cal, Kentucky, UTEP, Western Michigan, and Idaho in the list of programs looking for new coaches. Auburn has yet to make a public decision on Gene Chizik. However, they do have a team meeting scheduled for this afternoon.