UCLA football is licking its wounds and hoping to recover from a 56-6 loss to Indiana with a win over Nebraska at home this weekend, all while their longer-term head coaching solution remains atop the program’s to-do list. As of early November, there are two names atop the latest predictive market from Kalshi.
On Kalshi, you can essentially wager on who will become the next head coach of the program, with prices reflecting roughly the chance Kalshi believes each candidate has at earning the job. So, on their latest board, Cleveland Browns offensive coordinator Tommy Rees is the highest-priced option, slightly, at 21 cents, meaning if you bought in for 21 cents, you’d stand to win a 79-cent profit if he was hired.
Coming in at No. 2 right now, just behind Rees, is Florida State defensive coordinator Tony White. He’s priced at 19 cents, meaning that, if you wagered on him to be the next UCLA coach, and he is hired, you’d get a full dollar back, therefore providing 81 cents worth of profit. That makes sense, we hope.
Kalshi is basically the only American-based market offering actual wagerable odds on many of the current open college football jobs. So if you want a Vegas-type of viewpoint on a coaching search, their markets are probably your best option.
UCLA head coach market / Via Kalshi
Looking at the two top candidates, Rees is currently running a fairly ugly offense in Cleveland, but what can you really expect from a team that traded their day one starting quarterback, Joe Flacco, to a division rival and appears, by all accounts, to be tanking. Nonetheless, there’s a reason he earned the gig.
Rees is a young up-and-comer, perhaps in the Jerry Neuheisel mold, who played quarterback at Notre Dame in the early 2010s and has also been the offensive coordinator at Notre Dame, Alabama and now Cleveland. That’s certainly not a bad career arc. Seemingly, a head coaching position will be within his grasp at some point soon if he wants it, especially at the college level.
Meanwhile, Tony White is a UCLA alum and tenured defensive coordinator who served as DC at Arizona State, Syracuse, Nebraska and now Florida State over the past seven seasons. His hire could come with keeping a guy like Neuheisel at offensive coordinator, while that possibly seems more strained under an incoming offensive mind like Tommy Rees.
