Les Miles is gone, which college football coaches are really safe? Doug Lesmerises

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio State swatted stability two weeks ago. Maybe the surprise is that Oklahoma's Bob Stoops was around to absorb it.

With the firing of LSU's Les Miles this week, there are only four college football coaches currently employed by schools where they have won a national title: Alabama's Nick Saban, Ohio State's Urban Meyer, Florida State's Jimbo Fisher and Oklahoma'sStoops. The Sooner boss is officially an anomaly now as a coach who won his title in 2000 and 16 years later remains employed despite lacking title No. 2.

Here's a longevity tip for college football head coaches who'd like to settle in for more than a decade.

Don't win a national title.

Rather than buy you time, all it does it make fans, boosters and athletic departments ravenous for a second one. You did it once, the reasoning goes, so what the heck is wrong with you now? You think nine- or 10-win seasons are going to cut it? Not at this school -- we are national championship quality.

The safest places are the schools where good is seen as great, where a conference title is viewed as the equivalent of a national one. Heck coach, you may not have to actually claim any crown. Just get in the conversation every now and then and your fans, with no built-in assumptions about their title worthiness, will be blissful.

Or at least they won't want you gone.

"It's crazy and it's getting crazier," said Meyer, who won two national titles at Florida and wasn't fired, but basically ran himself out of the school from the pressure of trying to maintain the level of success and expectation.

"And to much is given, much is expected," Meyer continued, acutely aware of the blessings and burdens of big-time college football. His year away from coaching as a TV broadcaster in 2011 helped him understand that even more.

"Television contracts and the College Football Playoff and the intense fan and support that we have now ... when I was at ESPN is when I really learned how good college football is. And it's pushing everything to be the best. So, it's just part of the business, part of the game, with all this great support and great rewards, it also comes a lot of pressure."

Stoops and Iowa's Kirk Ferentz are the major college coaches with the longest tenures, both in year 18. Stoops, at 180-48 with 10 AP top 10 finishes including that title, gets mocked as "Big Game Bob," because fans think he doesn't win those big games anymore. Ferentz, at 130-88, has five top 10 AP finishes (with just two in the last 11 years) and just picked up another contract extension.

Gary Patterson, at year 16 at TCU, has one Big 12 title in four years after an amazing run in the Mountain West and is a hero. No title.

Kyle Whittingham in is year 12 since taking over for Meyer at Utah, has four top 25 AP finishes and is set.

Mike Gundy, in year 12 at Oklahoma State, averaged 8.5 wins per season since succeeding Miles there.

In.

Miles averaged 10.2 wins per season at LSU since leaving Oklahoma State.

Out.

We know Miles, who led the Tigers to the 2007 national title by beating Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl, is gone. What happened to these other title-winning coaches?

Gene Chizik won the 2010 national championship on Cam Newton's back at Auburn, went 8-5 and 3-9 the next two years and was fired. A title bought him two years.

Mack Brown won the 2005 national title at Texas, won 9.4 games per year over the next eight seasons and resigned.

Pete Carroll won back-to-back titles in 2003-04 at USC and was chased to the NFL by NCAA sanctions after the 2009 season.

Larry Coker won the 2001 title at Miami and was fired five seasons later.

Phillip Fullmer won the 1998 championship at Tennessee and was fired 10 seasons later.

Even Jim Tressel got a taste of this. After the Buckeyes' 2002 title, their trips to and losses in the 2006 and 2007 national championship games were not greeted by most fans as accomplishments. They were seen as disappointments and shortcomings.

Tressel had led Ohio State to its first national title in 34 years, and all of a sudden, finishing second in the country wasn't good enough.

So here's one that will get you -- imagine a world where Meyer is someday pressured to leave Ohio State.

It's impossible to think about at the moment. The idea that Meyer and Alabama's Saban, with his four titles with the Crimson Tide, are the exceptions to every college coaching rule makes a lot of sense.

Saban and Meyer, both with titles at previous stops, can write their own tickets at their current homes. They recruit. They win. They dominate. They set the standard for the rest of college football.

All those things should allow them to determine their own fates for the rest of their careers. 

But winning one title sure isn't enough.