We study the critical behavior of lattice Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) in the strong coupling approximation with Kogut–Susskind and Wilson fermions at finite temperature (T) and zero chemical potential. Using the Hamiltonian formulation we construct a mean field solution to the equation of motion at finite T and use it to study the elementary thermal excitations and to extract some critical exponents characterizing the observed second-order phase transition. We find similar critical behaviors for Kogut–Susskind and Wilson fermions at finite T.