Firing football coaches is expensive, but it has become an inevitable part of big-time college football.

During the 2017 season, the Tennessee Volunteers fired coach Butch Jones, and then embarked on a costly and time-consuming search for his replacement. That search also ended up costing AD John Currie his job.

Based on that costly process, the Vols led all Division I schools in buyout payments during the fiscal year that ended in June of 2018, per a report from KnoxNews.com:

Tennessee was the only institution that reported more than $13 million in severance payments. Nebraska, Florida, Arizona State and UCLA topped $12 million in reported severance costs. All of those schools, including Tennessee, fired their football coach in 2017, which helps explain the high severance figure.

That number will be lower during the 2019 fiscal year for the Vols as some of those buyouts come off the books. Still, this was an expensive last year and a half for Tennessee.