We’re still in September and there’s already a coaching carousel take that’s been debunked
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I’m old enough to remember when there were respected people in this sport who believed that the quiet 2024 coaching carousel was a sign of things to come in the revenue sharing era. The thinking with that crowd was that with programs now on the hook for funding rosters, surely they couldn’t also fork over an 8-figure buyout to a fired head coach.
We’re still in September, and that take looks even worse now than it did in the moment.
Three Power 4 coaches have been fired (UCLA’s Deshaun Foster, Virginia Tech’s Brent Pry and Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy). Already, we watched a coach get an 8-figure buyout (Gundy). That $15 million was richer than any fired coach last year — Neal Brown and Ryan Walters were both reportedly in the $9.5-$9.8 million range — though it likely won’t even be the richest buyout paid in this cycle.
As I wrote in June, in 2024, there were 46 FBS coaches in the USA Today database that had 8-figure buyouts in place. That doesn’t even include coaches like Lincoln Riley, Mario Cristobal, Marcus Freeman and Dave Aranda. All of those coaches reportedly had buyouts of 8 figures, but those terms weren’t officially disclosed at their respective private universities. Do a little quick math and you’ll see that was 50 FBS coaches who had 8-figure buyouts last year. So many of the coaches who were on the hot seat entering the season — Aranda, Sam Pittman, Billy Napier, Clark Lea, etc. — all got off the hot seat because they had winning seasons. It wasn’t simply a byproduct of the then-imminent revenue-sharing era.
If that were the case, why did Florida have Napier’s buyout money ($26.7 million) accounted for in September? Shouldn’t that have been a prohibitive factor?
Dots were incorrectly connected to explain the atypically calm 2024 carousel
If you actually looked at the non-firings on a case-by-case basis, none of them were really about saving money and giving a coach a job in perpetuity. More common in 2024 was that coaches who entered as distant thoughts in the hot-seat discussion with sneaky preseason buzz as potential conference champs had disappointing seasons.
You know, like Gundy and Pry.
Foster was a unique spot because he was essentially given the interim treatment after Chip Kelly’s sudden departure for the Ohio State offensive coordinator job. Nothing about his job status was going to be determined by the revenue-sharing era.
Having said that, I’ll acknowledge that there could be a handful of decisions in the sport wherein a coach gets a slightly longer leash. If the decision is fire an 8-4 coach with a $34 million buyout or keep him and see if 1 more year of spending in the portal can spark a turnaround, sure, maybe the latter will win out more times than not.
But that’s not what this 2024 take was about. It was about the end of the big buyout era because of the beginning of the revenue sharing era. Big buyouts are still going to be part of this sport. It’s inevitable. These contracts didn’t all change overnight. Boosters didn’t suddenly become apathetic to failing coaches. It’s not as if they’re on the hook to cover $20.5 million worth of revenue-sharing money, either.
So how many 8-figure buyouts will be paid to fired coaches in 2025?
Uh, several. Bold, I know.
Napier seems destined to join the “8-figure buyout” club, though that buyout isn’t quite as rich as it would’ve been. It’s a cool $20.4 million, which could still be on the short list of the richest buyouts ever paid to a fired college football coach.
Hugh Freeze‘s seat might’ve been as hot as anyone’s entering the season, and while he got a huge Week 1 win against Baylor, each of Auburn‘s next 3 games are against ranked foes. An 0-4 start to SEC play would make that $15 million buyout feel imminent.
Luke Fickell is one to monitor at Wisconsin, despite the fact that Wisconsin’s athletic department policy inexplicably gave him a pair of 1-year extensions after 2 disappointing seasons in Madison. ESPN reported that his buyout is “more than $25 million.” That’s worth noting after “fire Fickell” chants rang out in Camp Randall Stadium amid a 27-10 loss to Maryland, who had Mike Locksley enter 2025 on the hot seat with a $13 million buyout.
Pittman’s buyout, in case you were wondering, would max out at $9.8 million if he were fired with a post-Year 1 record of .500 or better (he’s 29-26), so he wouldn’t join this 8-figure club, but he’d be close.
Justin Wilcox somehow still as a $10.9 million buyout at Cal, who was embarrassed in a 34-0 loss at San Diego State. That’s around the range of Virginia’s Tony Elliott, who is also 3-1, but staring at a buyout of $11 million if he can’t get the Cavaliers to a bowl game for the first time in Year 4. Time will tell if Scott Satterfield can turn things around enough in Year 3 at Cincinnati to earn a Year 4 because if he can’t, he’s got a $12 million buyout. That’s the same number for Aranda, who is off to a 2-2 start with a pair of home losses.
All of those guys feel like they’re going to be in the discussion, and that’s without getting to some of the mega-buyouts like Mark Stoops ($37 million) or the aforementioned Riley (more than $80 million), who is off to an ideal start but figures to be tested in Big Ten play.
That’s a handful of guys who could be getting 8-figure checks not to work, and we’re only in September. We haven’t even gotten into the season-defining games yet, and already, there’s reason to believe that several of those coaches will join Gundy and continue the “big-buyout era.”
Winning is expensive. As Andy Staples likes to say, losing is expensive, too. It’s costly to stink with empty stadiums and apathetic fanbases. As long as that exists and athletic directors aren’t willing to change their contract negotiation strategies, big buyouts aren’t going anywhere.
It was (and is) silly to think that would be swapped out with the revenue-sharing era.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
