College football programs are increasingly willing to pay massive buyouts to fire underperforming coaches.
Even successful coaches like Penn State’s James Franklin are being fired, receiving nearly $50 million in buyout money.
The high cost of firing a coach often leads to another expensive, fully guaranteed contract for their replacement.
Wasn’t that long ago when it was just the outliers, Texas A&M and Auburn, consistently throwing tens of millions of good money at bad coaches.
Then Penn State took win-at-all-cost and blew it off the map.
Now here we are, midway through the season, and — I can’t believe I’m writing this — the one coach who’s running his program his way, and doesn’t give a flip what you think, has been brought to heel.
That was Brian Kelly earlier this week, standing at a podium during his weekly LSU news conference, and apologizing to the fans.
“We want to do better for our fan base, we get that,” Kelly said. “And some are saying I’m not getting it done now, I get that. I recognize everybody’s angst.”
When Brian Kelly — who fought the most invasively meddling structure in college football at Notre Dame, and won — walks into a news conference and begins to apologize for the play of his team and how he has coached, we’ve arrived at a seminal moment in the sport.
If coaches thought they were losing control in the age of player empowerment, it reached another level when Penn State fired coach James Franklin six games after leading the Nittany Lions to within one play of playing for the national championship.
Before we get all the feels for Franklin or any other coach with significantly shorter leashes, they’re walking away with millions upon millions of go away cash. Franklin got nearly $50 million in buyout money, and Billy Napier got nearly $21 million from Florida.
The days of only Texas A&M (hello, Jimbo Fisher, Kevin Sumlin, Dennis Franchione) and Auburn (every coach, ever) with the guts to pay ridiculous buyouts to move on and reset the program, are long gone. And every coach knows it.
That’s why Kelly — who as recent as last month was arguing with a media member after a win over Florida, declaring “you’re spoiled” because LSU wasn’t as efficient offensively as previous years under Kelly — began a critical week of his tenure with a mea culpa.
And make no mistake, that absolutely was a rare hat-in-hand moment for an old school, my way works just watch, coach.
“I hope our fan base understands that we’re disappointed,” Kelly said. “We are committed to getting better every single day.”
I’m not a mind reader, but that sure sounds like a coach who has been told — in no uncertain terms — he’s losing the fan base. And when you lose the fan base, you lose your job.
LSU would still have to round up about $54 million to buy out Kelly from his contract (the second-highest buyout ever), but if Penn State is willing to fire a coach who was a play away from playing for it all in 2024, you better believe LSU can, too.
Franklin, like Kelly, spoke glowingly of his team in the offseason. Both said this was their best team, both embraced championship expectations.
Now one is unemployed and sitting on the set of ESPN’s ‘College GameDay’, explaining how shocked he was his athletic director walked into the room and said we’re making a change.
The other is standing at a news conference apologizing to his fans, while staring at unbeaten Texas A&M rolling into the Red Stick with the type of team that not only could give LSU its third loss of the season — but do it emphatically.
The kind of loss that guts a fan base and shakes the knees of those debating whether to throw more good money after bad to go down another unknown road. But the answers are right in front of them — full of rich, undeniable irony.
Texas A&M paid Jimbo Fisher $77.5 million in buyout money to fire him, and then hired Mike Elko. In two years, Elko has the unbeaten Aggies in the Top 5 of the latest US LBM Coaches Poll going into Saturday’s game at LSU.
And if LSU does choose to fire Kelly at some point this season, there’s no escaping the reality that awaits. To get another high-level coach, LSU will have to structure a near identical contract to Kelly’s.
In other words, a fully guaranteed deal that, odds are, they’ll be buying out again at some point over the course of the contract. It’s a CDB world, baby.
Cost of Doing Business.
Curt Cignetti has coached 20 games at Indiana (18 wins), and because the Hoosiers want to protect him from Power conference poachers, his deal was just extended to $93 million over eight years. Fully guaranteed.
Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter says he’s working on a(nother) contract extension for coach Lane Kiffin, who will be heavily courted by Florida and any other major blueblood program looking for a coach.
If he leaves or stays at Ole Miss, Kiffin will likely become one of the top five paid coaches in college football. With a fully guaranteed deal, no less.
“Our fan base wants positive outcomes, I get that,” Kelly said. “There’s nothing that brings a community together better than an LSU victory.”
Or a new coach, and a fresh start.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.