And POOF…. Just like that, we’re now on the back-end of the coaching carousel.
It took roughly 36 hours for the carousel to hit full speed and then come to a sudden, almost comical halt.
And one theme — outside of the Lane Kiffin discourse — dominated my inbox and social feed:
“That’s a really low buyout.”
For all the headline-grabbing numbers attached to coaches being fired, the price tag for coaches being hired away is wildly cheap.
Ryan Silverfield to Arkansas?
$1,000,000.
Alex Golesh to Auburn?
$1,500,000.
Eric Morris to Oklahoma State?
$1,170,000.
Bob Chesney to UCLA?
$1,250,000.
Even Jim Mora who went to Colorado State, sat at a cool $1.5 million.
So add these buyouts up and you get just shy of $6.5 million. That’s still less than James Franklin’s one-year up-front buyout of $9 million.
Yes, that’s a different realm of collegiate athletics, plus his mitigate language, but the point remains — the shift toward G5 schools building in even a bit more protection through creative contract language needs to be top of mind for every athletic director and university legal counsel. Especially at places like James Madison, where the last few head coaches have all bounced to bigger (kind of) jobs — Mike Houston (East Carolina), Curt Cignetti, and now Bob Chesney. Maybe, just maybe, the culture of success at these programs should carry real value for potential Dukes head coaches, enough to justify giving up a little more.
In this era of collegiate athletics — where money is flowing, expectations are rising, and job security is shrinking — these are highway-robbery prices. For mid-majors, that can be a windfall. Sure, they’d prefer to keep their coaches. But the reality is unmistakable: more and more, they function like farm systems. And if your coach gets plucked, your budget gets a bump, and I suspect it will keep growing moving forward.
Of course, this cuts both ways. A higher exit buyout for an ambitious head coach often means a higher firing guarantee for the school. In a typical carousel, only six to eight coaches move up while the rest hope stability wins out another year. Athletic directors are increasingly weighing whether the risk of a larger guarantee is worth the possibility of a seven-figure payoff down the road.
You even see “creative buyouts” appear in other sports — especially basketball — where a coach leaving triggers a required return game, or a buyout in the event a game isn’t possible, which they always buy out of the game. (VCU practically made that an art form. One day, we’ll do the full deep dive it deserves.)
Let’s also not forget the real winners of the carousel. Sure, the grades are already rolling in for some of the new hires, but the true winners? The coaches who secured extensions — most of whom have already proven success at their programs.
Jason Eck locked in a deal that bumps his average salary from $1.25 million to $1.75 million, keeping him under contract through 2030. Brent Vigen and Tim Polasek both landed extensions, with Polasek getting a seven-year agreement that runs through 2033, complete with significant raises, added staff money, and more program resources.
And that’s before mentioning Curt Cignetti and his unique extension, Clark Lea, Eli Drinkwitz, and several others. Those are the real winners of the carousel.
And yes, I intentionally left out Matt Rhule — the jury’s still out on whether Nebraska made the right move.
Now, back to the carousel. Is it done? No, but it has slowed to a crawl.
The surprise firing of Jonathan Smith at Michigan State added a jolt, though it didn’t last long. A shame because Smith was brought in to rebuild on and off the field and lasted two seasons. Michigan State, reportedly, already has Pat Fitzgerald lined up. Smith’s buyout sits around $33 million, subject to mitigation, though it’s hard to see him landing another head-coaching job this cycle.
Penn State remains the biggest open job. They’re taking swings at multiple sitting Power Four coaches — moves that could set off a mini-carousel run. There are some very interesting names for the Nittany Lions, including Brian Daboll, who had a one-year stint at Alabama in 2017, and before that, his last college gig was as a graduate assistant in East Lansing in 1999. (Spoiler Here: Trust social media right now, there are some real truths out there about who is tied to Penn State!)
Kentucky’s opening remains intriguing as well, with several rumored candidates we’ve already profiled. This also feels like a good time to remind you that we absolutely nailed some of the coaching candidate profiles (here, here, here, and here from those we haven’t linked already).
And we all know how this goes: there will be a late surprise firing (there always is), a sitting head coach taking a P4 coordinator job (also always happens), and someone bolting to the NFL in January to shake up the puzzle for a week or so again.
