As the end of the college football season approaches, many teams are beginning to eye which bowl they will be playing in. It also marks the time when coaches that have not met expectations are being fired.
The list of fired coaches is already long and growing, likely to be in line with the number of coaches who changed schools or positions in 2023.
The schools affected included several from the Bowl Championship Series.
Mack Brown, the University of North Carolina coach, was let go on Nov. 26. His record of 44-33 over six seasons during his most recent tenure at North Carolina was respectable. He also took his team to bowl games every season, though his 1-4 record in these games was less than stellar.
Neal Brown, the West Virginia Mountaineers coach, was let go on Dec. 1. His record of 37-35 over six seasons, with three bowl game appearances (and a 2-1 record), was insufficient to keep his job. Speculations on his successor abound, with former Mountaineer coach Rich Rodriguez certainly in the mix.
Ryan Walters, the Purdue Boilermakers coach, was also let go on Dec. 1. His record of 5-19 over just two seasons, including season-ending embarrassing losses to Notre Dame and Indiana, likely played into his dismissal.
Before feeling sorry for these men, they will all receive handsome buyouts. Neal Brown will walk away with nearly $10 million. Walters will take home over $9 million. Mack Brown will receive a rather modest $2.8 million.
What gets forgotten at these times are the students who had developed close ties to these men. Given how the transfer portal functions, many will look for a new school next season, possibly following their fired coach to his new home. This benefited Indiana this season, when first-year coach Curt Cignetti was able to attract several of his best players from James Madison University where he previously coached.
There are a number of issues that should be addressed when coaches are fired and paid ridiculous amounts of money for not coaching. These figures not only top faculty salaries, they are well over the salaries earned by every university president and chancellor.
The UNC chancellor, Lee Roberts, takes home around $600,000. Gordon Gee, the chancellor of West Virginia University, has a base salary of $800,000. Mung Chiang, president of Purdue, has a salary over $600,000. Yet none of these high-ranking university official salaries come close to the buyouts for the dismissed coaches.
It is common knowledge that big-time college sports involve big-time money. That is why the major television networks pay billions of dollars for the rights to broadcast high profile games involving teams in high profile conferences.
So who will pay for these buyouts?
The simple answer is all of us. Television contracts are paid for by advertisers. The cost of these advertisements is recouped in the products and services that we purchase. People who never watch a football game are paying for some of these buyouts.
When buyouts, let alone salaries paid to employed coaches, become excessive, one must begin to question whether the “tail is (inappropriately) wagging the dog?”
Athletic departments often argue that they are self-sustaining, not using general university funds targeted for education. Research suggests that this is not the case. Athletic departments also argue that college sports build school spirit and alumni engagement. The question is at what price are such benefits accrued.
Without revenue sports like football and basketball, the professional leagues would need to spend a significant amount of money to build minor league systems to keep their talent pipelines stocked.
Names, Images and Likeness (NIL) endorsements have made these revenue sports into minor league feeder systems. Some college students are now earning millions of dollars for being a student and playing on the school team. Of course, such high-profile athletes are the exception, not the rule, with most student-athletes earning a few thousand dollars.
What has become clear is that in high profile revenue sports, student athletics are no longer about students. They are about a financial arms-race that has driven coach salaries and performance expectations ever higher.
When Ryan Day, the Ohio State football coach lost to Michigan for the fourth consecutive year, speculation about his dismissal abounded. Fortunately, he was given a vote of confidence by the institution. Nearly every school would welcome him on their sidelines if Ohio State was foolish enough to listen to their vocal fans and fire him, given his 66-10 record since 2018 and five top-10 rankings in the final Coaches and AP polls.
Athletics has a place on college campuses. Yet the financial optics tarnish its image. Most turn a blind eye, hoping to win this financial athletic arms race with national championships. Yet with only one national champion crowned each year, nearly all schools end up disappointed, except perhaps the coaches who end up being let go. They walk away with a treasure trove for failing to meet unrealistic expectations in a no-win situation.
