Imagine a world where being lousy at your job can earn you a fortune. That world exists; it’s called college football.
With high stakes in the sport, boosters, alumni, and college administrators don’t waste much time firing a football coach if it’s clear they cannot win at the appropriate level.
Wisconsin just canned their coach Paul Christ this weekend, even though he won 72% of the games he coached for the Badgers.
ASU dumped their incompetent coach Herm Edwards last month. Colorado was winless in 2022, so their coach got the boot.
Here’s the crazy thing. A bad or unsuccessful coach can set a football program back years. It takes time to clean up the mess some of these coaches make. And all of the coaches that have been fired lately have long-term contracts with extensive buyout clauses built into their deals, so they would walk away with incredible payoffs if they were to be fired.
Chryst has been successful this season at one thing; making Wisconsin fans mad. Just three years ago, he took the Badgers to the Rose Bowl, and he received raises and an increased buyout that would pay him just under $20 million if he were fired this season. He will walk away with an $11 million check after the school negotiates a lower amount.
Scott Frost was a hero for Nebraska when he played for the Cornhuskers in the 1990s. The golden boy returned home to coach the Huskers, and it couldn’t have been worse for him. He was a disaster with losing seasons, no bowl games, and utter disgust from fans. After he was fired in September, he took home $15 million.
Have you ever heard of Geoff Collins? His accountant sure has. He was the coach at Georgia Tech who couldn’t win and was awarded $11.37 million to go away.
Edwards can hit the beach with a $9.4 buyout after being fired at ASU, and Karl Dorrell was the winless and clueless coach at Colorado this year who gets $8.7 million for his efforts.
Those schools got off easy! The two most disappointing teams in college football this year are Michigan State, and Texas A&M. Mel Tucker of Michigan State has a $95 million guaranteed contract.
Jimbo Fisher of Texas A&M has a buyout that reads “in an amount equal to the total compensation that would have been paid to [him] for the remaining term,” i.e., every dollar of the contract.”
So, if he were to be fired after this season, the school (or wealthy boosters) would owe him $85,950,000, according to BETMGM.
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