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College football’s regular season is over, which means many schools are digging deep into their pockets to give their programs a new direction.
As of Monday afternoon, 15 FBS head coaches had been fired during the season or since it ended Saturday, with schools owing more than $36 million in buyout fees. That’s a sharp decrease from the record sum of more than $118 million in 2023, led by the $76 million Texas A&M paid to Jimbo Fisher.
Here are the biggest known college football coaching buyouts of 2024:
- West Virginia: Neal Brown, $9.77 million
- Purdue: Ryan Walters, $9.34 million
- FAU: Tom Herman, $4.18 million
- North Carolina: Mack Brown, $2.81 million
- East Carolina: Mike Houston, $2.8 million
- UMass: Don Brown, $1.4 million
- Charlotte: Biff Poggi, $1.3 million
- FIU: Mike MacIntyre, $1.14 million
- Rice: Mike Bloomgren, $900,000
- Southern Miss: Will Hall, $892,000
- Kennesaw State: Brian Bohannon, $605,000
- Ball State: Mike Neu, $550,000
- Appalachian State: Shawn Clark, $500,000
Those figures come from Front Office Sports research, including publicly available contract information, USA Today’s CFB head coach salary tracker, and other various reports and estimates. Offset language in some contracts could mean schools won’t owe the full amount should the fired coach take a job elsewhere.
Buyouts for fired coaches from private schools are not always made public, including Tulsa’s Kevin Wilson. A figure for Stan Drayton’s buyout at Temple, which is public, is also unavailable.
Gus Malzahn appears to have forfeited most of the $12 million in buyout money he would have received from UCF (had he been fired after a 4–8 season), where he just resigned as head coach so that he could take Florida State’s offensive coordinator job.
Who’s Next?
With conference championship games, Bowl Season, and the College Football Playoff still to be played, the CFP coaching carousel could still be spinning.
Ohio State coach Ryan Day is perhaps on the hottest seat after the Buckeyes’ fourth-straight loss to rival Michigan. He has the 17th most expensive buyout in the country at more than $37 million, according to USA Today.
Both Florida coach Billy Napier and Florida State’s Mike Norvell were on the hot seat early this season. But the Gators finished the season 7–5 on a three-game win streak after committing beyond this season to Napier, who would have been owed a buyout of more than $26 million.
Florida beat its in-state rival Saturday to give Florida State a 2–10 record just one season after winning the ACC with an undefeated mark of 13–0. Despite the poor season, Norvell doesn’t look to be going anywhere, as his $63 million buyout is the third highest in the nation.
