5 college football head coaches who would already be fired if not for massive buyouts

One of the biggest things fans love college football This time of year we often forget how expensive it is to fire some head coaches. While it can be done on a whim in professional sports, we must remember that most major college football programs are at public universities. So these head coaches and their staff are state employees, so everything has to be taken into account.

Basically, you and what army might want to shoot your bad coach into the sunset yesterday, but who’s going to foot the bill? It’s all about convincing some deep-pocketed con man who went to that school to bite the bullet so none of us have to. These ridiculous contracts that a lot of these head coaches sign are completely guaranteed. This means that they have to be bought out and then thrown to the curb.

So what I’m going to do today is take a look some of the biggest buyouts in college football today and pick five who would probably have been fired already if they weren’t bought out en masse. Again, it can be challenging to find the contract details for private schools and a select few other institutions. All I know is that those salaries are competitive because they all have similar representation.

Let’s start with one of the biggest underachievers who hasn’t exactly taken the SEC by storm.

Granted, it’s not an insurmountable buyout, but it does give you pause. Hugh Freeze is only in year two at Auburn. Before returning to the SEC, the disgraced former Ole Miss head coach had won everywhere he had gone, from Arkansas State to Ole Miss and Liberty. Unfortunately, he might be coaching the most sorry team in the SEC right now. Even the lowly state of Mississippi plays much harder.

To move forward with Freeze it would cost Auburn $20,312,500. This is only the 29th highest buyout in major college football among public universities. Sure, Apple’s Tim Cook or the endless supply of YellaWood money could make him disappear. If you left Freeze in two years, after leaving Bryan Harsin in less than two years, this work would be so toxic.

Even though Freeze is doing as well in Auburn as a polar bear in the Sahara, Auburn cannot visually get rid of him after this season. The buyout will take place after December 1, which is the cut-off date for each buyout listed in this exercise. Should Freeze fail again in year three on The Plains, it would be a much less bitter pill to swallow. Auburn has to keep this up for at least another year.

Freeze needs to get Auburn bowling again in 2025 to have a realistic chance of keeping his job.

Auburn buyout from Hugh Freeze: $20,312,500

Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier is by far the most likely candidate of the five in question to be fired by the end of the season. Like Hugh Freeze at Auburn, Napier’s buyout isn’t impossible to afford, but it does make you think. Napier’s Florida buyout will be $26,704,167 on December 1. To me, it all comes down to how hard Florida plays until the Ain’t No Sunshine Showdown.

Florida is 4-3 heading into The Cocktail Party with hated rival Georgia. The Gators are playing better under Napier, but Jacksonville is regularly a place of great embarrassment for Napier. Win or lose in Duval, Florida must find a way to win one of these three games before Florida State at the end of the season: Texas, LSU or Ole Miss. Like Georgia, all three are SEC playoff hopefuls.

Personally, I wouldn’t fire Napier after this season unless the Gators lose and finish 4-8. Their three losses so far have been to others College Football Playoff contenders in Miami, Texas A&M and Tennessee, who took the Gators to overtime in Knoxville. 6-6 should keep Napier safe, but I would hesitate to fire him after the Florida State game. The Gators had to go through such a brutal season.

Of course, Gator Nation doesn’t feel that way. Scott Stricklin may have no choice.

Billy Napier’s Florida buyout: $26,704,167

This is very hard to wrap my head around. Mark Stoops is the longest-tenured head coach in the SEC, dating back to 2013, now that Nick Saban has hung up the headphones for the fine broadcast life. However, Kentucky is 3-5 and athletic director Mitch Barnhart’s biggest distraction now works for Arkansas in men’s basketball coach John Calipari. Great Britain has Mark Pope and just went to the CWS as well.

So what I’m getting at: Is going 9-3 every three years still good enough for Kentucky? I’d say this is because I remember how much of a joke the Wildcats were under Stoops’ predecessor to Joker Phillips. Who’s laughing now? Honestly, anyone who plays the Kentucky offense. I understand that Bush Hamdan had to replace the popular Liam Coen who is now in Tampa Bay, but Kentucky can’t throw.

Considering Stoops has a staggering $44,437,500 buyout, Kentucky may have to lose for this to be a realistic possibility. I will say that Kentucky giving up wins from one of its best seasons in recent years may soften the blow. You and I may remember those victories, but unfortunately they have been erased from the record. It really comes down to how bad Kentucky looks in the last four games.

For almost $45 million, Kentucky would have bought out Calipari, but would it do the same for Stoops?

Mark Stoops’ Kentucky buyout: $44,437,500

With a slightly lower hire than Mark Stoops in Kentucky, we have to seriously wonder if Brent Venables will get a fourth year at Oklahoma after this year. OU is 4-4 overall, but has been playing some really pathetic football lately. The Sooners haven’t looked dominant in non-conference, and their only SEC win to date came over an equally pathetic Auburn team. Venables feels the heat.

Unfortunately, he just signed an extremely idiotic mega-contract extension last season. For what? To help him navigate the first part of SEC play? Well, I guess we have to point the finger at former athletic director Joe Castiglione for putting his head coach and the football team in a not-so-advantageous situation. It will cost $44,808,333 to buy out Venables from this current deal.

While the amount it would cost to fire Hugh Freeze at Auburn or Billy Napier at Florida may have some drivers reluctant to pull the trigger, rest assured that Venables’ potential successor in Norman would be better are than he. I might think that former OU assistant to South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer could be the cure for what ails them, but that’s a huge buyout!

The only way Venables can finish this contract is if Jackson Arnold retires next season.

Brent Venables’ buyout in Oklahoma: $44,808,333

Unlike Brent Venables at Oklahoma, Mike Norvell earned his contract extension at Florida State. Unfortunately, if you live by the portal, you die by the portal, because the Seminoles team bit him in the butt so hard this year. Florida State is 1-7 this year and is now guaranteed to be the seventh team in the past 15 years to finish the previous season at number 6 or better only to have a losing record.

I don’t know if firing Norvell this offseason would be the right decision, regardless of what Florida State’s rotten record ends up being. Even if the Noles went 1-11 (1-7) with their only win this year at home against Cal, would you still have $63,778,333 in cash to spend? In fact, Florida State is strapped for cash because of the ACC’s terrible TV deal with ESPN. No wonder the Seminoles want out so badly.

This season, only Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer and Georgia’s Kirby Smart have bigger buyouts than Norvell. The amounts are enormous, but fully consistent with what all three have done so far. The only problem is that Alabama and Georgia are still very much in contention for the playoffs, while Florida State’s season will be over in a month, even though I think their season is already over.

There will be financial ruin if Florida State were to move on from Norvell after its hellish season.

Mike Norvell’s acquisition by Florida State: $63,778,333