Head coach buyouts are getting out of hand.
The point of handing out massive contracts to head coaches is to retain those coaches for a long period of time and to reward them for building the program into what it currently is. But that comes with a significant cost if the coach loses steam later on.
That’s exactly what we’re seeing with programs such as Northwestern, Iowa and Stanford — programs where success wasn’t as common until the current head coach took the helm.
Eventually, that success has to fade away and if you don’t have an out, you could be stuck with that head coach for a very, very long time.
Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald has two Big Ten West titles since 2018, but Northwestern started off this season 1-6 and is 4-15 over the past two seasons. Fitzgerald’s contract runs through 2030.
Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz has led the Hawkeyes to four nine-win seasons since 2015, but the team is 3-4 with no hope of turning the season around. Ferentz will be at the helm through 2029.
You can probably guess that Stanford is in a similar position with head coach David Shaw. Although his contract is not public, Shaw earned $8.9 million in 2019 and is 14-23 in 2019-2022.
These huge contracts give coaches the freedom to run the program however they want, even into the dirt. Shaw has no urgency to adapt to the new NIL and transfer rules to put Stanford in a better position to succeed. Ferentz had the liberty to hire his son, Brian Ferentz, as Iowa’s offensive coordinator in 2017, and guess what? The Hawkeyes are averaging just 227.3 yards and 14.0 points per game.
These long-term contracts don’t offer much benefit but have the potential to sink once-successful coaches and programs.
There are definitely individual cases of success with contracts similar to those listed above. Alabama’s Nick Saban is an obvious example. Saban will be under contract through 2030 and will be paid more than $10 million each year.
That’s essentially an impossible contract for the Crimson Tide athletic department to get out of if things go south. But the contract works. In the eyes of many in Tuscaloosa, Saban walks on water and for good reason. Saban has won six national championships in 15 seasons and is rightfully considered by many to be the greatest college football head coach of all time.
That is a coach you can give one of these contracts to. Ferentz, Shaw and Fitzgerald have hardly entertained the idea of leaving their respective programs. If you don’t give them a massive long-term deal, are they going to walk out of the role they’ve held for over a decade?
I don’t think so, and I’m sure the athletic directors agree with my line of thinking.
Now, let’s get to the elephant in the room. I’ve talked about coaches with sustained success at their program and why those coaches don’t even deserve lengthy contracts. But there’s one coach who was given one of the largest contracts in college football history before coaching a game for the school.
Jimbo Fisher. Who else could it be?
Fisher is the head coach of Texas A&M and, when he was hired, was given a plaque for a future national championship in “20- -.”
Well, Fisher hasn’t delivered on that promise yet, and he only came close to even making the College Football Playoff during the COVID-19 year. In Fisher’s other four seasons, the Aggies suffered at least four losses each year.
Starting the 2022 season at 3-4 doesn’t have Aggie fans feeling any more confident in Fisher’s reign. And if things continue to slide, the Texas A&M athletic department has zero leverage to pull Fisher from his duties.
When Fisher initially signed his contract, it was worth $75 million for 10 years. In 2021, Fisher signed an extension through the 2031 season worth $95 million. And it’s entirely, unequivocally, undoubtedly fully guaranteed.
Texas A&M — or let’s be honest, some booster — would have to pay Fisher $86 million to fire him after the 2022 season. None of that can be whittled down. It’s as if it was etched in stone.
I understand why Fisher was initially given such a substantial contract. Fisher won a national championship with Florida State just a few years before bolting for College Station and there aren’t many coaches better than Fisher in all of college football.
The Aggies needed to convince him to leave one way or another, and money talks. That makes sense to me.
You start to lose me when the fully guaranteed 10-year contract is given out.
With all of these bad contracts floating around, I’ve come up with a two-step process to determine whether a 10-year fully guaranteed contract should be offered.
Step 1: Is the head coaching candidate Nick Saban? If yes, pay him to your heart’s content!
Step 2: If the answer to the first question is no, then do not, under any circumstances, offer that fully guaranteed contract.
I’m hoping that process seems easy enough. Many athletic directors before have failed, but with this new litmus test we should see some improvement.
Who am I kidding — we’re going to continue to see these awful contracts given out, and we’re going to wonder how these athletic directors were even hired in the first place.
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