The college football coaching carousel is on pace to set records this season. Nearly a dozen coaches have been fired during the 2025 season, with LSU's Brian Kelly among the chaos. Other big-name programs to show their head coaches the door include Penn State's Brian Kelly, Florida's Billy Napier, and Auburn's Hugh Freeze. As is true in all of these cases, buyouts worth millions and millions of dollars were involved.
It's not uncommon for the firing of a college football head coach to depend solely on the buyout situation. Schools will oftentimes hold on to a coach for longer simply because they are too expensive to fire.