There are no more off years in college football’s coaching carousel. In past seasons, we’ve tried to rationalize that austerity would eventually pause the annual coaching overhauls.
Those points have been invalidated by schools so desperate to keep up that they’re unafraid to pay coaches giant sums not to coach. Massive buyouts aren’t preventing schools from firing coaches. Change is now seen as a sign of progress. When it turns into a step back, few of the leaders who forked over the buyout money are around to deal with the fallout.
A pandemic that crippled budgets didn’t really slow things down in 2020, as 17 jobs opened and schools like Auburn ($21 million), Texas ($15 million), Arizona ($7 million) and Vanderbilt (unknown, but Derek Mason was extended in 2019) all fired their coaches.