College football’s coaching buyout culture just might be headed for a reckoning. Legendary coach Mack Brown thinks he knows why. After Penn State fired James Franklin last weekend, they triggered a staggering $50 million buyout that ranks second only to Jimbo Fisher’s $76 million. And now, the college football world is starting to ask a simple question: how can schools keep paying coaches not to coach when they’re already hemorrhaging money to keep players on the roster through NIL? 

Brown, who wrapped up his second stint at North Carolina with a modest $2.89 million buyout, sees the writing on the wall. And he might be the only coach in America who’s been calling this mess exactly what it is for years.​

Brown said it straight on The Stampede podcast when discussing where coaching contracts are headed. “We’re gonna see buyouts change because of NIL,” he explained. “You can’t be spending this much money on players and this much money on buyouts. It just doesn’t work.” He predicts that schools will pivot toward paying coaches even more upfront, maybe $15 million instead of $12 million annually, but those massive safety nets are going away. 

“So, I think what’s gonna happen is we’re gonna see coaches get more money, but they’re not gonna have buyouts,” Brown said. The logic makes sense. We are in an era of collegiate sports where schools are scrambling to fund seven-figure NIL deals just to land recruits. And on top of that, throwing another $50 million at a fired coach like James Franklin isn’t sustainable.​

Here’s where it gets really interesting and where Brown basically admits he was way ahead of his time, or way behind, depending on how you look at it. “I never believed in buyouts because I always thought I was gonna win,” Brown said. “And number two, I didn’t wanna get paid for getting fired. I was really stupid. I never had more than a $2.89 million buyout, which is a lot of money but nowhere near $50 million.” That’s almost quaint when you look at what James Franklin is about to pocket.

Although there’s an offset clause in his contract that could reduce that figure if Franklin lands another job quickly. Still, even with that wrinkle, we’re talking about a buyout that could cripple a program’s ability to compete in the NIL arms race for years. 

The financial gymnastics that these schools have to go through are convoluted. Especially when you consider what’s happening on the players’ side. NIL has completely transformed recruiting. Kids are getting million-dollar deals just to sign with schools. Moreover, courtesy of the transfer portal, player retention is down the drain.

Schools are essentially funding two entirely separate budgets. One to pay players, and another to pay coaches who aren’t even coaching anymore. Brown’s prediction might sound radical, but it’s probably the only way forward. Schools can’t keep mortgaging their futures on contracts that guarantee coaches tens of millions, whether they win or lose. 

The Jimbo Fisher effect

If you want to understand why Mack Brown thinks buyouts are about to get slashed, just look at what Texas A&M is still dealing with after firing Jimbo Fisher back in November 2023. The Aggies wrote the most expensive breakup check in college football history. $76 million to a coach who went 45-25 and couldn’t get them past the hump. 

A&M didn’t just cut one massive check and move on. They paid Fisher $19.2 million within 60 days of firing him. And now they’re stuck paying him $7.2 million every single year through 2031. That’s eight annual payments to a guy who isn’t coaching their team, with zero offset or mitigation. Meaning even if Fisher lands another head coaching gig tomorrow, the Aggies still owe him every penny. During their 2024 fiscal year, A&M reported all-time high operating expenses. And a huge chunk of that was just servicing the Jimbo debt while also trying to compete in the NIL arms race. It’s financial insanity, and it’s exactly the situation that’s forcing schools to rethink how they structure these deals.​

And A&M isn’t even the worst-case scenario when you look at current buyouts. Kirby Smart at Georgia has a jaw-dropping $105.1 million buyout sitting in his contract, the highest in college football right now. Ryan Day’s got $70.9 million at Ohio State. And guys like Kalen DeBoer ($60.8 million at Alabama), Steve Sarkisian ($60.3 million at Texas), and Dabo Swinney ($60 million at Clemson) all have buyouts that would absolutely wreck their programs if they had to be paid out. We already got James Franklin handicapping Penn State for quite sometime now. Jimbo Fisher cashed out and set the record, but his deal might’ve also been the one that finally set the tide for change in the system.​