UCLA has dismissed head coach DeShaun Foster after an 0-3 start to his second season, a rapid fall that ended his tenure at 5-10 across 15 games. The decision followed a dispiriting three-week stretch in which the Bruins never led and were outscored by wide margins, prompting the school to name Tim Skipper interim head coach while a national search begins. The move was first reported Sunday morning and quickly confirmed by the program, underscoring both the urgency and the inevitability of a reset after back-to-back losses to Group of Five opponents capped an 0-3 opening.

Foster’s contract, signed in February 2024, runs five years through the 2028 season with a straightforward salary escalator: $3.0 million in Year 1, $3.1 million in Year 2, $3.2 million in Year 3, $3.3 million in Year 4, and $3.4 million in Year 5. As with most Power Four head-coach contracts, it contains standard mitigation and offset language, meaning any future earnings in comparable employment reduce UCLA’s obligation, along with specific percentage triggers tied to when a termination is executed on the calendar.

The buyout math hinges on timing. The contract’s publicized structure stipulates that a termination without cause on or before December 1 obligates the school to pay 70% of the coach’s remaining guaranteed salary. If the firing is executed after the season threshold, the obligation drops to 60% of Year 3 and 50% of Years 4 and 5, a formula widely estimated at around $5.27 million if the effective date is after that cutoff. Because UCLA announced Foster’s removal now, industry estimates place the owed figure in the higher band, roughly $6.0 to $7.0 million, pending any negotiated settlement and offsets from future employment. Local reporting has pegged the obligation near $6.23 million based on the agreement’s terms. The final check will reflect the official termination date in UCLA records and any negotiation between the parties.

As for the why, the film and the scoreboard spoke loudly. UCLA opened with a 43-10 loss to Utah at the Rose Bowl, followed by a 30-23 loss at UNLV, then a 35-10 defeat to New Mexico back at home. Through three weeks, the Bruins failed to top 23 points in a game and surrendered at least 30 in each, getting outscored 108-43 in aggregate. That New Mexico loss, as a two-score favorite, became a flashpoint, both for its optics and for what it suggested about preparation, discipline, and trajectory just as Big Ten play loomed. Pair that with a 5-7 debut season in 2024, and the uncomfortable trendline left the administration with little choice.

In that context, Sunday’s decision felt less like a shock and more like the culmination of a hot seat that had been warming since Week 1. Moving now, even at a higher short-term buyout cost, signals urgency from athletic director Martin Jarmond to stabilize the locker room, give Skipper a clean lane to coach the bye week, and reframe the program’s message to recruits and donors before conference play. The buyout will shape budget parameters for the next hire, but the broader calculus is clear: performance had slipped past the point where patience made sense, and the price of waiting risked becoming higher than the cost of change.

Hokies make an early move

Virginia Tech is set to fire Brent Pry after a 0-3 start, a decision reported by multiple outlets and highlighted by Pete Thamel’s note that Pry sits at 16-24 through four seasons, with the latest slide punctuated by a 45-26 home loss to Old Dominion amid loud halftime boos. The September stumble followed defeats to South Carolina and Vanderbilt and marks the program’s worst start since 1987, adding urgency to a reset just hours after another Power Four program made a similar in-season change. The move underscores a broader trend of earlier coaching pivots when trajectories sour quickly, even before conference play fully sets the stakes.

Financially, the separation carries real weight: Pry is expected to be owed more than $6 million, with USA Today placing the figure slightly above $6.8 million on a deal running through 2027 and paid out in quarterly installments subject to mitigation. Contract terms cited by national reporting outline a buyout at 70% of the remaining base salary, except for a 50% obligation in the final year, framing a liability that still sits in the mid-seven figures despite the early timing. That structure mirrors the calculus seen elsewhere on Sunday, where administrative urgency outweighed the savings that come from waiting deeper into the calendar.

On-field results drove the decision: a 24-11 neutral-site loss to South Carolina, a 44-20 collapse against Vanderbilt after leading at halftime, and the ODU defeat that ballooned to 28-0 by the break, all reinforcing a pattern that drowned out incremental progress from prior bowl trips. Pry’s postgame admission, “Clearly, it starts with me”, captured the accountability tone even as the margins spiraled, and now the focus shifts to stabilizing a roster before ACC play while leadership balances a buyout hit with the urgency to chart a new course. In the context of a day defined by swift decisions and significant financial implications, Virginia Tech’s move arrives as another signal that patience is shrinking when early-season evidence points sharply the wrong way.