Yahoo: Coaches on the hot seat

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Almost all of them, from Democrats like Maria Cantwell to Republicans like Ted Cruz, from bill supporters like Chris Coons to bill opposers like Cory Booker, mentioned to the thousands watching on CSPAN and the dozens within the chamber a festering issue that's gripped the industry: the millions that universities spend on firing college football coaches.

"In 2025 alone, 15 fired coaches secured buyouts worth a quarter of a billion dollars," said Booker, who filed an amendment (it failed) to cap coaching buyouts to an amount no greater than one year's salary.

"Two-hundred and fifty-million dollars paid to coaches not to coach," he continued. "And you hear people running around here lobbying saying we have a financial crisis in college sports!"

As the college coaching firing cycle creeps closer — it could start at any minute! — buyouts owed to coaches may again climb toward record figures.

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Lincoln Riley, USC

Buyout: around $60 million

Many around the industry assumed that Riley entered this season needing a trip to the playoffs. But after a lowly performance at Rutgers and a loss at home to Oregon — which played the second half without star QB Dante Moore — a playoff berth doesn't look likely. The schedule is loaded. They host Ohio State on Halloween and travel to defending national champion Indiana. Road games against Penn State, Wisconsin and UCLA loom as problems, too. The buyout may be high, but it's unlikely to stop a decision from AD Jen Cohen, whose frustrations must be high given the resources poured into the program. Would Cohen, the former AD at Washington, go knock on Kalen DeBoer's door?

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Shane Beamer, South Carolina

Buyout: $22-24 million

The Gamecocks may be headed toward a third losing season in the last four years. The blowout loss at Alabama and the drama that ensued involving standout edge rusher Dylan Stewart doesn't help the cause of Beamer, who is three games above .500 in his sixth season in Columbia, South Carolina. Is the job one in which a championship should be expected every year? No. But even in the new roster-spending era of the sport, the Gamecocks expect to, at the very least, stay out of the SEC basement. And while they may not be spending top-10 money, they are doling out enough to guys like Stewart and QB LaNorris Sellers, whose decline has left fans aghast.

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Mike Norvell, Florida State

Buyout: $45-50 million

The firing of your boss, in this case athletic director Mike Alford, normally doesn't bode well for many coaches. But was Alford's firing a product of university administrators' pinning the football issues on the AD? Is Norvell out of the woods? Unlikely. But some at FSU believe that the coach can still survive by winning enough this year (can he get to seven Ws?). The buyout figure is high enough to present a problem for a department that spent hundreds of millions on facility renovations recently.

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Bill Belichick, North Carolina

Buyout: $10-12 million

No, the win in Dublin over TCU didn't quiet the buzz around Belichick's tenure in Chapel Hill, especially after blowing a fourth-quarter lead at Clemson. Notre Dame is on deck this Saturday and it could get ugly. Sure, it's only his second year, but the results don't bode well for the future — on and off the field. General manager Michael Lombardi and defensive coordinator Steve Belichick, Bill's son, both resigned amid investigations into, let's just call it, not great stuff. Entering his second year, athletic director Steve Newmark wants to see improvement and progress from Year 1. Can the Tar Heels show it against the Irish?

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