2025-26 Coaching Carousel

[huskymedic]

 

[nelsonmuntz]

No financial reason?

There are 2 possibilities:
(1) every school is spending millions in severance (and lots of other expenses) for no reason
(2) your supposition is incorrect

FB drives merchandise, campus visits, application numbers, and most significantly alumni donations.

Then why have so many schools like Rutgers and UCLA clearly downshifted on football? Which school is higher ranked academically, UCLA or LSU? Spoiler alert: it isn’t close. Rutgers has shot up the academic rankings and it is barely trying in football. BCU has been mailing it in for over 20 years.

Kelly’s buyout is almost three years of direct roster payments for the entire athletic program before NIL. That is insane. Coaches are disposable in the Transfer Portal/NIL era, like they are in the pros, and the smart AD’s will start paying them that way.

 

[Windham4th]

Teams need a player-coach like an early 20th century baseball team. Much cheaper and they get rid of themselves after 4ish years

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Why would Clark Lea leave Vanderbilt? If Vanderbilt is truly committed to football, then LSU can not compete with it.

People don’t appreciate how much richer the top universities like Vanderbilt are than a community college like LSU. LSU’s endowment, depending on how it is measured, is as big as UConn’s, around $650 million. The upper end is a billion, although that includes the entire university system and when you see two estimates, go with the lower one because schools try to stretch their endowment numbers for prestige. Vanderbilt’s is $10 billion. The net worth of Vanderbilt’s alumni is probably more than the rest of the SEC (less Texas) combined. If Vanderbilt is serious about football, Lea would be crazy to leave.

History and tradition are irrelevant, and coaching matters, but is not decisive like it used to be. Cash matters. The highest NIL are going to win, and schools like Vandy and Duke and Stanford can pay a lot more, if they want to.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Openings at major programs, buyouts not an issue, fixation on winning at any cost - an agent might look around and ask what more can I get for my client, esp in a year that will not meet expectations.

I miss college football.

Jimmy Sexton is gonna get paid this off-season.

He is the king maker in college football coaching.

 

[Vowelguy]

Then why have so many schools like Rutgers and UCLA clearly downshifted on football? Which school is higher ranked academically, UCLA or LSU? Spoiler alert: it isn’t close. Rutgers has shot up the academic rankings and it is barely trying in football. BCU has been mailing it in for over 20 years.

Kelly’s buyout is almost three years of direct roster payments for the entire athletic program before NIL. That is insane. Coaches are disposable in the Transfer Portal/NIL era, like they are in the pros, and the smart AD’s will start paying them that way.

Ucla … the first school to fire its coach this season.

 

[CCSUblue]

Clark Lea has his alma mater at their highest ranking in almost 100 years. That man built a culture there already that will not translate to other SEC schools.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Ucla … the first school to fire its coach this season.

You are just arguing to argue now. UCLA is not trying in football, and hasn’t in 30 years. They may occasionally hire a big time coach, but they do not fully resource him, and then don’t do anything about it for years. Deshaun Foster was epically failing, but the fact that someone so clearly unqualified was hired in the first place shows how they were not taking seriously.

 

[noeynox]

You are just arguing to argue now. UCLA is not trying in football, and hasn’t in 30 years. They may occasionally hire a big time coach, but they do not fully resource him, and then don’t do anything about it for years. Deshaun Foster was epically failing, but the fact that someone so clearly unqualified was hired in the first place shows how they were not taking seriously.

I think Foster was hoping for a coach Prime effect. ADs mostly suck at hiring coaches. Whenever someone hits it out of the box others try to copy the model. Indiana hits the lottery with Cignetti. He's 64. Now older guys who have had success at lower levels are having their names floated for big time jobs. I saw Keeler floated for LSU. I mean come on, I am fan of Keeler but if you fire Brian Kelly and bring him in what are you doing? At one time the young hot coordinator was all the rage. We hired one.

Some schools are really stupid. Wisconsin firing Chryst was dumb and I said so at the time. I think Penn State firing Franklin is dumb. Time will tell. I also think Brian Kelly is a good coach (bad person) that took an impossible job. LSU won with Saban and he left. Won with Myles and he flopped. Won with Ed O and he flopped. The expectation at LSU is national title or bust but with the SEC adding schools like A&M, Texas, and Oklahoma where is LSU in the pecking order of programs in the SEC? There is one reason to take the job there. The buyout will make it so your kids kid's dont have to work.

 

[huskymedic]

-> Multiple program sources told The Athletic earlier Sunday, on the heels of LSU’s third loss in four games, that LSU athletic director Scott Woodward wanted Kelly to make staff changes, including firing offensive coordinator Joe Sloan, to try to fix an offense that ranks last in the SEC in rushing yards per game. However, when Kelly and Woodward met Sunday afternoon, things got very tense. After Woodward told the head coach to fire his play caller, Kelly fired back that he wanted to make other staff moves Woodward wasn’t comfortable with. The situation then escalated, with the head coach pushing back hard against his boss. “It went bad fast,” a program source told The Athletic. <-