The 5 Highest CFB Head Coach Buyouts All-Time

Be careful what you wish for. It’s wise advice for college football programs around the country who want to see their head coach fired. Last week gave us the end of the James Franklin era at Penn State. With it came the second-most expensive coaching contract buyout in college football history. 

Will the madness ever end? That is a discussion for another day, but for the next several minutes just imagine you had taken the route of a college football coach. You worked your way up from lowly graduate assistant to a position coach to a coordinator and, ultimately, to a FBS head coach. Then, you got fired! 

These days, coaching contracts are filled with language to prevent coaches from “jumping ship” and taking a job that pays more, is more prestigious, etc. These buyouts are built into contracts to make it more difficult for a coach to leave. Unfortunately, it also makes it harder to get rid of an underperforming coach.

The ridiculousness started with the guy at No. 1 on our list, but large coaching buyouts have been around for several years. Here are the 5 highest college football buyouts of all-time, starting with No. 5.

No. 5:  Willie Taggart, Florida State ($18M)

If you don’t recognize the name, it’s okay. Taggart disappeared and is now the RB coach for the Baltimore Ravens in the NFL. Taggart was a hot commodity for a while in college football. He was the head coach at Western Kentucky where consecutive 7-5 seasons earned him the gig at South Florida.

He took the Bulls from 2-10 in his first year to 10-2 in his fourth and parlayed that into the head coaching job at Oregon. He only spent one year at Oregon (7-5) and got to come back home as the new head coach at Florida State.

Having left Oregon after just one season, the Seminoles didn’t want to risk Taggart bolting quickly again. In his contract was a provision that if he was fired without cause he would be paid the remaining balance of his contract. That totaled around $18 million plus another $2 million that FSU had to pay as part of a buyout at Oregon.

No. 4:  Charlie Weis, Notre Dame ($19M)

With most of his experience in the NFL, Weis, a Notre Dame alum, was hired to run the Fighting Irish program in 2005. His contract gave him an average salary of about $2 million per season. Remember, this was 20 years ago. 

Weis had success early, going 9-3 in Year 1. The Notre Dame brass decided to extend his contract and gave him a 10-year deal worth somewhere between $30 and $40 million. It looked like a great deal. In 2006, the Irish went 10-3. Then, the wheels fell off the bus.

Weis and Notre Dame suffered through a 3-9 campaign in 2007. Seasons of 7-6 and 6-6 followed before Weis was shown the door. Because of that contract extension, Notre Dame was on the hook for roughly $19 million when they fired Weis.

No. 3:  Gus Malzahn, Auburn ($21M)

Malzahn is currently the offensive coordinator at Florida State, but prior to that he had an interesting run as a head coach at three different schools. His offensive acumen is what earned him a job as an assistant at Arkansas back in 2006. He would eventually become the offensive coordinator at Auburn and win a national championship with a quarterback named Cam Newton.

That earned him a head coaching job at Arkansas State where he went 9-3 in his first year. When the Auburn job opened up, Malzahn was hired as the guy in 2012. The Tigers went to the national championship game in Malzahn’s first season. The production dipped, but Auburn went 10-4 and played for an SEC title in 2017.

That led to a new contract worth $49 million. The Tigers would go 8-5, 9-4, and were 6-4 in 2020 when they decided to part ways with Malzahn. Most every CFB head coaching contract becomes fully guaranteed when a school decides to fire the coach without cause. That means the institution owes the balance. Malzahn collected a cool $21 million over the next four years.

No. 2: James Franklin, Penn State ($49M)

Franklin was hired at Penn State after a successful run at Vanderbilt which, at the time, was one of the toughest places to coach in the country. You also have to remember that Penn State wasn’t all that far removed from the ugly Jerry Sandusky scandal. Franklin was hired in 2014, just three years after that fiasco.

Penn State went 7-6 in each of Franklin’s first two seasons before going 11-3 and winning the Big Ten in Year 3. An 11-2 season would follow, but there were some bumps in the road – 4-5 in the COVID season in 2020 followed by 7-6 in 2021. Still, the university believed in Franklin and went all-in in 2021 with a 10-year, $75 million deal. 

Since the signing of that contract, Franklin went 37-11, but he had problems beating elite teams. He was 4-21 against Top 10 teams and just 1-15 against teams ranked in the Top 5. The Nittany Lions lost to No. 6 Oregon at home in overtime to start a three-game losing streak that culminated with Franklin’s firing. 

As a result, Penn State now owes Franklin the balance of his remaining contract. That comes to a hefty $49 million. 

See Odds on where James Franklin will coach next

No. 1: Jimbo Fisher, Texas A&M ($76.8M)

And No. 1 on the list is ole Jimbo Fisher. Texas A&M went swinging for the fence. In hindsight, they could have just hit for contact like they did with the hire of current head coach Mike Elko who has the Aggies sitting at No. 4 in the nation right now.

At the time, Texas A&M was looking for the coach that would take them to the upper echelon of the SEC. Fisher needed to get out of Tallahassee. His 2017 Florida State Seminoles went 5-6 and fans were calling for Fisher to go.

It was perfect timing, and Fisher made the jump. He went 9-4 and 8-5 in his first two seasons. When the Aggies went 9-1 in 2020, the university decided they didn’t want Fisher going elsewhere. The rumors were that LSU wanted Fisher, so Texas A&M gave Fisher incentive to stay – a 10-year, $95 million contract. 

The problem with that contract, of course, is that it would be fully guaranteed if A&M were to fire Fisher without cause. Of course, Fisher didn’t have the success needed to stay in College Station and was fired after 10 games in 2023. The balance of his contract, $76.8 million, was then owed to Fisher.

The terms of the contract called for the university to pay $19.2 million of the buyout within 60 days of termination. The remaining balance is paid annually, $7.2 million, which Fisher receives until 2031. 

Bet on College Football now at one of these best rated sportsbooks