Throughout the college football season, game results haven’t just shaped the playoff picture, but have also changed coaching staffs across the country. Multiple powerhouse programs and college football blue bloods have fired their head coaches, coordinators and athletic directors. This has proved that with this new era in college sports, teams are expecting results here and now.
Schools aren’t waiting anymore for coaches to “rebuild.” With the transfer portal, NIL and the expanded playoffs, powerhouse teams expect to be in the hunt for a national championship. According to CBS Sports, athletic departments are spending record sums on buyouts, showing how fast programs are willing to move on from coaches when they underperform, no matter how much they would need to be paid.
There have been plenty of notable firings throughout this season. The two most notable firings are of Penn State Head Coach James Franklin and Louisiana State Head Coach Brian Kelly. Those two firings especially rocked the college football world, but others include Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State’s head coach; Billy Napier, Florida’s head coach and Hugh Freeze, Auburn’s head coach.
After years of fantastic play for Oklahoma State, Gundy’s coaching performance had a major decline. The team went 3-9 in 2024, and after a 69-3 loss against Oregon in 2025, Gundy was fired. Florida has always been a powerhouse, so their expectations when hiring Billy Napier was to continue that success. Napier didn’t meet the on-field expectations. As of 2025, Napier led the Gators to a 22-23 record and a 12-16 record in conference play. Most recently, Auburn fired Hugh Freeze. After similar struggles, Freeze has not had the conference record that is expected at Auburn. Their conference record under his coaching was 6-16. There were multiple reports from different sources that he was more worried about his golf game than doing everything he could to have Auburn perform.
James Franklin and the Penn State team had high expectations as the No. 2 team in the nation and expected to compete for a national championship. After a 3-0 start to the year, the fall-off began. After a close loss to a good Oregon team, a horrendous loss to a winless UCLA team and losing their starting quarterback and a one point loss to unranked Northwestern, Franklin was fired. For years, Franklin was known as a “choker” in big games, shown in his 4-21 record against top ten ranked teams. Following his firing, Franklin was paid a $48-50 million buyout, the third largest in college football history.
Following the chaos brought by former head coach Ed Orgeron at LSU, Brian Kelly was brought in as someone to bring structure, discipline and a national championship to Baton Rouge. Following his time at Notre Dame, Kelly came to a program with more money, better facilities and in the best conference football; not winning a National Championship would be disappointing. After a hot start winning the SEC West in his first year, flaws in his foundation showed. Coming from the strict culture of Notre Dame to the shaggy and energetic culture of LSU, he didn’t mesh with the fans or the players. Kelly isn’t from the south, so many say he never fully won over the fan base. Kelly didn’t win big games when it mattered, and after a few too many big losses, LSU and Kelly split. His $53 million payout made it the largest in college football history.
Some potential future firings in the near future have a chance of coming true. Although the Florida State Athletic Director has said that they are fully in on Head Coach Mike Norvell, he still could be on the hot seat. Norvell had a blazing start to the 2025 season, but after a boatload of large losses and an awful 2024, Norvell is just a few losses away from being out of a job.
College football is moving faster than ever, with new rules in NIL, the transfer portal and the new playoff expansion making losing not an option for teams in the Power Four (SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC). With this chaos, the coaching turnover will only be getting worse. These recent firings show that no one is really ever safe, and stability doesn’t exist anymore. The modern game of football doesn’t reward patience and rebuilding; it rewards results and wins.