College football is getting a bit wacky these days.
I don’t mean because James Madison University in Virginia has made it into the Top 25 teams during its first year as a Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) school. The FBS teams are the 131 schools, such as Alabama, Ohio State and Clemson, that play college football at the highest level.
No, I think college football is wacky for another reason. During the first five weeks of this season, five FBS schools — Arizona State, Colorado, Georgia Tech, Nebraska and Wisconsin — fired their head coaches. That means the schools may be paying these former coaches to not coach their teams!
When a school hires a football coach, it signs a contract, or agreement, to pay the coach a certain amount of money for a certain number of years. If the school fires the coach before the end of the contract, the school still has to pay the coach if that is what the contract requires.
Not all the fired coaches were doing a bad job. For example, Paul Chryst was the head coach at Wisconsin for more than seven seasons. His teams had a record of 67-26 (67 wins, 26 losses) and won six of seven postseason bowl games. But the Badgers lost three of their first five games this season, and Chryst was out.
Don’t feel bad for Chryst. College football coaches make a lot of money. In fact, many college football coaches make as much or more money than head coaches in the National Football League (NFL). A dozen college coaches make more than $7 million a year. That’s what Ron Rivera makes to coach the Washington Commanders.
College football coaches make more money than a lot of other people. According to a 2020 article in USA Today, the head college football coach at the state’s public university was the highest paid public employee in 40 of the 50 states.
That means college football coaches make more money than the governor or chief medical officer of the state. I like college football, but I don’t think it’s more important for the state school’s team to have a winning record than the state to have a well-run government or to keep its residents healthy.
Of course, the reason college football coaches make so much is simple. On Saturday, The Washington Post sports section listed 37 (!) college football games that would be on television. All those TV games make money for the schools. Money the schools can spend paying coaches to coach. Or paying coaches not to coach.
That’s pretty wacky.
