At least two head coaching positions have come open within the 13 FBS programs in Texas over the last three carousels. Three programs – Texas A&M, Houston, and UTEP – changed head coaches after the 2023 season. Two switched head coaches after the 2022 campaign with Texas State and North Texas moving on from Jake Spavital and Seth Littrell, respectively. And three came open ahead of the 2022 season when SMU, TCU, and Tech changed directions. 

The last time only one job opened was the 2020-21 cycle when Steve Sarkisian replaced Tom Herman at Texas. The year before that, Baylor hired Dave Aranda and UTSA hired Jeff Traylor. Outside of K.C. Keeler at Sam Houston, who was hired in 2014 when the Bearkats were still an FCS program, Aranda and Traylor are now the longest-tenured FBS head coaches in Texas after Mike Bloomgren was fired at Rice earlier this season. 

Rice might be on an island in 2024 looking for a coach, which is good news for the Owls. Aranda has seemingly coached himself off the hot seat with a 5-4 start in 2024 and a team trending in the right direction. Potential movers such as Jeff Traylor and G.J. Kinne haven’t recorded the 2024 seasons required for P4 attention. Same with Morris at North Texas following two consecutive conference losses after a 5-1 start to the season. 

The culprit for the slowed down coaching carousel is the looming reality of revenue sharing with student athletes. The recent House vs. NCAA settlement suggests that schools will be provided the option of funding up to 22 percent of their annual revenue – roughly $23 million per school – to pay athletes for the next 10 years, beginning in 2025. 

Let’s use Baylor as an example to show how much that settlement impacts coaching decisions. In the past, the Bears brass would have a simple task – raise enough money for the buyout of Aranda and the current staff while raising the money needed to buyout the new coach and get him under contract. Let’s say Aranda’s buyout is close to $20 million and it would cost that amount for a new staff. That means Baylor needs $40 million dollars to make a move. 

With players expected to take in $23 million, that number is now $63 million. Some schools can do that – Texas A&M ridding itself of Jimbo Fisher – but most can’t. For decades, athletic programs across the country were forced to play a zero-sum game. All the money coming in had to spent to avoid scrutiny for not paying their labor force. Now, with the courts telling them that was illegal, these same programs must shake the tree to find millions and millions of dollars in a budget that didn’t forecast for the expense. 

This is why Florida gave Billy Napier a vote of confidence – that and the worry that star quarterback D.J. Lagway would also leave. It is why Arkansas hopes Sam Pittman makes a bowl so they can keep him for another year or two. It is why we haven’t seen the coaching carousel move into hyperdrive with three weeks left in the season, especially at the P4 level. 

Players win games, and programs are suggesting that the money spent on the roster is more important than buying out the current staff. We see this in professional sports where the players outearn the coaches by a large percentage. College athletics was never built that way. We elevated head coaches to near deity status, and then send them out the door with a large check when they fail to reach our expectations. 

No more. Schools must start being better with their money. No more renegotiated contracts with millions in guarantees after one good season. No more 10-year guaranteed contracts. No more bloated administrative staffs. The faucet is about to turn off. 

But don’t cry for college athletics or the administrators or the coaches. They’ll be fine. Just like Micah Parsons said about his head coach earlier in the week. The adults got rich for decades as the television contracts erased any façade of amateurism. It took the courts to force change. This is the bed they made, so now it is time to lay in it – even if it means keeping a coach you’d rather fire.