Catching up on staff changes in college football
USC fans want quick-fixes to deep problems while Aggies finally have a resolution to their offensive coordinator search.
One of the interesting parts of the “silly season” of college football where staffs are reworked with new hires is the process of blame.
The head coach is usually the last guy to get major blame. Why? Because changing a head coach is the last solution for most programs owing to it being the most expensive. Every other potential solution will be sold first in order to avoid the costliest and most destabilizing change at the top.
Sometimes coordinator hires make a big impact, but even then it’s often because the head coach also made some adjustment to his strategy and overall philosophy to incorporate new ideas or methods and improve his team.
This week we’ve had a couple of teams come up where big staff changes are desired at different points in the head coaching journey.
The USC Trojans have had immediate success with Lincoln Riley, who’s consequently pretty popular overall, but they might have had greater success had their defense not been awful. So guess what the proposed changes to a year two USC are in order to maximize the Riley era? Must be that awful defensive coach who didn’t work the same miracles as Riley did.
On the other side of the journey, Texas A&M had a second consecutive letdown year after their breakthrough 9-1 season in 2020. Their head coach Jimbo Fisher has a massive, unheard of buyout in his contract.
Here are the year-by-year price tags for firing him…
2022: $85.9 milly
2023: $76.8 milly
2024: $67.5 milly
2025: $58.2 milly
2026: $48.7 milly
2027: $39.2 milly
…on and on it goes. Remember it was controversial when Auburn bought out Gus Malzahn for $21.5 million. Texas A&M won’t get off that cheap without cause for like a decade. Now with the price of gas what it is, the Aggies could probably scrap together the money to do this if they felt it was truly necessary.
However, when you consider this massive investment along with the (alleged) investment made into their historic 2022 recruiting class, ranked by some as the greatest recruiting class of all time…it’s as much a moral blow as a financial one.
If the Aggies fire Jimbo Fisher at any point in the near future, they’ll be throwing in the towel on a massive investment and the vested hopes of millions of fans and alumni. Remember, they built this guy a trophy with an unmarked year to commemorate his eventual National Championship.
I think a failure here would be a spiritual blow to A&M they’d not easily recover from, even if the funds could be found.
So they had him hire a new offensive coordinator…