The firing of Texas A&M football coach Jimbo Fisher earlier this month sent shockwaves across the college football landscape, but equally surprising was the $76 million contract buyout he received with his pink slip.
Fisher was hired to coach Texas A&M in 2018 and had a moderately successful tenure, amassing a record of 45-25 and three bowl victories. But the team never made the College Football Playoff during his time with the team and never finished higher than second place in the highly competitive Southeastern Conference West Division.
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At the time of his firing, Fisher’s Aggies were 6-4 and headed for another disappointing season outside the elite class of college football. But on his way out the door, Fisher set a record by earning the single largest contract payout of a head coach at a public university, with Texas A&M paying its coach $76 million to leave the team, a significant chunk of the athletic department’s 2022 revenue of $193 million.
The number is far and away the largest known contract buyout ever for a public college football coach. In 2020, Auburn University set the record by paying Gus Malzahn $21.7 million to pack his bags and vacate his office. Fisher’s payout exceeded Malzahn’s by $55 million.
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According to ESPN, Fisher’s contract payout accounts for more than half of the $146 million in payouts to fired football coaches in the Power Five conferences since the start of the 2022 season.
The list of fired but wealthy coaches includes another Auburn payout in 2022 to Bryan Harsin, who got $15.5 million on his way out the door. The same year, the University of Nebraska paid Scott Frost $15 million on his way out the door, and Georgia Tech paid Geoff Collins $11.4 million to leave their sidelines.
