2025 is a year of tremendous upheaval in the college football coaching ranks. The high-profile candidates who are staying put make things even more confusing.
The vacancies have created a leadership vacuum at several of the NCAA’s most prestigious programs. Penn State, Michigan State, Florida State and LSU have all fired coaches. There are 14 vacancies included in the Power 4 program. It’s a windfall for any up-and-comer looking for a fresh start and a big raise.
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In the end, most of those stars chose the latter.
Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman, the leader of the most resented team in the playoff debate, announced Monday that he will stay in South Bend, Indiana, on an “enhanced contract.” The statement refuted rumors that the New York Giants were interested in making him an NFL coach.
The 2024 NCAA runner-up is the latest link in a chain of stay-at-home coaches who took advantage of the turbulent job market to score a hefty extension and lucrative raise without the hassle of moving to a new home. Clark Lea took advantage of the most successful season in Vanderbilt history to receive a pricey raise to prevent poaching, but the amount he received is unclear because the Commodores are a private institution. Curt Cignetti, the top-ranked Indiana architect(!), received $93 million in funding to stay in Bloomington. Even Matt Rhule got an extra two years at Nebraska, albeit with a modest return, to keep him away from Penn State.
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Kalani Sitake was the Nittany Lions’ next option before CEOs across Utah made a concerted effort to keep him in Provo. Although Kenny Dillingham’s production declined slightly at Arizona State, he still received a five-year contract for $7.5 million each. SMU’s Rhett Lashlee, like Dillingham, made the College Football Playoff in 2024 before regressing slightly. And, like Dillingham, he was paid handsomely for turning down higher-profile jobs this winter.
What does this tell us? It’s a wild world out there – coaches, supporters and administrators would rather find money to keep good coaches while their peers are fired for not being good enough. The 2025 coaching carousel is spinning like crazy. Many top prospects remain static, confident that lesser-known programs can take advantage of changes in college football policy.
These coaches wouldn’t stay at programs that have largely taken a back seat to Capital C college football destinations if they didn’t think their teams had a new chance to compete. Without paying cash to players via zero trades, these teams won’t be able to compete, at least not successfully. They can’t make a compelling case for raising zero money without making a financial commitment that matches the LSU, Penn State, and Florida universities of the world.
So with extensions in hand and the assurance of an untouched spigot at the top of the funding pipeline, guys like Lea, Cignetti and Sitake stayed.
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Only some of this applies to Freeman. Notre Dame is playing nice until player payments are approved. His biggest suitor isn’t a competitor, but a team that plays on Sunday. But with 136 FBS programs on the ground, his decision to stay signals a new shift in college football. Teams looking to hire high-profile coaches will have real trouble poaching from Final Four teams.
2025 is the year coaches get fired in college football. It’s also the year coaches stick around, with big pay raises allowing them to stay home and avoid the temptation to start over in higher-profile jobs. This trend may make teams think twice about firing their leaders now that they’ve been seriously insulted by a “Rate Bowl” invitation.
This article originally appeared in To Win: Marcus Freeman turns down Giants because good coaches still exist in 2025
