Smartest College Football Coach Firings of the Past 10 Years

Nov 1, 2014; Lincoln, NE, USA; Nebraska Cornhuskers head coach Bo Pelini yells at an official during the game against Purdue Boilermakers in the first half at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Bruce Thorson-USA TODAY Sports

A college football coach, even a good one, lives with the day to day pressure that today could very well be his last day on the job. In a world where you’re only as good as the last title you delivered, coaches are sometimes easily dismissed.

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Even coaches who seem to have a winning tradition in tow can be sent to the unemployment line, as Nebraksa’s Bo Pelini found out last season. Will the Cornhuskers regret parting ways with Bo and hiring former Oregon State coach Mike Riley? Perhaps one of the two will end up on a best/worst hire list next season.

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But sometimes a coach simply has to go. Even coaches who arrive on campus as the perceived savior or game-changer, things don’t always go as planned. However, coaches are given such ridiculously long and litigious contracts these days that even firing a bad coach isn’t an easy decision with the massive buyouts that can come attached to a pink slip.

Here are ten examples of situations where the buyout didn’t matter and the timing was not a concern, the smartest thing these schools could have done was to move on from these coaches.

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