The NIL Edge – November 7th, 2025
The Reckoning in College Football: Why So Many Coaches Are Falling and What It Really Costs
College football is in the middle of a reckoning. Thirteen midseason firings, record-breaking buyouts, and an NIL arms race have turned the sport’s most powerful programs into some of its least stable. In this new 5 part series, I explore how championship coaches are struggling to adapt, why non-football schools are thriving, and what the “business of belief” reveals about the future of college athletics. The money, the pressure, and the shifting power dynamic between coaches, players, and boosters — it’s all here.
Part 1. When Champions Can’t Adapt: Why the NIL Era Is Exposing Even the Game’s Greats
In any other year, the headlines would be stunning. Thirteen head coaches fired before November, with several others clinging to tenuous job security as athletic directors weigh massive buyouts against donor impatience. But in 2025, this is starting to look less like chaos and more like correction.
For decades, college football rewarded consistency. Athletic directors and fan bases placed their trust — and tens of millions of dollars — in proven leaders who could recruit, develop, and win within the established rules and norms of the sport. But the rules and norms have changed.
Today’s college football coach isn’t just a strategist or motivator. He’s a CEO, talent broker, and brand manager operating inside a fast-moving ecosystem shaped by Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) and the transfer portal. The men who once ruled the sport on instinct and authority now face a new reality that requires agility, transparency, and salesmanship. And not all of them want the job as it now exists.
The Game Passed Them Faster Than They Could Adjust
Some of the firings this season have little to do with on-field performance. They’re more about fit — or, more precisely, misfit — in an environment where power has shifted from coaches and athletic departments to players and their financial backers.
There’s a perception that coaches aren’t really coaching anymore. They're actually managing chaos. That sentiment explains why even championship-winning coaches are losing their grip.
The modern coach has to do far more than recruit and scheme. He must:
Maintain NIL relationships with multiple collectives, each with its own donors, agendas, and expectations.
Navigate roster turnover that can reach 30% annually because of the transfer portal.
Communicate constantly — not just with players and families, but with marketing reps, compliance officers, and external advisors.
This is an entirely different skill set from the one that defined coaching excellence for the past half-century. The best coaches of the 2010s built cultures. The best coaches of the 2020s build ecosystems.
Championship Résumés Don’t Guarantee NIL Fluency
It’s easy to assume that success breeds adaptability. But in truth, we’re seeing that it often breeds rigidity. Coaches who won the old way — through control, loyalty, and incremental development — struggle to adjust to a model that rewards fluidity and self-interest.
We’ve already seen examples of coaches with national titles or playoff appearances falter, not because they forgot how to coach, but because they refused to engage in the transactional reality of NIL.
They don’t want to renegotiate with players over social media opportunities.
They don’t want to meet with donor groups who expect input on player deals.
They don’t want to play the portal every December like it’s NFL free agency.
And yet that’s what the job now demands. A head coach today must embrace commerce as part of culture-building. Those who resist are discovering that history, no matter how glorious, doesn’t protect them from irrelevance.
The Age of the Reluctant CEO
The job has always been demanding. Now it’s unrelenting. Coaches are expected to manage seven-figure rosters without any of the structural support of professional front offices. There are no salary caps, no collective bargaining agreements, no offseasons.
What we have instead is a marketplace operating at full throttle — with uneven rules, unpredictable donors, enormous public scrutiny and expectations, and even involvement from politicians. The coaches thriving in this environment are adaptable, media-savvy, and business-minded.
Think of them as startup founders rather than sideline generals. They delegate. They hire specialists. They treat NIL strategy as seriously as play design. And crucially, they understand that communication is currency.
Those who cling to the old command-and-control model are being swept aside, not because they suddenly forgot football, but because they no longer understand, or want to understand, the enterprise they’re in.
What Comes Next
As the NIL era matures, the coaching carousel will keep spinning faster. Athletic directors are discovering that experience and a track record of success aren’t enough. Adaptability, energy, and digital fluency matter more.
I expect that the new wave of head coaches will look different:
Younger, often in their 30s and 40s.
Comfortable in front of a camera and on social media.
Willing to collaborate with collectives, agents, and marketing teams.
They won’t see NIL as a distraction. They’ll see it as leverage and a way to build loyalty and differentiate their programs.
The irony is that the coaches most nostalgic for the old model are the ones who built the sport’s modern empire. They recruited harder, worked longer, and demanded total buy-in. But in a world where athletes can now monetize their own brand, total control is gone. The great irony of college football’s transformation is that the sport these men built no longer exists in the form they recognize.
Next up in this series: “The Hidden Costs of the Coaching Carousel” — an inside look at what universities really spend when they change head coaches, and why the financial math no longer makes sense.
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