Theathletic

Texas A&M football’s $120M coaching change, plus QBs hit transfer portal and CFP rankings

C.Brown3 months ago

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Syracuse was the latest job to come off the market yesterday when the Orange hired Georgia defensive backs coach Fran Brown as their coach. Plus, Stewart Mandel loves Michigan State ’s Jonathan Smith hire.

Here’s what else is happening in college football Until Saturday ...

Almost $120 Million

How much will this cost Texas A&M?

Mike Elko was introduced as Texas A&M’s coach on Monday , so I took some time to crunch the numbers and figure out how much money A&M is committing to spend for its transition away from Jimbo Fisher. Without discrediting Elko — he’s a good hire after all — it is silly to think these dollar signs revolve around dropping a coach who went 6-4 in 2023 (before being fired) to one who went ... 7-5.

  • As we broke down previously, Fisher’s record-breaking buyout will cost A&M $77,562,500won’t be paid off until 2031 ( eight annual payments of $7,271,484 starting in 2024 ).
  • Elko signed a six-year deal (through Jan. 31, 2030) worth $7 million per year (Fisher departed with a $9.15 million annual salary ). Elko’s contract includes a pile of incentives, but we won’t include any of those in this calculation.
  • The total amount Texas A&M will spend on this head coaching change is $119,562,500. Yup, that’s the amount of Elko’s total salary for six years ($42 million) combined with Fisher’s total buyout.
  • This all means that during the next seven years, Texas A&M is guaranteed to spend $17 million per year on its head coach in some capacity. Talk about expensive! (And we haven’t even gotten to the assistants.)

    New CFP Rankings

    Ohio State drops out of top four

    The penultimate College Football Playoff rankings dropped yesterday. Here are the top four teams:

    The next two teams are:

    Michigan had a case for No. 1. Based on the biggest wins, the Wolverines beat now-No. 6 Ohio State while Georgia’s best win came against No. 9 Missouri . But if we go solely off ranked wins, Washington has the best of them all against No. 5 Oregon. That said, I’m not surprised with how the top four shook out, and plenty of question marks will be answered during championship weekend (but that all-undefeated Playoff bracket sure looks pretty).

    As for the Buckeyes , they lost control of their destiny for the first time this year after falling to Michigan last week.

    Ryan Day is 1-3 against Michigan as Ohio State’s coach. (Scott W. Grau / Icon Sportswire via )

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