Some Things to Consider Making A 2026 Buyout "Unlikely"
How buyouts work
A buyout is the
liquidated damages a school owes when it fires a coach without cause. Performance is not cause. Criminal activity, NCAA violations, and similar serious behavioral issues are causes.
Coaching buyouts are usually calculated either as a
percentage of the guaranteed compensation left on the contract, or as a fixed amount that shrinks over the life of the deal. Most top contracts now guarantee
at least 85% of the remaining money. That is now the market standard when coaches are represented by top agents, and Sonny Dykes has
one of the best agents in America.
Before I proceed: all of us, in his shoes, would do the exact same thing. Picture it. You're
56, in your fourth head-coaching job, and a super agent is advocating for the biggest possible payout from a private university whose expectations outpace its donor base. Conference rivals have a
Cody Campbell or a
Ryan Smith. Your school just went back to the same donors
heading into the Alamo Bowl to keep a quarterback already
earning a reported $2 million, and still couldn't hold him. Josh Hoover
entered the portal Dec. 18 and landed at Indiana on Jan. 4, the school he had
first committed to out of high school. Hoover's agent did his job.
Now picture your agent's pitch if you're Dykes: "You'll be past 60 by the end of this deal, and it may be your last big contract. Congress is rewriting the rules of college sports, and some senators
want to cap coaching pay. The AD who hired you
left for South Carolina, the chancellor who hired you
has stepped down, and the board has a
new chair. You've lost your quarterback, and you've lost your
offensive coordinator to the SEC. The next crop of coaches is younger and coming from bigger programs, and you don't have a Cody Campbell-sized NIL fund behind you. Now is the time." None of us would turn down the chance to strike a new deal if we were in his shoes.
Back to the current market mechanics of coaching buyouts - examples:
- Kelly (LSU): 90% of remaining pay using the Armstrong contract, about $54 million.
- Stoops (Kentucky): 75%.
- Stein (Kentucky's first-time hire): 70%, with $100,000 annual raises built in.
Two contract terms change the real cost:
- Offset clauses let the school subtract what the coach earns at his next job.
- Payment timing matters: some buyouts are paid as a lump sum, others in installments over years.
TCU has done this before: it paid GMFP a
one-time $11.45 million separation payment in 2021.
Dykes model: An estimate
The new deal TCU AD Mike Buddie, Chancellor Daniel Pullin, and the Board of Trustees agreed to in April reportedly runs
through at least 2030.
TCU is private and
doesn't disclose terms, but Dykes was already earning
more than $7 million a year under the old contract. Extensions at this level add annual raises and stronger
buyout protection for the coach. Dykes has one of the most experienced negotiators in the business behind him: he is
represented by Trace Armstrong of Athletes First.
Armstrong is a former NFL Players Association president who
joined Athletes First in 2016, and his client list also includes Ohio State's Ryan Day. Before that, he
headed CAA Sports' football coaching division, where his clients included Urban Meyer and Mike McCarthy. When he
moved to Athletes First, he represented about 20 Division I head coaches, among them Meyer, Dana Holgorsen, Kevin Sumlin and Tom Herman. Armstrong was also
Brian Kelly's agent when Kelly signed his
10-year LSU contract in 2021. After firing Kelly in October 2025, LSU agreed to pay the
roughly $54 million buyout written into that Armstrong deal.
TCU doesn't disclose terms. This model assumes $8 million a year, a contract running through the 2030 season, and no offset. Just be clear that extensions deliver better terms for a coach than their prior agreement, not worse, especially with an agent like Armstrong. Coming off an Alamo Bowl win, Dykes was in the driver's seat.
Buyout = liquidated-damages percentage × (annual pay × years remaining)
| Fired after | Years left | Remaining pay | At 70% | At 85% | At 100% |
|---|
| 2026 season | 4 | $32.0M | $22.4M | $27.2M | $32.0M |
| 2027 season | 3 | $24.0M | $16.8M | $20.4M | $24.0M |
| 2028 season | 2 | $16.0M | $11.2M | $13.6M | $16.0M |
| 2029 season | 1 | $8.0M | $5.6M | $6.8M | $8.0M |
If the deal actually runs through 2031, the after-2026 figure rises to about $34 million at 85%. An offset would cut it by whatever Dykes earns in his next job.
Why TCU stated we locked Dykes up:
TCU extended Dykes on
April 3, 2026, three months after the Frogs beat
No. 16 USC 30-27 in overtime in the Alamo Bowl. Athletic director Mike Buddie said,
"competing for national and Big 12 titles takes the right leader, and Dykes is that person."
Market timing mattered too. That same winter, Penn State made Sitake an
eight-figure offer. Coaches have the most leverage right after a bowl win in a hot market, and extending in the spring kept Dykes off the next December's coaching market.
