Another reason for college athletics employment reform: the coaching carousel

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Today, I’m happy to pass the mic over to Mark Nagel, a professor of sport and entertainment management at the University of South Carolina and is the associate director of the College Sport Research Institute.

by Mark Nagel

The recent chaos that occurred as Lane Kiffin debated staying at Ole Miss versus taking the head football coaching position at Florida or LSU generated tremendous publicity as well as eventual vitriol from dejected fans as they lost their successful coach to one of their primary rivals. Kiffin’s departure for LSU played out over the course of many weeks during the regular season, and the saga often overshadowed the Ole Miss team’s wins as it established itself as one of the top 10 in the country. 

Now, the Rebels head into their first-round game in the College Football Playoff under new head coach — and former defensive coordinator — Pete Golding, facing off against Tulane, yet another team whose head coach has bolted for a higher-profile SEC job. Jon Sumrall is headed to Florida, but he’ll be on the sideline Saturday in Oxford, Mississippi, after the Tulane administration permitted him to finish the season with the Green Wave.

There’s been much debate in recent weeks over the timing of coaching moves, including those that affect the staffs of teams bound for the playoff. Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein is the new head coach at Kentucky, and James Madison head coach Bob Chesney took the UCLA job, but both men will remain with their former teams until they lose. (North Texas coach Eric Morris, who’s headed to Oklahoma State, also remained with the playoff-hopeful Mean Green for the team’s conference championship loss to Tulane.) Opinions vary on whether a coach in Kiffin’s situation should be permitted to stay or shown the door — but much of the argument over these departures misses an obvious solution: Given the fact that the college football calendar necessitates coaches be hired before the postseason, and given the rule changes that permitted NIL payments and revenue sharing, the sport could solve a lot of its problems by implementing a system of player employment. 

Let’s take a step back and review the recruiting calendar and its implications. The rush to fill head coaching positions — and the potential conflict of interest that arises when a coach is newly hired at one school but coaches postseason games at his former stop — is a product of two key dates on the college football calendar: national signing day (in the first week of December) and the two-week transfer portal (in the first two weeks of January). Every school wants its head coach and as many staff members as possible in place to pursue and secure high school recruits and increasingly important transfer students. High school signing day has increasingly become a time for players to commit to staffs, with many switching at the last minute to schools they had never visited following a collegiate coaching change.    

Once again, the clashing cultures in big-time college sports have created another situation where it appears the most important participants, the players, have to adjust their behavior to fit a system that continues to deny them the opportunity to bargain their services for just compensation.