NC State, Maryland and Baylor Owe Fired Coaches $30 Million. The Costliest Mistake Was Made at Signing.

In five days, three Power Four schools fired their football coaches. Maryland moved on from Mike Locksley on October 21 after a 2-5 start. NC State fired Dave Doeren, the winningest coach in school history, on October 24, a day after a loss to Stanford dropped the Wolfpack to 3-4. Baylor fired Dave Aranda on October 25 with a 40-40 record over seven seasons. Together the three schools owe more than $30 million to coaches who will not coach for them again: reported buyouts of about $9.9 million for Locksley, about $12.5 million for Doeren and about $12 million for Aranda.

A coach's buyout is a contract term, usually a liquidated-damages clause: the parties agree in advance what the school will owe if it fires the coach without cause, instead of fighting later over actual damages. Courts generally enforce these clauses when the amount was a reasonable estimate of the harm at the time of signing, and coaching buyouts routinely pass that test.

The term that decides the real cost is the offset, sometimes called mitigation. An offset clause reduces what the school owes by whatever the fired coach earns in his next job. Without one, the coach keeps the full buyout and his new salary, and because the amount was fixed in advance, he generally has no duty to look for work to reduce it. Locksley's buyout, by reporting on his contract, carries no mitigation or offset obligation. Whether Doeren's and Aranda's contracts contain offsets has not been reported.

The easy version of this story is that the schools are stuck paying for their mistakes, and that is true. The buyouts are enforceable, and nobody should expect a court to excuse them.

The more useful point is where the mistake actually happened. It was not in October. It was at the signing table, in the years when these schools extended coaches with buyouts that carried no offset. A buyout without an offset can make a school pay a fired coach twice: once through the buyout, and again by subsidizing the salary of whoever hires him next. A coach as experienced as Locksley or Doeren is likely to work again. Without an offset, every dollar of that next salary is a dollar the old school does not get back.

Coaches and their agents fight for no-offset buyouts for good reasons. They are the coach's insurance against a short leash, and a school that wants a top candidate often has to give one up. That is the counterargument, and it is fair: an offset makes a job less attractive, and schools compete for coaches. But the schools on the hook here are not choosing among blue-chip candidates in a bidding war. They are paying for extensions they signed to reward continuity. That is the moment to insist on an offset.

For the two public schools, NC State and Maryland, there is a second consequence. Public university coaching contracts are generally public records and approved by state boards, so these buyout terms will be examined line by line. Expect the offset question to be the first one trustees ask about the next hire.

The fired coaches, on the money: the buyouts are enforceable, and without an offset, Locksley keeps his in full no matter where he lands. The schools' leverage comes back only at the next signing, when they can insist on an offset as the price of the job.

The buyouts are enforceable. The real mistake was signing them without an offset clause. Without one, a school can pay a fired coach twice: the buyout, and a subsidy for his next employer.

Interim coaches finish the seasons at all three schools, and the searches start now. Watch whether the next contracts at Maryland, NC State and Baylor include offset clauses, and whether Doeren's and Aranda's existing terms surface in public records.