Kirby Smart issues warning to schools firing their coaches over losses, cites strength of schedule

With just a few weeks to go in the regular season, the college football coaching carousel is already spinning quickly. To date, eight power conference head coach jobs are open, and that number sits at nine considering Stanford has an interim coach this season.

As jobs come open, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart offered a warning. He also cited strength of schedule to make his point.

Smart noted the amount of quality coaches on the open market and wondered how schedule strength fit into schools’ decisions to part ways. Looking ahead, he predicted the next few years will be telling for how this carousel went and whether those programs made the right decisions.

“It’s wild,” Smart said of the coaching carousel on The Paul Finebaum Show. “I really don’t pay attention to it. But it’s funny, when you see all the strength of schedule metrics and you see all the coaches who have been fired or let go, and you look at their strength of schedule and you ask yourself, ‘Would they be fired if their strength of schedule was somebody else’s?’

“It makes you wonder and ponder, be careful what you ask for because you might’ve had a better person there than you can go out and get and who’s available. It’s going to be an interesting couple years as we navigate these new waters and see where they land. But you’ve got to be careful because some of those guys are good coaches.”

Inside the most expensive coaching carousel

So far in the SEC, four jobs are currently open heading into the final weeks. Arkansas made the first move by parting ways with Sam Pittman, and Florida then moved on from Billy Napier. Then, LSU shook things up by firing Brian Kelly despite the $53 million buyout in his contract – which has become a point of contention headed toward the courtroom. Most recently, Auburn fired Hugh Freeze amid a rough start to SEC play.

Add in other high-profile moves, including James Franklin’s departure at Penn State, and it’s shaping up to be the most expensive coaching carousel in college football history. So far, the total buyout tab sits at $183 million – flying past the previous record of $132 million in 2023. Of course, that year also saw Jimbo Fisher receive a record $77 million buyout from Texas A&M.

With just a few weeks left to go, the carousel is still moving at full speed. On3’s Pete Nakos also listed a few more jobs to watch entering the final stretch.