How Washington Huskies fared financially in coach switch

Washington football coach Jedd Fisch waits for players to come out of the tunnel for senior day last month at Husky Stadium. (Jennifer Buchanan / The Seattle Times)

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By Jon Wilner Bay Area News Group

The Hotline mailbag publishes weekly. Send questions to wilnerhotline@bayareanewsgroup .com and include “mailbag” in the subject line. Or hit me on the social media platform X: @WilnerHotline

Some questions have been edited for clarity and brevity.

How much money did Washington receive for Kalen DeBoer’s buyout? How much did UW pay for Jedd Fisch’s buyout? What was the net gain? — @Huskygrad96

Full transparency: This question was submitted weeks ago, but the Hotline delayed addressing the topic until we had clarity on Washington’s situation. Would Jedd Fisch leave for Florida, UCLA or another opening? Or would he remain on Montlake through the 2025-26 hiring cycle?

Now that it appears Fisch will return for Year 3, the issue of coaching buyouts — for the Huskies specifically and all Pac-12 legacy schools generally — is worth a deep dive.

(We won’t be 100 percent sure of Fisch’s return until the NFL firing/hiring cycle is complete. There are too many potential chain reactions if one franchise dips into the college ranks for a head coach.)

The Huskies emerged from the transition in solid financial shape based on losing Kalen DeBoer to Alabama and hiring Fisch from Arizona: They received $12 million from the Crimson Tide for DeBoer and paid Arizona $5.5 million for Fisch.

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But to be clear, there are other costs associated with coaching changes that we are not calculating, including turnover in assistant coaches, coordinators and staff, plus any promised facility upgrades and increases in budgets for support services.

How does Washington’s $6.5 million net gain from the DeBoer-to-Fisch swap compare to other coaching moves across the footprint of Pac-12 legacy schools since the conference imploded Aug. 4, 2023?

The following figures are based on Hotline research and published reports.

UCLA received $1.5 million from Chip Kelly (via Ohio State) when he walked away in February 2024, then paid approximately $6.5 million to DeShaun Foster upon his termination a few months ago and, finally, spent $1.25 million to hire Bob Chesney away from James Madison.

Arizona received $5.5 million from Washington for Fisch and spent $1 million to hire Brent Brennan from San Jose State.

Oregon State paid approximately $4 million to make Trent Bray go away in October.

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Cal spent $11 million to dismiss Justin Wilcox in November.

And Washington State collected $4 million from Iowa State in exchange for losing Jimmy Rogers earlier this month.

(We don’t know the buyout terms of Troy Taylor’s contract with Stanford, but the ugly circumstances likely have led to negotiations.)

The buyout figures for four new coaches — Cal’s Tosh Lupoi, Utah’s Morgan Scalley, Oregon State’s JaMarcus Shephard and Washington State’s Kirby Moore — aren’t mentioned because coordinators typically have one- or two-year deals without material buyouts. (Scalley was an internal promotion.)

In that regard, it’s far cheaper to hire a coordinator than a sitting head coach.

Nor have we mentioned Colorado (Deion Sanders), Arizona State (Kenny Dillingham) and Oregon (Dan Lanning), where the cash outlay has taken the form of raises, not buyouts.

All in all, the 12 legacy schools have done well to avoid paying massive amounts to lure away sitting head coaches.

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The net cost of the changes outlined above is a mere $6.25 million.

Then again, the Pac-12’s financial situation prior to implosion didn’t put the schools in position to spend lavishly on buyouts.

What do you know about the 2026 College Football Playoff? Will the new Pac-12 have a seat at the table? — @jimmy0726

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We know the 2026 season marks the start of a new contract cycle with ESPN, which will pay the CFP approximately $1.1 billion annually through 2031.

We know the memorandum of understanding signed by the 10 conferences and Notre Dame in the spring of 2024 grants governing authority to the SEC and Big Ten, which are required to consult with the other leagues, particularly the ACC and Big 12, before finalizing any format changes.

And we know the SEC and Big Ten differ on access, with the former favoring a model based on at-large teams and the latter favoring automatic qualifiers.

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Essentially, the new Pac-12 has a seat at the kids’ table, along with the American, MAC, Conference USA, Mountain West and Sun Belt. But as any parent knows, how the kids’ table behaves can impact everyone’s enjoyment of the meal.

For all the talk about eliminating the Group of Five’s automatic bid — it will be the Group of Six next season when the new Pac-12 comes online — the threat of legal action looms over the negotiations.

If half of the Football Bowl Subdivision attempts to prevent the other half from participating in the CFP, an antitrust lawsuit will come fast and furious.

Or have you forgotten the Senate’s antitrust subcommittee hearings on the BCS?

What happens to a guy like John Mateer, who was awarded $3 million to be the savior at Oklahoma but fell short of expectations? Will he get another $3 million or take a pay cut? — @CelestialMosh

Don’t believe everything you read and hear about NIL contracts. In fact, don’t believe most of what you read and hear.

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When speaking on background with reporters, agents frequently inflate the terms of deals with NIL collectives in order to lure other clients.

Also, the dollar figure itself can be misleading even when accurate.

Let’s imagine the published reports of Mateer receiving up to $3 million in NIL compensation are correct.

We don’t know if he signed a one-year agreement or a multiyear deal. We don’t know how much was guaranteed and how much was performance-based. And we don’t know if there’s a floor to the amount he’s eligible to receive. (Cut an athlete’s pay too much, and he/she becomes a flight risk.)

NIL rules vary by the state, the school and the collective, and very little is available for public inspection.

Also, Mateer’s deal was signed last winter, when he transferred from Washington State to Oklahoma but before revenue sharing became the law of the land. How much did he earn from the school itself?

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Our hunch is that Mateer didn’t receive $3 million fully guaranteed in a multiyear NIL deal. But the reality is anyone’s guess.

Washington had such a strong finish against Boise State. Are we crazy to
think coach Jedd Fisch would be better off staying put than leaving for another job? The next three years look bright. — @Moneyline _RAY

There are plenty of reasons to believe Fisch should remain on Montlake for
the foreseeable future but one reason to presume a wandering eye: his résumé.

As many fans are undoubtedly aware, Fisch has changed jobs every two or three years for decades, and we have every reason to think he would have left UW for Florida or Michigan if given the opportunity.

Washington has plenty to offer. How many other programs qualified for the College Football Playoff or a New Year’s Six bowl four times from 2014-24? How many have qualified for the CFP under two coaches?

Also, the Huskies are well-positioned to thrive in the NIL era given the enormous wealth within the Seattle business community.

But as Fisch knows well, there are institutional challenges rooted in UW’s stadium debt and its half-share status with Big Ten media revenue.

Washington is one of the top 20 coaching jobs in the country, but it’s arguably No. 6 in the Big Ten behind Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, USC and Oregon.

Jon Wilner: jwilner@bayareanewsgroup .com. Jon Wilner has been covering college sports for decades and is an AP top-25 football and basketball voter as well as a Heisman Trophy voter. He was named Beat Writer of the Year in 2013 by the Football Writers Association of America for his coverage of the Pac-12, won first place for feature writing in 2016 in the Associated Press Sports Editors writing contest and is a five-time APSE honoree.