Lessons from championship outcomes and CFP decisions
The 2025 College Football Playoff (CFP) National Championship games the first weekend in December crowned winners and highlighted the accelerating shift in college athletics toward a business model driven by scale, resources and strategic positioning.
The 2025 season also saw an unprecedented level of change in head football coaches, with several high-profile moves occurring earlier and more aggressively than in prior years. For example, Lane Kiffin left the University of Mississippi to become the head coach at LSU, underscoring how programs are leveraging financial strength and brand power to attract proven leaders. Brian Hartline departed Ohio State to take the head coaching role at the University of South Florida, reflecting the growing mobility of talent and the expanding reach of competitive programs.
At the same time, several prominent positions remain open across the SEC, ACC, Big Ten and Big 12, signaling that the coaching carousel is far from over and that timing and market dynamics will continue to shape leadership decisions.
These developments, combined with the recent CFP decisions, underscore the critical need for universities to revisit governance practices, particularly how peer groups are defined and applied for benchmarking athletic department leadership and coaching roles and compensation. Static models rooted in tradition no longer reflect the realities of today’s competitive environment.
The magnitude and timing of these coaching changes are not just headline news. They have direct implications for compensation strategy, contractual risk and governance oversight. Early and aggressive moves often involve significant buyouts, accelerated negotiations and expanded incentive structures. Open positions at major programs create ripple effects across conferences, driving up market rates and increasing pressure on universities to act quickly and competitively.
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Historically, peer groups for athletic leadership roles, particularly athletic directors and senior administrators, have been built around traditional factors such as:
Head coaches of the revenue-producing sports were more nuanced and included:
These approaches provided a sense of stability and comparability. They assume that institutions within the same conference or revenue band face similar challenges and opportunities. Compensation benchmarking mirrored this logic, aligning pay structures with perceived market norms among pre-determined peers.
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The CFP’s expansion and its ripple effects on media rights, name-image-likeness (NIL) dynamics and revenue distribution have fundamentally altered the competitive equation. The gap between top-tier programs and others is widening in terms of on-field success and financial resources, organizational complexity and talent expectations. Following are key implications of this change.
CFP participation now drives disproportionate financial upside for select programs. Institutions must create new revenue sources to offset the increase in expenses driven by NIL commitments. This is not simply a redistribution of existing revenue; it places greater importance on developing new forms of revenue to sustain competitiveness.
The ability to generate incremental revenue is now directly tied to recruiting success. For example, last year Texas Tech’s defense ranked near the bottom of the NCAA, but after aggressively leveraging the transfer portal and investing in talent acquisition, they climbed to third nationally and secured a playoff berth as the fourth seed. This illustrates how financial flexibility and strategic resource allocation can transform performance outcomes almost overnight.
Athletic directors are now functioning as CEOs of multimillion-dollar enterprises with accountability for sponsorships, ticketing and commercial strategy. For example, Georgia recently added a Chief Revenue Officer to its athletics leadership team, signaling a shift toward corporate-style structures and diversified revenue streams.
These expanded responsibilities require skill sets that go beyond traditional athletic administration and into areas such as business development, analytics and strategic partnerships.
Universities are recruiting from professional sports and private-sector leadership pools, blurring traditional boundaries. For instance, Nebraska hired a senior executive from an NFL front office to serve as general manager for football operations, reflecting the growing need for expertise in contract negotiations, NIL strategy and player development. This trend demonstrates that the talent market for athletics leadership is no longer confined to the college ranks, and compensation models must adapt accordingly.
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Peer groups should reflect future-state realities, not just historical norms. That means moving beyond conference-based benchmarking to incorporate:
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To ensure governance models remain relevant and competitive, committees should:
Move beyond static conference-based models; incorporate financial performance and organizational complexity.
Model compensation exposure under different CFP participation scenarios and stress-test buyout provisions.
Include select pro sports and private-sector comparators for roles with significant revenue accountability.
Introduce multi-season performance metrics to promote sustained excellence.
Require annual reviews of contractual risk exposure and liquidity analysis for potential buyout obligations.
The CFP decision, championship outcomes and generally rapid evolution of college sports underscore the importance of reviewing athletic peer groups often. The status quo of periodic review reflects a static (and potentially outdated) approach that is no longer viable.
We suggest thinking of peer groups as strategic tools. Universities that fail to recalibrate peer groups risk misaligning compensation, underestimating talent needs and falling behind in a rapidly commercializing market. By embracing a dynamic, data-driven approach to peer group design, institutions can ensure governance models keep pace with the evolving business of college sports.
