When Do You Fire a College Coach?

Deciding whether to fire a college football coach often comes down to balancing wins and losses with dollars and cents.

Five coaches were fired Sunday, including Gene Chizik at Auburn just two years after he led the Tigers to a national championship. The five schools are on the hook for about $14 million in buyouts to their former employees. Auburn owes Chizik $7.5 million.

That's a lot of money to pay someone to not work for you, but it can be even more costly to keep a coach who is not only losing but draining a program in other ways.

Ole Miss athletic director Ross Bjork says, "What we all look for is: Is there a plan in place? Is the plan showing signs of progress? Is there energy around the program?"

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