Week 4 left a handful of college football coaches staring at uncomfortable math, and the numbers are not small. From USC’s Lincoln Riley to Colorado’s Deion Sanders, pressure is building across the sport, with six head coaches now sitting on hotter seats after losses that only made their situations feel shakier.
Maryland’s Mike Locksley took the hardest hit on the scoreboard, absorbing a 54-3 home loss to UCLA. South Carolina’s Shane Beamer had his own rough Saturday, while Florida State’s Mike Norvell, Rutgers’ Greg Schiano and others are also trying to steady things after uneven starts. The buyout figures attached to these jobs, though, are a different kind of obstacle - ranging from more than $9 million for Locksley to roughly $72 million for Riley.
South Carolina’s latest setback came in a 49-18 loss at No. 8 Alabama, and it extended a troubling run for the Gamecocks.
They’ve now dropped seven straight against SEC teams and 11 of their last 13 games against Power Four opponents. At 2-2 overall and 0-2 in SEC play, they’re already trying to recover from the week before, when they blew a 16-point lead in a 41-34 home loss to Mississippi State.
Beamer didn’t dodge the blame afterward. “This is on me,” he said.
The sixth-year coach is 35-32 at South Carolina, and last season ended at 4-8. There’s also the wrinkle that athletic director Jeremiah Donati did not hire him.
A source close to Donati said last November that Beamer would get through the first half of 2026 before any review of his future. South Carolina now turns to Kentucky on Saturday at 4:15 p.m.
ET before heading to Florida.
Buyout: About $27.9 million if fired before the season ends, dropping to about $22.1 million at the end of December
Riley’s case is different in scale, if not in frustration. USC fell 41-27 to Oregon at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Saturday, even after Ducks quarterback Dante Moore exited in the second quarter following a late hit. The game was tied in the fourth quarter before Oregon finished strong.
USC is 4-1, but Riley’s record against ranked opponents at the school remains a glaring issue: 5-15 against top-25 teams. The fifth-year coach still hasn’t taken the Trojans to the College Football Playoff.
Before kickoff, national college football reporter Pete Thamel laid out the stakes plainly. “If they lose Saturday, it’s reasonable to say Lincoln Riley is on the hot seat,” Thamel said. USC hosts Washington next, and Penn State, Ohio State and Indiana remain on the schedule.
Buyout: About $72 million if fired now
Locksley’s situation may be the most volatile on the field right now, even if the contract math is less daunting than Riley’s. Maryland’s 54-3 loss to UCLA came at home, and it marked the Terrapins’ second straight home defeat to a first-year coach after Virginia Tech’s James Franklin won in College Park a week earlier.
The game unraveled quickly. Malik Washington threw four interceptions, two of them returned for touchdowns.
Maryland managed just 39 rushing yards and gave up 475 yards on defense. Before halftime, students were already chanting “Fire Locksley.”
Maryland is 2-2 in Locksley’s eighth season, following back-to-back 4-8 finishes. The Terrapins also haven’t beaten a Power Four opponent since a win over Wisconsin on Sept.
20, 2025. Even so, the D.C. native said he still trusts the people around him.
“I still have a lot of confidence in myself and the staff to get this thing fixed,” Locksley said. “That will have to be earned, I won’t be able to claim it.”
Buyout: More than $9 million if fired before the season ends
Colorado’s Deion Sanders is also under scrutiny after a 23-13 loss at Baylor in the Big 12 opener. The Buffaloes are 2-2, and Sanders is 18-23 through four seasons in Boulder.
That loss followed a 41-7 defeat at Northwestern, after which Sanders removed several players from the team following a postgame incident. He said after the Baylor game that Colorado has not been playing to its standard.
“We’re better than this. It seems as though we’re better than our opponents, but the score does not dictate that,” Sanders said.
Colorado finished 3-9 last season after going 9-4 the year before. Texas Tech, Utah and Oklahoma State are next.
Firing Sanders appears unlikely, with a season-ending resignation viewed as the more realistic outcome.
Buyout: About $25.5 million (75 percent of his remaining base salary) if fired before the end of 2026, dropping to about $17.25 million in 2027
Rutgers got a small reprieve Friday, beating Howard 58-7 at home for its first win after opening with a 37-21 home loss to UMass and then dropping games to Boston College and USC. That made the Scarlet Knights 1-3, and it also gave Schiano his 100th win at Rutgers.
The relief may not last long. No.
6 Indiana comes to town Saturday at 8 p.m. ET.
Rutgers athletic director Keli Zinn has publicly stood behind Schiano. “Greg and I are on the exact same page with this: I want what he wants and he wants what I want,” Zinn said.
Buyout: About $17.3 million, based on the roughly $22.5 million left on his contract; the amount shrinks if he takes another coaching job
Florida State’s Mike Norvell picked up a win Saturday, but the bigger picture still looks rough. The Seminoles beat Central Arkansas 34-7 to move to 2-2, and Central Arkansas is Norvell’s alma mater. Still, losses to SMU and Alabama had already piled up, and the school fired athletic director Michael Alford before the Alabama game.
Norvell, a former Central Arkansas receiver, is 40-36 in his seventh season. Florida State’s 13-0 regular season in 2023 has been followed by a 2-10 year in 2024 and a 5-7 finish in 2025. Virginia, Louisville and Miami are up next in October.
Buyout: About $48 million if fired now, dropping to about $45.6 million after the season; he’s owed 85 percent of his remaining salary
In Other News...
USC Now Faces One Costly Question After The Oregon Loss
The loss to Oregon left USC with more than just a mark in the standings. In a top-20 showdown that ended 41-27, the Trojans got production from a few key places, including wide receiver Kayden Dixon-Wyatt, who paced the offense with seven catches for 114 yards and a touchdown, and running back King Miller, who added 74 rushing yards. On defense, Jahkeem Stewart was back in the lineup, giving USC another body in a game that demanded everything.
Desman Stephens IIs ejection for targeting added another layer to an already costly afternoon, especially after the hit that injured Oregon quarterback Dante Moore. USC has spent enough time this season trying to piece together consistency, and games like this tend to sharpen the bigger question around discipline and availability as much as execution. The Trojans left with the more immediate concern of what the loss means in the moment, but also with the kind of looming issue that can shape the next stretch if it is not cleaned up quickly. [Read more 🡒]
Lincoln Riley Faces A USC Decision Fans Can't Ignore
The hit that sent Oregon quarterback Dante Moore to the hospital during USCs game against Oregon has put Desman Stephens and the Trojans in the middle of an ugly moment that has lingered well beyond the final whistle. Stephens celebrated after the collision and showed no remorse, and the reaction was swift, with calls growing for USC to suspend or dismiss him from the football program.
Lincoln Riley now faces the kind of decision that reaches beyond one player and into the standards of the program itself. The episode has sharpened questions about accountability and the culture around USC football, because this is no longer just about a controversial play, but about what the Trojans are willing to tolerate when the spotlight turns harsh. [Read more 🡒]
Lincoln Riley Just Faced A Brutal USC Question After Oregon
The conversation around Lincoln Riley got louder again after USCs loss to Oregon, with ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum going straight at the Trojans direction and suggesting the school should be willing to eat a massive buyout to move on. Finebaum also drew an unflattering comparison to Clay Helton, which only adds to the pressure around a program that came into the season with bigger expectations than a 4-1 start can comfortably satisfy.
Theres also a smaller but telling issue hanging over the program in the aftermath of the Oregon game, with linebacker Desman Stephens IIs suspension drawing scrutiny because of its timing after his targeting ejection. USC has not reached the College Football Playoff under Riley, and with the noise already building around the program, every setback now gets read as part of a much larger question about where this tenure is headed. [Read more 🡒]