Where will your team’s next ballpark be? What Royals can teach us about the future of MLB stadiums
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Bradford Doolittle
KANSAS CITY — Kauffman Stadium remains a gorgeous place to watch a ballgame.
Sunk into a sea of asphalt in Jackson County, Missouri, some things at The K have changed since it opened in 1973: the name, the color of the seats, the spaces beyond the outfield walls. Essential parts remain: the fountains, the crown-shaped scoreboard, the upsloping green of the hills that give the home of the Kansas City Royals the most pastoral feel of any Major League Baseball venue.
The K is situated in the Truman Sports Complex, next to Arrowhead Stadium, where the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs have played since 1972. Your feelings about that location might depend on how you view the relationship between baseball and the cities in which it is played. In Kansas City, that relationship might be about to change.
In 2021, so long ago that Bobby Witt Jr. had not yet debuted in the majors, Royals owner John Sherman announced a search for a new venue. The search continues. If all that mattered were the aesthetics of watching a game, or the drive-and-park convenience, the Royals would stay put. But in 2025, that’s not enough.
“We’re after more than a ballpark,” said R. Brooks Sherman Jr., the Royals’ president of business operations (no relation to John Sherman).
The aspirational model these days is the Truist Park/Battery project in Cobb County, Georgia. Teams want the ballpark and the additional revenue streams of an adjacent village.
That requires land, but if just any land would do, the Royals would not be looking elsewhere. The area around Kauffman Stadium, 7.8 miles from downtown Kansas City, has never developed. Location matters. While the Royals haven’t declared where they want to go, they have been clear about what they want.
“The Battery is the best example in our minds,” Brooks Sherman said. “But you look around the league and you’ve seen all these [examples]. San Diego, what it did for the Gaslamp [Quarter)] there. Washington, D.C., Colorado are great. We want to be additive to wherever we go. We want the live, work and play environment.”
The live, work and play dynamic. Those other venues have that but in different settings, from the urban core (San Diego, Denver) to a rehabilitated blue-collar district (Washington) to the suburbs (Atlanta).
These are contexts the Royals are sifting through now, making them a test case for ballpark development trends. If The Battery is the model, just where should that model be turned into reality elsewhere?
In “Ballpark: Baseball in the American City,” author and architecture critic Paul Goldberger wrote that a ballpark, “evokes the tension between the rural and the urban that has existed throughout American history.”
That tension has played out through the different eras of ballparks in the game’s history. It’s playing out now in Kansas City. How might this drama be resolved here, and what might that mean when other MLB teams look to the future?
Here are three Battery-inspired models the Royals are considering, and how they currently work — or could work — for your favorite team.
Model 1: The suburbs
Royals’ option: 119th and Nall, Johnson County, Kansas
Sherman’s announcement about a stadium search reeled off an urban-centric wish list. But the Braves’ project throws a monkey wrench into any assumptions about what that means. For the first time in a long time, a baseball team moved away from the city and not toward it. The Braves wanted the full live, work and play effect dynamic of a city, so they built their own.
This puts nether regions such as 119th Street and Nall Avenue in play. The Johnson County site once housed the campus of the Sprint World Headquarters. According to WalkScore.com, the area has a transit score of zero.
A few months ago, an affiliate of the Royals acquired the mortgage of the property, though it has yet to assume ownership. The team is giving itself options.
The 119th and Nall location is about 19 miles from Kansas City’s city hall and sits 37 miles from Kansas City International Airport. To get there, you drive. If this arrangement becomes the new standard, that’s a lot of driving. Kansas City, not just the suburbs, has been car dominant for decades, far from a unique story among baseball’s markets. Every city wants transit, and to varying degrees has acquired it, but in most cities cars remain king.
“We don’t have the greatest public transit, so we have to make it easy,” Brooks Sherman said. “It’s a driving environment. We have to make it easy for folks to get in and out. But we also think that the come-early, stay-late aspect of this, with a development that surrounds the ballpark, will be helpful for that.”
According to our urban-centric location metric (see accompanying chart), Kauffman Stadium ranks 29th among current venues (and last in walk score). Moving to this even-more-distant location would drop the Royals into last place. They might stay there forever, unless the vagabond Athletics decide to move into the middle of the Nevada desert.
When teams choose a site, they are projecting. One projection is what cities and their surrounding communities will become in the future. Another is how people will choose to get around, and what will fuel their ventures. Options are good. Multimodal transit is the ideal. You also need people to want to go there — and not just for baseball. A key part of the Battery’s success, and what other markets want to replicate, has little to do with the revenue from game days.
“It’s not the 81 days you’re playing baseball, it’s the 284 days you’re not playing baseball,” said architect Lamar Wakefield of Nelson Worldwide, whose design credits include The Battery and who is working on the reimagining of the area near Citizens Bank Park in South Philadelphia. “We know how to do that. We’re place makers. Everyone wants to reach as many in their fan base as they can.”
Any team thinking of making a move to the suburbs for its own Battery has to take a careful look at what is different about its market from Atlanta, which in some studies has been measured as the most sprawled-out large metro area in the country. Atlanta also has a metro-area population nearly three times that of the Kansas City region. The dynamics are not necessarily transferable.
Ballparks take on the characteristics of the area around them and serve as icons of their cities. A lack of aesthetic association with the city of Atlanta is, along with the absence of transit, one of the chief nitpicks with the Braves’ project. You feel it when you visit from elsewhere. If you stay on site, you feel as if you were never in Atlanta. This is why Goldberger coined a word to describe the Truist/Battery project: “Urbanoid.”
Nevertheless, if the Royals follow the Braves’ example and flourish, baseball’s owners might not worry about any of that. They will worry about finding the space to create a live-work-and-play baseball Shangri-la of their own.
Teams this model currently works for: Braves, Rangers
Whether or not you think the Braves should have left the Summerhill neighborhood — which has boomed since the team left — there’s no questioning whether the Truist/Battery project has succeeded, during the baseball season and outside of it.
The Rangers’ suburban locale makes more sense than in any other MLB market. The downtowns of Dallas and Fort Worth are both growing, but they are about 33 miles away from each other. The power brokers in Arlington have talked about urbanizing the area around Globe Life Field, but it’s awfully low density. Still, this location makes the most sense for the most people in one of the country’s most entropic, car-centric regions.
Teams this model could work for: Angels
The Angels have been in the same location for nearly six decades and have been working to redevelop the site for years. They recently extended their lease at Angel Stadium through 2032 and surely hope to have a Battery-like dynamic in the works by then. Baseball has worked well in Anaheim for the most part, and there’s no reason to think that won’t continue in a future iteration.
Other than this subset of teams, it’s hard to see the suburban option as preferable for any other market, including Kansas City.
Model 2: In the city, but not downtown
Royals’ option: North Kansas City
When we think about baseball’s classic venues — Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, Ebbets Field, Forbes Field, Tiger Stadium, Crosley Field, Shibe Park, Polo Grounds and others — they have been neighborhood parks.
This model fell from favor as American cities became increasingly surrounded by suburban sprawl and cars became the dominant mode of transit. Fenway and Wrigley were the only classic parks spared the eventual wrecking ball, and many still mourn the loss of the others.
North Kansas City, where the Royals have reportedly submitted a term sheet that outlines their needs, would be a throwback to the neighborhood park era.
The potential site is 3.6 miles from Kansas City’s city hall but it’s in Clay County, not Jackson County. The site’s renderings spotlight the downtown skyline a few miles to the south. Sports architects are urbanist by nature, so you often see that kind of setting in their imaginings. Each type of site suggests something unique.
“They’ll all be different because a lot of it’s just the demands of the client,” said Earl Santee, the legendary architect from Populous, whose résumé reads almost like a register of baseball’s highest-profile stadium projects. His next stadium project will be No. 20. “My job is for them to pick a site and then I’ll give them the best possible project.”
The Clay County rendering depicts a version of North Kansas City that isn’t currently there. It’s a blue-collar neighborhood with a population of less than 5,000, per the 2020 census. There isn’t as much industry as there used to be, so there is a lot of post-industrial property ripe for development to the south, toward downtown. Enter the Royals.
The town itself is charming in an almost classic Main Street sort of way, even though it is nestled into an urban location only a few miles from downtown. The streets are dominated by independent businesses, one of which is the Kansas City institution that is Chappell’s Restaurant & Sports Museum, where you see, among other relics, one of the Oakland Athletics’ championship trophies, a gift to restaurant founder Jim Chappell from eccentric A’s owner Charlie Finley.
Chappell’s would probably benefit by getting the Royals as a neighbor, but, then again, the Royals would be opening venues of their own. That kind of omnipresence is both the blessing and the bane of having a 21st-century baseball team as a neighbor.
“It’s 81 days and hopefully two and a half million fans,” Brooks Sherman said, regarding the transformational potential for the park development, wherever it goes. “Why not show them the best that you have and build around it and make it this vibrant environment? Be additive to the community all year long.”
A positive example of this is Nationals Park and the blocks around it, which rehabilitated a neglected area. This would have been a virtue of the ill-fated Howard Terminal proposal that once seemed the destiny of the then-Oakland Athletics.
“Some of the proposals that they were working on for the Howard Terminal waterfront site in Oakland were actually pretty good,” Goldberger said. “The idea of combining a ballpark with the larger transformation of an urban neighborhood that would be transformed anyway over time is actually a really good one.”
The North Kansas City site is not much to see now, just empty parcels and massive surface parking lots. There are potential issues in the need for significant infrastructure upgrades and more transit options. The basic reality is that the Royals’ arrival would transform the character of the area.
Baseball can certainly work in post-industrial neighborhoods like this, but the citizens there have to be on board. The Royals might decide they want North Kansas City, but the people there must want them back.
Teams this model currently works for: Brewers, Cubs, Dodgers, Giants, Mets, Nationals, Phillies, Red Sox, Yankees
These are all pretty self-evident successes. The South Philly location of Citizens Bank Park puts the Phillies in this class, and given the development underway around their venue and those of the city’s other major sports teams, they’ve only scratched the potential of the site.
American Family Field in Milwaukee merits special mention. It’s more suburban than urban in design, with plenty of surface parking to accommodate the renowned tailgating culture of Wisconsin sports fans. But it’s not that far from downtown. The Brewers probably could develop some of the parking area and beyond, but it has worked for them pretty well as it is, ballpark village or not.
Teams this model could work for: Athletics, Diamondbacks, Marlins, Rays, White Sox
The now-abandoned Battery-style Rays proposal in St. Petersburg would have fit this model, though the market is forever going to be a geographic puzzle since the two largest municipalities (Tampa and St. Pete) are connected by a long bridge.
At present, it’s hard to understand what the White Sox’s plan for a post-Rate Field future might be. The White Sox could have seized upon the chance to anchor The 78 development alongside the Chicago River, though for now that ship seems to have sailed. A ballpark on that property would have tied them with Toronto atop the urbanity ratings by our urban score method.
Miami’s LoanDepot Park is a fascinating stadium that hulks over Little Havana and doesn’t connect that well with the largely residential surrounding area. The transit scores for the venue are disappointingly low given the relative density of Miami.
Model 3: Downtown
Royals’ option: Washington Square Park
From the start, John Sherman cited “downtown baseball” as a possible outcome of the Royals’ stadium search. He told reporters, “Wherever we play, the process will result in meaningful community impact that’s real and measurable and result in economic growth and economic activity that benefits this region. The other criteria is that we have a positive impact on the quality of life for the citizens in Kansas City, with a particular focus on those underrepresented parts of our community.”
While the challenges of the Royals’ quest have kept pretty much every vacant lot in the Kansas City metro area in play, Sherman’s initial thoughts express an urbanist perspective. This is nothing new. Baseball and urbanism — or the rejection of it — have always gone hand in hand.
“All roads lead to downtown,” said Quinton Lucas, mayor of Kansas City, who advocates for a downtown venue. “And frankly, they’re all roads that can get you out of downtown efficiently after a game.”
Presumably, the Royals still have multiple possible downtown locations under consideration, but lately the buzz has been around Washington Square Park. From an urbanist’s perspective, it’s the full package.
Kansas City’s downtown remains a work in progress, but it is in a far better place than it was at the beginning of this century. The population in the city’s core has more than doubled during that time (estimates currently range in the 32,000 to 40,000 range) and is now larger than those of the downtowns of other MLB markets in more heavily populated metropolitan regions, including Atlanta. And there is plenty of room left to grow.
Washington Square Park sits on the southern edge of the Crossroads Arts District, across the street from the Crown Center to the south and Union Station to the west. Main Street would run along the west edge of the park and features an expanding streetcar line. Amtrak rolls into and out of Union Station across the street. It’s likely that a move to the Crossroads would eventually put the Royals in the upper third of urban-centric parks.
This is an alluring vision and a possible blueprint for other markets because it imagines stitching a ballpark and the traits of a Battery-esque development into the spine of the city.
“We want the place to be active 365 days a year because we want the retail and the food and beverage to be successful year-round, not just when we’re in town,” Brooks Sherman said. “The way you do that is the density.”
Crossroads advocates have gone to great lengths to make the case that there is ample parking near the site, and that’s important. Still, the nature of the mixed-use baseball development should inherently ease parking concerns. With things to do around the ballpark, people come and go at different times, and anyone for whom transit is a better option than driving will use transit. This would not be an option in the suburbs in most markets, and certainly not in the Kansas City region as things currently stand.
“If you are trying to plant your flag as the center of culture, conversation and discussion in a community — as well as revenue, by the way — then you go to the densest areas that have all of it,” Lucas said. “I think that is downtown Kansas City, like it is a central business district corridor or at least the central cultural corridor of any American city.”
The footprint of the potential ballpark works well enough, but the site is constrained by the constraints of the street grid. Analysis done by Washington Square Park proponents shows the site is as big as or bigger than the footprint of several current venues, but a Crossroads-located park might feature a fairly short porch to right field. That might be fun for Vinnie Pasquantino.
The Royals are targeting a somewhat smaller capacity than The K, around 34,000, and a potential venue here could have much of the intimacy of the classic parks — including rooftop views from adjacent buildings. The site represents a design challenge, but Kansas City — as the world’s sports architecture mecca — has a home-field advantage in that regard. The outcome could be dazzling.
“It fits like a catcher’s mitt,” said architect Steve McDowell, principal at BNIM, who put together the renderings for the Washington Square Park site. “You can just kind of drop it in there so gently, which gives fantastic views downtown, to the north and all around, really.”
Teams like the Royals want their park to accelerate the progress of an improving downtown, not become a bubble within it, which is what has arguably happened in places such as St. Louis.
“While it might be a uniquely designed footprint, that also might give it a sense of character, like it’s been here forever,” said Brett Posten, co-founder of Highline Partners, a Crossroads-based strategic branding consultancy. Posten co-created the Washington Square Park website and has worked to catalyze community support around the effort. “Fenway is weird, and it’s great. There’s just cool stuff that happens in weird baseball, so we have the opportunity to create something with a little bit of character.”
This approach, if the Royals seek it, could become the next aspirational model in ballpark projects. It’s The Battery but in a city, not the imitation of one. Much of this takes some imagination, but whoever got anywhere without a little of that?
“There are a few goals to any stadium project,” Lucas said. “I think they are all met downtown. I’m not sure they’re met in all other locations. One is to be able to get site control of an area that allows live, work and play opportunities. You absolutely have that.”
Teams this model currently works for: Astros, Blue Jays, Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Mariners, Orioles, Padres, Pirates, Reds, Rockies, Tigers, Twins
It’s hard to argue that any of these downtown venues — all less than 2 miles from their respective city halls — have been disappointments. Not all have the full Battery-like dynamic going on just yet, but all of them could iterate in that direction over time. That’s been the stated goal of Orioles owner David Rubenstein, to generate development around Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the venue that kicked off the back-to-downtown phase of ballpark construction.
Teams this model could work for: Brewers, Rays, White Sox
The White Sox should still try to get involved with The 78, where MLS’ Chicago Fire are planning to build. In this case, soccer is leading the way, not baseball.
For now, in Kansas City, the ball is in the Royals’ court.
“People are [excited], and they want to help,” Brooks Sherman said. “And we said, ‘We’re getting there, and we’re going to need your help when we get to the right spot.’ We’re working hard, and we’ll get there in the right way.”
The college football job market took an expected turn last year.
The headwinds of financial uncertainty, combined with a record number of jobs turning over in 2023, led to a quieter year on the coaching carousel, especially at high-end schools.
Last offseason, there was a dip in head coaching changes at FBS football, with 30 total. The year before, a record 32 jobs turned over, per NCAA statistics.
Notably last offseason, no jobs turned over in the SEC and there was just one in the Big Ten (Purdue). Only West Virginia and UCF turned over in the Big 12, and the ACC had three changes (North Carolina, Wake Forest and Stanford).
None of those jobs would remotely qualify as blue bloods, which has the industry bracing for what could end up being a big year for high-end coaching turnover. The carousel rests for only so long.
That has led to a fascinating tension that will serve as the backdrop for this year’s edition: In an era when a vast majority of schools are scrambling for resources and revenue, are schools ready to pay big buyout money to part with their coaches? For big movement this year, there will have to be one or two big buyouts.
“The signs are that it’s going to be a pretty big year,” said an industry source. “There’s 15 to 20 schools in flux, and it was really light last year. That combination lends itself to a big year.
“But the question is whether 6-6 is worth making a change when you need to find 20-plus million? I think the trend is going to schools looking not to make the decision.”
There’s a counter to that perspective, and it’s a peek at the college basketball market from last year. Places like Indiana, Villanova, Iowa, Minnesota, NC State, Texas and Utah all paid sizable buyouts to kick-start new eras.
“I think people are past the rev share issues,” another industry source said. “They were stalled out last year in the football carousel, but they didn’t have any trouble getting going in the basketball carousel.”
Jimbo Fisher’s football buyout from Texas A&M in 2023 was $76.8 million, which included $19.2 million within 60 days and $7.2 million annually with no offset or mitigation. That’s the Secretariat-at-the-Belmont runaway winner for the biggest in the history of the sport.
The second-biggest public buyout belongs to Auburn, which fired Gus Malzahn in 2020 and owed him $21.7 million.
If this is indeed going to be an active coaching carousel among high-end jobs, the Malzahn number will need to be toppled. And the Fisher buyout has a chance to be as well.
Ultimately, the case for an active coaching carousel starts with big-name jobs that are in flux, the so-called market moves that ripple through the industry. A majority of those potential openings — although not all — would involve heavy lifting from a buyout perspective.
One source pointed out that schools in the SEC and Big Ten will have new line items that could make a big buyout more tenable, as there’s an influx of CFP money coming.
One school told ESPN that it has budgeted an additional $8 million additional for bowl revenue for the new CFP starting in 2026. (The specific amount is tricky, as there’s a flurry of variables that make a finite number tough to pin down.)
That makes the particulars of the buyouts important. How much money is up front? Is there offset and mitigation?
Here’s a look at the jobs with the buyout tension that could set the market, as well as other jobs worth monitoring across each conference.
Jump to a topic:
Big buyouts | Other Big Ten
Other SEC | Other ACC
Big 12 | Group of 5
Big buyouts
USC | Lincoln Riley (26-14 entering Year 4)
Buyout: More than $80 million
Nearly everything has changed since Lincoln Riley came to Los Angeles. Most notably, the results. After an 11-3 debut in 2022, he has gone 8-5 and 7-6 with losses along the way to Maryland, Minnesota and UCLA. The splash of the hire has worn off amid close losses, media clashes and modest expectations for 2025.
His winning percentage with the Trojans is 65.0%, which is lower than Clay Helton’s USC winning percentage (65.7) when he was fired. It’s also nearly 20% worse than his Oklahoma win percentage (84.6).
Many of the core people Riley brought with him from Oklahoma have been removed or seen their roles diminish, with the firing of strength coach Bennie Wylie and the hiring of new general manager Chad Bowden recent examples of significant personnel changes around him.
Athletic director Jennifer Cohen didn’t hire Riley. She also has made clear that there are championship expectations. She has invested accordingly, including a new football performance center that’s under construction and plenty of staff infrastructure and NIL financial gunpowder.
Although firing Riley would generate eye-popping financial headlines, the understanding is that there is offset and mitigation on his deal. That would diminish the number owed him over time. He’s too gifted a playcaller and offensive mind to sit out through the length of his deal, which was originally a 10-year contract that began in the 2023 season. (His buyout to leave is minimal if he chose to go elsewhere, but leaving that much guaranteed money behind would be hard.)
Without high-end results, there will continue to be uncertainty. USC will be favored in its first four games, and then it enters one of the most difficult stretches on any schedule this year — at Illinois, Michigan, at Notre Dame and at Nebraska. (There’s a bye between the trips to South Bend and Lincoln.)
That means by Nov. 1, we’ll get a sense of what Riley truly has built in his fourth season and where his tenure is headed.
The best news for Riley is there’s hope on the way, as USC has the No. 1 recruiting class for 2026, which includes 19 ESPN 300 prospects.
Florida State | Mike Norvell (33-27 entering Year 6)
Buyout: $58 million
This was unthinkable two years ago, when FSU went undefeated in the regular season and won the ACC. But since quarterback Jordan Travis’ injury and the subsequent College Football Playoff snub following 2023, everything has gone wrong for FSU.
In the wake of FSU’s 2-10 season last year, Norvell has overhauled the coaching staff, given up playcalling and brought in new coordinators. Florida State can’t really afford to fire him, but it also can’t afford to trudge through another miserable season like last year.
Norvell also agreed to a restructured new deal, which includes donating $4.5 million of his salary to the program in 2025. Effectively, Norvell took a performance pay cut. (He can earn that back, too, as included in the new deal is a $750,000 bonus for nine wins.)
The 2024 implosion came at a time when Florida State had actively — and awkwardly — been lobbying to find a new conference home. That bluster has died down, and the financials of leaving the ACC are clear. FSU’s need to get back to winning is rooted in those grander ambitions.
What’s important here if FSU does have to move on is that Norvell’s remaining money is subject to offset and mitigation. He’d likely be a strong candidate to coach again, which would blunt some of the financial pain.
Norvell went 23-4 in 2022 and 2023, which built up some grace. Here’s what no one knows: What is enough progress for 2025?
Oklahoma | Brent Venables (22-17 entering Year 4)
Buyout: $36.1 million
Oklahoma extended Venables through the 2029 season in the summer of 2024. The Sooners subsequently went 6-7 in their SEC debut, which led to some scrutiny of that deal.
Venables is popular in Norman, dating back to his time as an assistant. Like many defensive head coaches early in his career, he made a misstep at offensive coordinator that quelled the momentum from OU’s 10-2 season in its Big 12 finale in 2023.
There’s an athletic director shift coming at Oklahoma, with Joe Castiglione retiring. There also has been new blood in the football program, with general manager Jim Nagy coming in this offseason from the Senior Bowl.
This season is a fascinating litmus test for OU’s viability in the SEC. The Sooners have fortified the roster with a significant upgrade at quarterback (John Mateer), expect better health at wide receiver and have made holistic upgrades.
But the reality is that most teams are going to lose half their games in the SEC, and it’d be a poor time for Venables to have a bad year. The Sooners also play seven teams ranked in the preseason Top 25, and that doesn’t include Missouri or Auburn.
Wisconsin | Luke Fickell (13-13 entering Year 3)
Buyout: More than $25 million
Wisconsin ended last year with five straight losses and missed a bowl for the first time since 2001.
Wisconsin extended Fickell after last year, but that didn’t impact his buyout. There’s optimism for a change of trajectory, as Wisconsin is undergoing a schematic shift back to the school’s identity roots as a running offense. It will be a welcomed change after the failed Air Raid experiment.
The factor that has this job coming up in industry circles is Wisconsin’s schedule, which might make it difficult for the Badgers to take a significant step forward. They play at Alabama, at Michigan, Iowa, Ohio State, at Oregon, Washington, at Indiana, Illinois and at Minnesota.
Wisconsin could be a better team but have a similar record. The institutional history, Fickell’s general track record and buyout expense suggest patience is likely.
Other jobs worth monitoring
Big Ten
Maryland: Mike Locksley’s strong run at Maryland took a hairpin turn last year, as the Terps went 4-8, 1-8 in Big Ten play and Locksley admitted he lost the locker room. There’s a lot of goodwill from Locksley’s three consecutive bowl games, which hadn’t happened since Ralph Friedgen’s tenure in 2008. But there’s also a new athletic director, Jim Smith, and an expectation to return to winning. Maryland is heavily favored in its three games to open the year (FAU, Northern Illinois and Towson), which could quiet things. Locksley would be owed $13.4 million if fired, a considerable amount for Maryland. He’d also have 50% of that due in 60 days, a sizable check for a university not flush with cash.
SEC
Auburn: Hugh Freeze faces a classic win-or-else season at Auburn. The Tigers have strong talent upgrades from both the portal and recruiting. But Auburn is not a traditionally patient place, so Freeze’s 11-14 record there needs to improve quickly. He’d be owed just under $15.4 million, which is expensive but not something Auburn would flinch at if there are modest results again. Don’t expect him to be around if Auburn has another losing season.
Arkansas: The goofiest buyout in college sports looms over any potential decision on Sam Pittman. If he’s .500 or above since 2021 — he enters the year 27-24 in that time frame — Arkansas would have to pay him nearly $9.8 million. To keep the buyout at this higher level, he’d need to win five games. If Pittman goes 4-8, the number would be nearly $6.9 million. Credit Pittman, who revived Arkansas from the depths of Chad Morris’ era and keeps on surviving. If he’s above four wins, Arkansas would face scrutiny for issuing such a bizarre contract and the extra money it’d cost the program to fire him.
Florida: The temperature on Billy Napier has cooled considerably, and the Gators have a top-flight quarterback and great expectations again. He’s 19-19 through three seasons, and his buyout remains eye-popping at $20.4 million. (There’s no offset or mitigation on the deal.) Athletic director Scott Stricklin gave Napier a midseason vote of confidence last year by announcing he’d return, and Florida responded with a strong finishing kick by winning four straight to close the year. Stricklin clearly has his back. And per an ESPN source, Stricklin has three additional years added to his contract, which now runs through 2030. That bodes well for Napier, as they are clearly aligned.
ACC
Stanford: General manager Andrew Luck’s first significant hire looms. With interim coach Frank Reich clear that he’s on The Farm short term, Luck needs to decide whether he wants someone from the college ranks or the NFL. What’s unique about this job is that the hire will be made through the shared prism of how Luck sees the identity of the program, not necessarily just a coach coming in and bringing the identity.
Virginia Tech: It’s a classic prove-it year for Brent Pry, who has two years remaining on his original contract. He’d be owed $6.2 million if fired on Dec. 1. He’s 16-21 over three years and 1-12 in one-score games, and Tech’s ambitions are clearly greater than that. Considerable improvement is needed, or Tech will hit reset as the administration appears motivated by the fear of getting left behind in the next iteration of the collegiate landscape. Athletic director Whit Babcock has hired Pry and Justin Fuente, which would mean his future could be in flux if a change comes here. ADs don’t often get to hire three coaches.
Virginia: There was a discernable uptick in investment and aggression by Virginia in the portal this offseason. That’s a sign the pressure is ratcheted up on Tony Elliott, who is 11-23 through three seasons. He entered a job with arguably the worst facilities in power conference football. He also dealt with unspeakable tragedy: the murder of three players in a campus shooting. UVA showed signs of progress last year with five wins, and that needs to continue. Elliott is owed more than $11.1 million if fired on Dec. 1, and UVA is more likely to need to direct that to the roster than a payout.
Cal: Can Cal do better than Justin Wilcox? It’s unlikely, as he has led the team to four bowls since taking over in 2017. Cal has no athletic director, landed in an awkward geographic league and is working to financially catch up to the rest of the sport. Wilcox would be owed $10.9 million if he’s fired, which would seemingly be too rich for Cal to handle. But with so much change afoot, there’s an industry expectation that something could happen here, as Wilcox could also have other suitors.
Big 12
Oklahoma State: The school forced Mike Gundy into a reduced salary and buyout. Those are fluorescent signs of a school preparing to move on, although the buyout remains significant at $15 million. It would be a seminal moment for a school to fire a coach who has more than 100 more wins than the next most successful coach in school history. Gundy is 169-88, but the program fell off a cliff last year at 3-9. The roster doesn’t offer much optimism for drastic improvement, and essentially the entire coaching staff is new. Gundy has done some of his best work with low expectations, and that’s what OSU has in 2025.
Arizona: Arizona’s dip from 10-3 in Jedd Fisch’s first year to 4-8 in Brent Brennan’s first season has led to scrutiny. Also, there has been a new athletic director brought in since Brennan was hired. The buyout price is steep at $10.6 million, but it’s something Arizona is expected to consider if there’s no improvement. It doesn’t help matters for Brennan that rival Arizona State burst into the CFP in Kenny Dillingham’s second year.
Cincinnati: There have been growing pains entering the Big 12 for the Bearcats, who are 4-14 in league play in the first two years. There’s an expectation for continued improvement in Scott Satterfield’s third year, as he went 3-9 in Year 1 and jumped to 5-7 last year. The Bearcats lost their final five games last year. The buyout tab is nearly $12 million, which is a lot for a school that moved its opener against Nebraska to Kansas City for financial reasons.
Baylor: The temperature on Dave Aranda’s seat has cooled exponentially compared with the past two seasons. He snapped a skid of two losing seasons by going 8-5 last year and 6-3 in the Big 12. A change would require a precipitous downturn, as Aranda is beloved in Waco. There’s an unforgiving schedule, however, that opens with Auburn and a trip to SMU. His buyout is in the $12 million range, and it’s unlikely to be tested.
Group of 5
American: The American might have been the biggest surprise in the 2024 coaching carousel, with FAU, Tulsa and Charlotte all firing coaches after just two seasons. Temple, Rice and East Carolina also fired their coaches. Oddly, the worries over revenue share spending didn’t intimidate these schools from making moves.
There’s really only one job squarely in the crosshairs, and that’s Trent Dilfer at UAB, who is 7-17 in two seasons. He’d be owed nearly $2.5 million if dismissed. UAB has struggled to translate its strong run in Conference USA to the American since joining in 2023.
Conference USA: This also projects to be a quieter year in Conference USA, with only Louisiana Tech having a coach potentially in flux. Sonny Cumbie went 5-8 last year after opening with back-to-back 3-9 seasons. He’ll need continued improvement to stick around for that school’s eventual transition to the Sun Belt. He’d be owed nearly $875,000 if let go, as 2026 is the last year of his deal.
MAC: There’s already one MAC job open, after Kenni Burns’ firing this spring at Kent State. There are significant financial challenges both there and at Akron, which also could be in flux with Joe Moorhead entering Year 4 at 8-28. (He’d be owed about $650,000 if fired, which is significant.) There’s still a market for Moorhead as a college offensive coordinator, which could be the pivot if the Zips don’t get moving. (Perhaps the NFL, too.) Overall, this looks like a quieter year in the MAC.
Mountain West: The lack of a contract extension for Jay Norvell at Colorado State is a smoke signal that a decision is coming. He has just one year left on his deal and would be owed $1.5 million if fired before Dec. 1. He also wouldn’t have to pay any money to go elsewhere. Norvell has an administration that didn’t hire him and, despite solid improvement, there will be speculation over his future until something changes contractually. Colorado State went 8-5 last year and 6-1 in the Mountain West. Norvell is 16-21 in his three years.
Sun Belt: Two coaches will be watched closely here. Tim Beck is 14-12 at Coastal Carolina over two seasons, having reached bowls in each of them. He had the misfortune of replacing Jamey Chadwell, who averaged more than 10 wins over his final three seasons. Beck would be owed $1.5 million if Coastal fired him, and Coastal has both a new athletic director and president. Ricky Rahne at Old Dominion is 20-30 overall and still in search of his first winning season there. He has just one year remaining on his deal after this one, a sign that a decision on his future one way or the other is imminent. He’d be owed $600,000 if fired.
Pac-12: None.
Miami linebacker Adarius Hayes has been charged with three counts of vehicular homicide and one count of reckless driving with serious bodily injury following an investigation into a May crash that killed three people.
Hayes surrendered to police Friday morning in his hometown of Largo, Florida, officials said, and records show he was booked into the Pinellas County Jail. It was not immediately clear if he retained an attorney.
Miami said Hayes “has been indefinitely suspended from all athletic related activities per athletic department policy” in response to the charges. The Hurricanes declined further comment.
The three people who died as a result of the May 10 afternoon crash — a 78-year-old woman, plus two children ages 10 and 4 — were all in a Kia Soul that collided with a Dodge Durango being driven by Hayes, police said at the time.
The children were ejected from the vehicle, police said, and investigators later found that Hayes was “maneuvering aggressively through traffic shortly before the crash.” He was driving at 78.9 mph in a 40 mph zone at the time of the crash, police said.
Another passenger of the Kia had been hospitalized with serious injuries.
“The investigation concluded that Adarius Hayes’ egregious speed, aggressive and reckless lane changes, and complete disregard for surrounding traffic conditions demonstrated a willful and deliberate disregard for the safety of others, constituting reckless driving. These actions directly led to the tragic deaths of the three victims,” Largo police said in a statement Friday.
The Kia, police said, was “lawfully executing a left-hand turn” when Hayes’ vehicle “made a rapid and dangerous maneuver” and crashed into the car.
Hayes played in 12 games as a freshman for Miami last season, mostly on special teams. He was a four-star recruit coming out of Largo High School.
Largo is about 20 miles east of Tampa and about 15 miles north of St. Petersburg on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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David Purdum
The point spread on Saturday’s Texas-Ohio State showdown has been on the move all week, with the Longhorns becoming a favorite at some sportsbooks, including ESPN BET, as of Friday morning.
The Buckeyes opened as a 3-point favorite months ago, but sportsbooks have been reporting a steady stream of money on the Longhorns throughout the summer, causing the line to move toward Texas.
The consensus line was a pick ’em as of noon ET Friday, with ESPN BET and DraftKings listing Texas as a 1.5-point favorite.
Circa, a sportsbook known to cater to professional bettors, had seen enough interest on the Longhorns to move them to a 1-point favorite on Thursday. Derek Stevens, the owner of Circa, said on VSIN that a $550,000 bet on Texas preceded the move to Longhorns -1. The line had ticked back to pick ’em by early Friday at Circa.
“It seems like the public is moving the line,” Chris Bennett, sportsbook director at Circa, told ESPN. “We’ve seen a lot of interest in Texas, but not from the usual suspects, and by that I mean a subset of sharp customers we have a lot of history with.”
The Buckeyes have not been a home underdog since 2018 against Michigan and have been favored by less than three points at Ohio Stadium only once since 2012. If the line closes with Ohio State as the favorite, Texas would become the first team ranked No. 1 in the preseason Associated Press Top 25 to be an underdog in its first game.
“The perception is that Texas is just more experienced than Ohio State,” said Ed Salmons, veteran football oddsmaker for the Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas. “Arch Manning is considered a much better quarterback than the Ohio State quarterback [Julian Sayin]. Both are such unknowns, no one really knows.”
Salmons said it became obvious over the summer that the betting public was supporting Texas and that, once the line dropped from the opening number of Ohio State -3, it had the potential to move all the way to the Longhorns being the favorite.
“The public right now likes Texas, but we’ll see the day of the game,” Salmons said. “Sometimes you think that, and then all of a sudden you’ll see these big Ohio State bets. It’s a game we’re expecting a ton of handle on.”
The bulk of the betting action, both on the moneyline and spread, was on Texas at Caesars Sportsbook as well, but some of the bigger bettors had not weighed in on the marquee matchup of Week 1.
“There has not been a lot of wise guy action thus far,” said Joey Feazel, lead football trader for Caesars Sportsbook. “I believe that says more to the true variation of this game and not knowing exactly what you are going to get from either side of the ball. I expect we will see some action closer to game time.”
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