Merely three weeks into the season, UCLA’s DeShaun Foster and Virginia Tech’s Brent Pry were out of a job. Seven weeks later, a half-dozen more coaches were added to the list of midseason firings – and high-profile ones at that.

A quarter of the SEC’s coaches who started the season are gone. So are longtime coaches James Franklin of Penn State and Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy.

Iit's not as simple as an uncomfortable conversation and launching a search for the new coach. Universities are on the hook for millions of dollars for coaches they're no longer employing.

“It’s not a sustainable pattern,” said Prof. Michael LeRoy, a labor and employment relations expert at Illinois. “Even without revenue sharing, it would be challenging. These figures have been growing exponentially over the pas

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