Marcus Freeman spurned Giants because good coaches stuck around in 2025

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2025 was a year of massive upheaval among the college football coaching ranks. It was made more chaotic by the high profile candidates who stayed where they were.

Job openings created a leadership vacuum atop several of the NCAA's most prestigious programs. Penn State, Michigan, Florida and LSU all dismissed coaches. 14 job openings cascaded across the Power 4 programs. This was a windfall for any rising star in search of a fresh start and significant raise.

In the end, those stars mostly settled for the latter.

Notre Dame's Marcus Freeman, leader of the most aggrieved team in a playoff debate full of them, announced Monday he'd remain in South Bend, Indiana with an "enhanced contract." It was a statement that rebuffed swirling rumors of the New York Giants' interest in making him an NFL coach.

The 2024 NCAA runner-up is the latest link in a chain of coaches who stayed, leveraging a turbulent job market into hefty extensions and lucrative raises without the headache of moving to a new home. Clark Lea parlayed the most successful season in Vanderbilt history into a pricy raise to prevent a poaching, though how much he received isn't clear since the Commodores are a private institution. Curt Cignetti, architect behind top-ranked Indiana (!), got $93 million to stick around in Bloomington. Even Matt Rhule got two extra years at Nebraska despite good-not-great returns in order to keep him from Penn State.

Kalani Sitake was the Nittany Lions' next choice before CEOs across Utah rallied to keep him in Provo. Kenny Dillingham got five years at $7.5 million per despite a slight backslide at Arizona State. SMU's Rhett Lashlee, like Dillingham, made it to the College Football Playoff in 2024 before a modest step backward. And, like Dillingham, he was paid handsomely to rebuff higher profile jobs this winter.

What does this tell us? That it's a wild world out there — and that coaches, boosters and administrators are more comfortable finding the money to keep good coaches in a landscape where their peers are being fired for falling short of greatness. 2025's coaching carousel spun wildly. Many of the top candidates remained stationary, trusting programs that aren't quite blue bloods to capitalize on the shifting policies of college football.

These coaches wouldn't have stayed at programs that have largely taken a backseat to established, capital-C College Football destinations if they didn't think their teams had new opportunities to compete. These teams wouldn't be able to compete, at least as successfully, without the cash to pay players through NIL deals. And they wouldn't make a convincing case about being able to scare up that NIL money without making the financial commitment to match the LSUs, Penn States and Floridas of the world.

So, with extensions in hand and assurances of untouched spigots atop the money pipeline, guys like Lea, Cignetti and Sitake remained.

Only some of that applies to Freeman. Notre Dame was doing just fine before player payments were okayed. His biggest suitor wasn't a rival but a team that plays on Sundays. But his decision to stick around points to a new shift in college football as the ground moves under the feet of 136 FBS programs. Teams looking for a high profile coaching hire are going to have real trouble poaching from the Power 4 ranks.

2025 was the year of coach firings in college football. It's also the year coaches stuck around, avoiding the lure of a fresh start at higher profile jobs thanks to significant raises to keep them at home. It's the kind of trend that could make teams think twice about firing their leaders for the grave insult of a Rate Bowl invitation.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Marcus Freeman spurned Giants because good coaches stuck around in 2025

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