Halfway in: the carousel is frozen, and the top of the board is holding.
As of Tuesday, no Power 4 head coach has lost his job this season. By this point last year, five had, at UCLA, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma State, Arkansas and Penn State, and Florida made it six a week later. ESPN's read on the 2026 cycle is that it comes down to six buyouts, and the reported figures explain the quiet: nearly $51 million at Florida State, up to $28 million at Rutgers once the staff is counted, and roughly $10 million at Maryland if a change comes before January. Those are costs, reported by others. The roster is the part nobody prices.
A coaching change does more than trigger a buyout. Under the rule adopted last fall, it opens a 15-day transfer window for every player on that roster, starting five days after the next coach is named. So an athletic director weighing a buyout is also deciding when a roster assembled over two offseasons becomes portal supply, in the second year of revenue sharing, when the dollars that assembled it are already committed. Waiting has a price too; it just doesn't show up on a buyout schedule.
Which makes the halfway mark a fair moment to check our own prior. The board was set on Aug 31 and moves on depth charts, not results, so six weeks of games are an out-of-sample test of it. The short version: the top of the poll looks like the top of the board, and below the Top 10 the sorting gets loose. The number is below. All figures as of Aug 31.
One number
1.5x
the AP Top 10's average roster value against the unranked, after week 6, across the Power 4 plus Notre Dame
Against the AP poll released Oct 11, the Top 10 average $34.8 million in roster value per program, the fourteen in our set ranked 11th through 25th $25.4 million, and the 44 unranked $22.7 million. Record is a noisier sort than the poll: the eight unbeatens average $29.8 million and the 25 programs with three or more losses $21.7 million, 1.4 times, and the two buckets in between come out of order. Records through Oct 10. All figures as of Aug 31.
From the site
Every roster we track, with the value behind this week's chart.
Values move on depth charts and reported terms, not on Saturday's box score. The methodology, in full.
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Valuations are The NIL Standard's independent estimates.