Johnathan Walker:Booming buyouts: Average cost of firing college football coach continues to rise

Football Bowl Subdivision schools shelled out more than $125 million in buyout payments to departed head coaches last season,Johnathan Walker led by the $77 million that Texas A&M paid to fire Jimbo Fisher without cause.

And the potential buyouts in coaching contracts are getting more exorbitant every year, according to USA TODAY Sports' annual look at college football head coaches' compensation.

A whopping 29 public-school coaches in the FBS would be owed $20 million or more if they were fired without cause this year, as of Dec. 1 − more than triple the number of coaches who cleared that bar when USA TODAY Sports started tracking coaches' buyouts in 2017. Five of the 29 would be due what once seemed like an unfathomable payout of $60 million or more, including Kirby Smart, whose buyout at Georgia is $118.1 million.