The circulation of head football coaches is a well-established practice, and with it, salary costs are significantly outpacing other spending as institutions compete in the pursuit of prestige. This movement of college football coaches is known in the popular press as the "coaching carousel." The carousel is a fitting metaphor for a system that regularly rotates head coaches among the nation's elite public universities. What drives this coaching carousel, and will it turn faster as schools compete for a chance to play in the new college football playoff? This article describes conditions that drive head coaches from one school to another and the ways in which research universities use college football to compete for status and prestige in the broader higher education landscape.