The Divorce Rate For College Football, NFL Coaches Is Disturbingly High

Sports admin October 13, 2026 0 Comments

The Divorce Rate For College Football, NFL Coaches Is Disturbingly High

It’s not exactly a secret that being an NFL coach mandates many days and sometimes even weeks away from home. According to one longtime NFL and college employee, this has caused a level of strain on marriages that is well above the national average.

According to former NFL executive and North Carolina GM Michael Lombardi, the divorce rate among college football and NFL coaches is believed to be between 60- and 70-percent. He highlighted the case of longtime college coach Joshua Eargle, who has managed to remain with his wife through moves to 14 different programs and current situation involving his child needing around-the-clock care, as one of the exceptions to the rule.

“The divorce rate among college and NFL coaches is estimated at 60 to 70 percent,” Lombardi wrote on X. “Joshua Eargle has coached 23 years. Five FBS bowl games. Thirteen players to the NFL. His wife, Kristen, has moved with him through 14 programs. One of their children, Landrey, has had 23 hospitalizations and needs around-the-clock care.

“They have been with programs where the kids weren’t welcome at the office. Their children went several days without seeing their father. Now Eargle is building the first football program at Texas A&M-Texarkana. He hung a motto on it: ‘All families. All the time. Always welcome.’ When a coach gets the job, his family gets the lifestyle. Nobody asks them first.”

Sympathy for the Coaches?

Football fans have some interesting responses to the idea that marriages are more strained for coaches. Some feel that the coaches deserve sympathy while others believe that coaches should put their family’s wants and needs before considering which job to take next if it means uprooting them.

“I would hope each and every coach when broached with the prospect of relocating, asks their family first,” one user remarked.

“So we’re supposed to feel sorry for them for the choices they make? (expletive) that and (expletive) them,” wrote another.

“In the end, they’re performing for our entertainment, so yeah, maybe try to empathize with the sacrifices,” a third pointed out.

The national average of marriages that end in a divorce has been around 50-percent for years. The easy explanation for why it’s so much higher for coaches is the high attrition rate at particular jobs.

If you follow sports news for any length of time, you’ll notice that when it comes to the top jobs, coaches get hired and fired and bring their staffs with them to new locations all the time. More often than not, these jobs are in entirely different states.

It’s about the furthest thing from the stability of working at the same place with the same job for decades at a time.

This story was originally published October 13, 2026 at 11:26 AM.