Crazy report by ESPN on the "dead money" in college coaching. The SEC is currently paying $123M to fired coaches.
Puts some perspective on the buyout we are looking at as well as the financial landscape around coaches contracts.
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I would like Virginia Tech to join this list tbh
We're definitely in Suckville, and everyone knows it.
This was posted in the coaching carousel thread.
Paying Fuente's buyout at $10 million would put us at #21, just for one coach, and Fuente in the top 10 of recipients. It's kind of a stupid list to be on, and a waste of athletic program resources for a program like ours that has some pretty tight limits.
At the same time, we're between a rock and a hard place. Waiting until December 16th, at $7.5 million, drops us out of the top 30, but we'd still come in just ahead of UVa on the list of shame.
Giving a contract extension as soon as Whit did is by far the worst decision he's made. Didn't seem that bad at the time, but something to remember moving forward.
Agreed.
Yes. That is typically done to boost recruiting. But recruiting did not improve at all. I think Fuente's personality is too frosty and not approachable
But at the same time even if he waited until after the 2017 season we all would have thought Fuente still deserved it
Wait, I thought you had the buyout paid off with our monopoly dollars from the frustrated fan base?
At the time almost everybody including myself was wanting Whit to lock him up and not lose him. It's crazy but no different than big corporate buyouts.
Honestly I think this should be standardized if at all possible. I don't think it is possible but if, for example, I got a severance from work it would probably be enough to finance my current lifestyle for a couple months max in order to enable me to find a new job. I don't think a fired coach deserves to have $10 million handed to them to not do a job they failed at. And I think giving them a year to find a new job is plenty.
I think it should be standard practice for a buyout to be reduced if you're making money at a new job. So if Fuente's buyout looks like $2.5 million per year over the next 4 years and he gets fired this year but makes $1.5 million at his next job then we should only be on the hook for $1 million.
I don't think this would be palatable to a bunch of people but one thing that was pointed out in this article was that there is a lot of money being paid to ex employees of a school that really should be spent within the school itself. Unfortunately I don't see a workable way to reverse this trend.
Football is controlled by the "haves", and they like to think that outspending you is an advantage.
Agreed. The only way the buyouts ever change is if those that "have" decide to restructure buyout agreements during initial contract offerings or in extension negotiations. but this will likely mean greater guaranteed money up front for a smaller parachute. My guess is that something like that with the big schools could happen but the smaller budget schools won't be able to compete at those rates so they will have to continue to offer the larger buyout guarantees. It is crazy that a coach can get two pay checks. I'd be on board with a transition to a no compete during the buyout payment. You accept a coaching job, you lose the buy out or a tiered percentage of the buyout. Then it becomes a question of do you love coaching or do you love money? Would be interesting to see how many schools already have something like this in place with their coaches if it already exists.
These buyouts are insane... As bad as corporate CEO Golden parachutes. That contracts can be structured in the case of Fu to pay 3 plus years salary as a reward for failure is fiscallly criminal. I'm wondering about a sliding scale where buyout is gauged to record... decreases with lower performance after say 2 yeats for mid level rebuild and 4 for dumpster fire
The problem is what coach is ever going to sign that contract?
None worth having, apparently.
None that have an agent.