I have a simple question.
How bad would Auburn have to be this season for Malzahn to be fired on December 1st without cause? Honestly, I’m not sure I can come up with an adequate scenario.
Who in their right mind obligates themselves to that kind of money for a football coach?
Filed under Auburn's Cast of Thousands, It's Just Bidness
I wondered at the time the announcement was made that G-Day was scheduled for not the week of the Masters or even the week after the Masters, but a full two weeks afterwards, if that was a hint that Mickey might have something special in store.
ESPN networks will televise 13 SEC Spring football games in 2018, according to ESPN MediaZone programming listings (h/t @lsufootballnet).
Spring football game action in the SEC kicks off on Saturday, March 31 with South Carolina’s annual Garnet-Black Game. The game is set for noon ET on the SEC Network.
Alabama, the defending national champions, will play their A-Day Game on Saturday, April 21 at 2:00pm ET on ESPN. Georgia, who fell to the Crimson Tide in the National Championship, follows Alabama with their G-Day Game at 4:00pm ET on ESPN.
Georgia and ‘Bama are the only two SEC programs who will play on the WWL. Every other school is relegated to ESPNU, the SEC Network or the Ocho (I keed about the last).
Something else to sell on the recruiting trail…
Filed under ESPN Is The Devil, Georgia Football
This one stings a little:
OK, don’t let Paul Johnson fool you, recruiting is important despite how Georgia Tech’s coach downplays the trickle of 5- and 4-stars going his way.
No worries, though. After three more disappointing seasons, the genius can always fire another defensive coordinator.
Filed under Georgia Tech Football, Recruiting
This ought to work about as well as it did for King Canute.
The salaries and contract lengths of football and men’s basketball head coaches and assistant coaches have dramatically increased in recent years and only continue to grow.
Texas A&M made waves in the offseason when it hired former Florida State football head coach Jimbo Fisher to the same position, signing him to a fully guaranteed 10-year, $75 million contract, according to ESPN. Alabama spent $11,132,000 on football head coach Nick Saban last year, according to USA Today head coach salary database.
Though Ohio State pays its coaches in the upper echelon of salaries, it has avoided paying what Athletics Director Gene Smith believes to be unnecessarily large salaries for coaches.
“I don’t even put Texas A&M in our sphere because I’m considering Urban [Meyer]’s situation with three years left on his contract,” Smith said during Ohio State’s Board of Trustees’ Talent and Compensation Committee meeting Thursday. “Talking with [Susan Basso, vice president of human resources] and [Joanna McGoldrick, associate vice president of total rewards], that’s not even someone that we’re comparing with because it’s so ridiculous.
“It’s the same way with Alabama and their total salary. Take it off the sheet because it doesn’t matter. Because it’s just no value to it. It’s a reactionary type of management.”
Corch’s contract expires in three years. Assuming the man wants to keep coaching at the time, I’ll be curious to see how reactionary Smith’s management is then.
(h/t)
Filed under It's Just Bidness, Urban Meyer Points and Stares
I touched on the subject yesterday about how the recruiting process favors the same, limited number of D-1 programs. Here’s another example of how that works, in this case resulting from the brand-spanking, new early signing period.
“Let’s just take Georgia for example,” Luginbill said, referring to Kirby Smart’s 20-man class, which sits atop the team rankings at ESPN and Rivals and is second at 247Sports. “I guarantee you Georgia’s focus in the month of January was on the 2019 and 2020 classes, not this current class. They’re devoting coaches and resources and personnel staffing and all that stuff. They only have to (recruit) on a limited basis for, what, three to five guys (in the 2018 class)? So the rest of those resources are being put forth to get a huge head start, but not everybody has that luxury.
“If you’re a team that signed 11 guys in the first period and you’ve got to sign 26, your resources are spent on the current class while everybody else is getting ahead.”
That’s the team getting the steak knives while Smart’s tooling around in the new Cadillac. The only thing I’m curious about is how long ago Kirby saw this scenario coming into being. I’ll bet it was way before the light bulb went off in Luginbill’s head.
Filed under Georgia Football, Recruiting
This Chronicle of Higher Education piece asks an interesting question: “Who Should Oversee Athletes’ Academic Progress?”
Ohio is one in a long line of colleges that have built facilities dedicated solely to providing academic support for athletes. But a group of faculty members is asking that those services be put under the control of an academic unit such as the provost’s office rather than the athletics department. They worry that the current system might cheat athletes out of a top-notch education and could invite scandal.
To me, there would appear to be obvious conflicts of interest in putting a coaching staff in charge of players’ academics. One is the obvious matter of maintaining academic eligibility. The other is the fair number of coaching contracts that contain bonuses for meeting certain APR thresholds.
I’m particularly curious to hear from those of you who’ve long argued that academics should be the guiding standard for admissions. Do you feel the same way about this issue?
Filed under Academics? Academics.
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