Eee… yeah, this take didn’t age well ($$).
“For now, the days of buying out coaches’ contracts like drunken sailors are gone,” one Division I athletic director said in April on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely.
So, about that …
Gus Malzahn walked away from Auburn with more than $21 million guaranteed. Texas paid almost $25 million to buy out Tom Herman and his staff a few months after layoffs and furloughs. South Carolina paid Will Muschamp $12.9 million to go away. Even Arizona, a month after laying off 21 employees, agreed to pay Kevin Sumlin’s $7.5 million buyout (subject to offset).
Unless, by “for now”, Mr. Anonymous AD only meant until the end of April.
Truth of the matter is, at least in the upper reaches of D-1 football, pandemic or no pandemic, there’s still a sea of cash to pay coaches with, and enough ADs who lack the ability to formulate a plan much beyond give Jimmy Sexton what he’s asking for. Here’s another example:
Here’s a quote from a college coach a few years back:
“Every college coach I talk to won’t say it on record, but everyone’s thinking, ‘Should I go to the league?’”
That was Kirby Smart in 2015, when he was Alabama’s defensive coordinator, speaking to 680 The Fan in Atlanta. Smart said the grind of recruiting had become non-stop with phones. He was right then and it’s still true now. The job does not stop, and assistants have to handle recruiting much more than head coaches.
So why haven’t they followed Kirby’s lead? (Hell, why didn’t Kirby follow Kirby’s lead?) You only get one guess.
But the money has increased as well. At the top of the Power 5, college coaches are making as much money or more than NFL coaches.
And so it goes.
Get The Picture 
I personally think being a college football head coach is more challenging. Each has his pluses and minuses, but at the college level, recruiting teenagers (and their parents) is a nonstop and essential requirement for success.
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more personal too. like, calling the coach on sunday personal.
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I agree. It is a much tougher job in college and I don’t hear many saying NFL coaches are over paid.
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The issue isn’t that coaches are overpaid. They get what the market dictates.
The issue is with ADs who talk tough about their management choices and then melt at the first opportunity.
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OPM baby! Unlike the NFL.
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In my opinion that “ADs who talk tough about their management choices and then melt at the first opportunity” is because most of them are hire to solicit money as opposed to manage it.
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Doesn’t this article go on to say that boosters fund most of the buyouts?
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So?
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College coaching is damn hard. You are the general manager, the head coach, franchise CEO, and chief fundraiser. You have total control over just about everything major in your program with the potential exception of facilities.
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Why do you think they get the big bucks? Is it supposed to be easy making millions a year. Just tell me one corporate job these guys would be qualified for to make even a scintilla of the kind of money they make!!!
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Hey stop picking on corporate jobs! I know plenty of c suite guys making millions a year who add zero if not negative value and suck just as much at their jobs as your average AD! The world needs incompetent management outside of college football too ya know!
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None.
It would be kind of funny to see Kirby do his stupid little tantrum hop in the board room watching the stock price plummet while some Junior VP held him by his belt, though.
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Nothing like a hundred million dollar coach with two dozen assistant coaches, analysts, and consultants on staff and an entire administration to handle all the paper work bitching about the “grind” of daily life in his fucking helicopter ride to watch a high school football game.
What a douche.
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The drunken sailor remark hurt my feelings.
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If you are the “drunken sailor spending”, o.k….if you are the drunken sailor who is buying this round, You Da Man….
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My take away is what we already knew. Jimmy Sexton is smarter than most AD`s. Also expect the existing conditions to continue until forced to change.
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I don’t know if Jimmy’s smarter. I think he happens to be the lucky guy who sits across the table from the other side who has a money gusher that must be spent.
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“…there’s still a sea of cash to pay coaches with…”
LOL. Vols.
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Even if Kirby is engaged with work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year (8,760 hours) he’s still making more than $734 dollars an hour. That’s not too bad!
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