SAD NEWS: The Crimson Tide Football’s head coach has angrily terminated his biggest contract ever due to a serious
SAD NEWS: The head coach of Crimson Tide Football has vehemently canceled his largest contract ever because of a major
There are a few components that define college football:
1. The athletes receive tuition reimbursement, which is valued at what the sponsoring institution claims it is worth.
2. No one is usually able or willing to object, so every organization is free to come up with its own awful ideas.
3. Unlike players, coaches typically have unrestricted ability to transfer to another college at any time for any reason. However, if a coach is dismissed, his college can still owe him six, seven, or eight figures for the buyout sum that was previously negotiated. How is funding for this arranged? In addition to finding a new coach, how can schools afford to pay their departing coach? Refer to this list’s first item.
Following their victory over Mississippi State to close the regular season, the Tigers fired coach Gus Malzahn, ending nearly ten years of Auburn supporters’ back-and-forth between “Fire Gus” and “Keep Gus” years. Malzahn, who had eight winning seasons in eight years, is now owed $21.5 million in severance pay, half of which must be paid within 30 days, according to his contract. That implies an unemployed football coach in Alabama will be the highest-paid state employee during this fiscal year, which happens to be a pandemic year. (When salaries and buyouts are included, sacked coaches top numerous state budgets annually; nevertheless, the majority of those monies come from private boosters and athletic department money.)
South Carolina was forced to pay $15.5 million after coach Will Muschamp was sacked last month. A contract amendment that was approved a year earlier might have reduced it by roughly $2 million, but Muschamp and his employer never signed it. This occurs six years after Florida, in retrospect, paid Muschamp $6.3 million to disappear.
Should you want to throw away millions of dollars, wouldn’t it be better to spend it on something worthwhile, like creating a jetpack that functions once?
In order to leave the Fighting Illini with a 17-39 record, former Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith will receive $2.3 million. Since Vanderbilt is a private university and is therefore exempt from records requests, we are unsure of the exact amount that Vanderbilt owes the fired Derek Mason; however, we do know that he had several years remaining on his contract and that his yearly compensation had been on pace with Sumlin’s. Put it in seven digits.
It is present everywhere. It is simply typical. Dozens of coaches are expelled from the bar each year despite managing to amass substantial sums of money. FSU waited a mere 21 games in the previous season before giving Willie Taggart $21 million to go. After waiting through one more game, Arkansas handed a $10 million salary to Chad Morris.
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Even financially struggling colleges accept buyout agreements in their contracts. Even when financial losses from pandemics are avoided, ULM’s sports department—which is frequently the worst in Division I FBS—now owes Matt Viator $175,000 in arrears. Moreover, there is the cost of hiring a new coach.
Fans of college football, members of the media, and bystanders criticize these money pits annually. How can we justify throwing money at primarily known failures in a sport where tiny schools can only survive by agreeing to be pounded by powers, under an amateurism model that gives many players as little academic value as possible, and in a nation with appalling rates of poverty? Isn’t that just embarrassing, even in cases where private boosters are willing and able to pay for buyout costs? Should you want to throw away millions of dollars, wouldn’t it be better to spend it on something worthwhile, like creating a jetpack that functions once?
since these agreements are accepted by all other colleges. If your competition offers a juicy buyout clause, you cannot hire Coach Hotshot away from them. Moreover, your rival is also willing to turn Coach Hotshot’s shoddy real estate assets into a profitable venture.