Say, did the state of Arkansas make any news last week pertaining to college athletics? We think we might have noticed a headline or two on the matter.
We gotta admit, we didn't know much about this new athletic director, Hunter Yurachek, until his name made the papers early in the week. We did note that he was the AD down in Houston for a few years, and spent some time in the SEC at Vandy. We also saw that he was with Coastal Carolina a few years back, and that little college near Myrtle Beach that won the whole College World Series a couple of seasons ago, and gave the Arkansas football Razorbacks a scare this year. The man seems to have success, and leave it in his wake.
But what had everybody talking after his first press conference?
It wasn't wins and losses. It wasn't facilities. It wasn't ticket prices. It wasn't Title IX. It wasn't his contract.
It was what he said about coaches' contracts.
This thing really has gotten out of hand. The only people who might dispute that, if they dare, are coaches themselves. At least coaches at big-time college programs. High school coaches and those at Division II universities--who might have to teach a couple of math courses to make ends meet--can only dream about the millions being paid to football and basketball coaches at the next level.
Or, better said, paid to former coaches at the next level.
The papers report that Kevin Sumlin will get a check for about $10.4 million in the next few weeks. That's because he got fired as football coach at Texas A&M.
Arizona State fired its football coach, Todd Graham, and now the university owes him more than $12 million.
Tennessee will pay Butch Jones more than $8 million soon enough. Florida will pay Jim McElwain $7.5 million. Earlier this football season, when LSU lost to Troy at home, fans in Baton Rouge wanted to fire Coach O. But the school couldn't afford to do that, because it was still paying Les Miles not to coach. And firing Ed Orgeron would have meant Tiger supporters paying two coaches about $21 million . . . not to coach.
It's called a "buyout clause." It's supposed to protect coaches. What it does, at the amount of money demanded these days, is soak the schools.
Or as Arkansas' new AD put it, and plainly at that:
"For someone the likes of Kevin Sumlin to get paid 100 percent of his contract, $10 million, I think that was a mistake. I'm not at Texas A&M. I know they're in this conference and we compete with them ... But that's a mistake in our industry. It's not a sustainable model moving forward."
Hear, hear, Hunter Yurachek. As in hear him, hear him.
"We've got to get a handle on coaches' contracts and the buyouts," he added. "To me, losing football games [should mean] being terminated with cause. The protection sometimes that coaches are provided within their contracts to me is ludicrous. I want to be a leader in this industry in how we write our coaches' contracts moving forward so that there's not 100 percent guaranteed protection for their contracts."
Right on cue, the UofA announced the new football coach's contract. Chad Morris has a 6-year deal worth $3.5 million a year (with other incentives that could raise that amount). But he has a buyout at $14.7 million.
Fourteen point seven million.
Now, we're not certain who put that contract together, with Hunter Yurachek just now on the job. But it seems as though--with all the controversy with Bret Bielema's buyout--that $14.7 million is too much by 10.
We must note, however, that everybody assumes that Coach Morris will be given a few years to rebuild the program, so by the time he gets into his fifth or six year, that buyout should be considerably lower. The papers say it drops incrementally each year until the buyout is "only" $3.5 million in the final year of the contract.
That is, if the UofA doesn't bump it up after some (ahem) mediocre fourth-year, 7-5 season.
With Hunter Yurachek calling the shots, and his public comments on the matter, we have hope that the university will make the right decision when that time comes. If that times comes. (Some of us still hope for a couple of national championships before then.)
There are few businesses that pay ex-employees millions of dollars not to work. That's a business model that is--as Hunter Yurachek put it--not sustainable. Arkansas fans will be happy to see him put his words into action--and future contracts.
Editorial on 12/10/2017