John Clay
Lexington Herald-Leader
LEXINGTON, Ky. — As my man Jason Isbell sings, “It can get so much worse. I reckon it will.”
Texas A&M is paying Jimbo Fisher $77 million to not coach football.
Indiana is paying Tom Allen $20.8 million to not coach football.
Houston is paying Dana Holgorsen $14.8 million to not coach football.
The list goes on. Mississippi State is paying Zach Arnett $4.5 million in a buyout. Syracuse is paying Dino Babers an estimated $4 million. Boise State is paying Andy Avalos $3 million. According to Front Office Sports, colleges and universities are paying a record $118 million in buyouts to football coaches fired after this season alone. With possibly more to come.
Remember, these are the same colleges and universities who tell us it would be impossible for them to pay athletes.
It’s also the same system that has coaches begging fans and boosters for donations so they can recruit athletes by promising name, image and likeness money. As we know, Kentucky coach Mark Stoops did it on his radio show last month, telling a fan to “pony up” for NIL so the Wildcats could get better. North Carolina State coach Dave Doeren followed suit.
“I’d love to see 5,000 people donate $1,000 to our NIL,” said Doeren after the Wolfpack’s 39-20 win over archrival North Carolina on Saturday, “and get us to a point where we can recruit, retain and develop and have a program in the NIL world where the guys on our roster are able to benefit from that.”
That’s the same Doeren who in 2022 agreed to a contract extension through 2026 in which he earns more than $4.9 million per year in base salary.
I’m no Jim Harbaugh fan, but I’ll give the Michigan coach credit saying Sunday night, “As I’ve said, there’s a lot of people profiting. Coaches are profiting millions, and I’ve had people tell me, ‘Don’t say anything about that, that’ll take away money for the coaches.’ What I’ve been able to do is donate money back to the athletic department, which I did in 2021. But yeah, I would, for the players to be compensated. I’m using my voice and I would take less money for the players to have a share.”
Stoops himself said last year, “I wish I could give it back to the collective because I would. I want to.”
In college football there’s no such thing as “too much money.” Ask Fisher, who was fired despite having his contract extended in 2021 and what was considered a ridiculous buyout. Ask Holgorsen, who bragged in the spring, “I have five years on my contract with a (expletive) impossible buyout. So there ain’t no (expletive) hot seat in my mind. There just ain’t.”
After going 4-8 this season, Holgorsen ain’t the coach at Houston anymore.
When does the craziness cease? Not anytime soon. As the money grows, so do the stakes. Athletic directors have budgets to meet and impossible boosters to satisfy. There is no salary cap, no revenue sharing, no real logic. It’s every school and man for himself.
You can blame Mark Stoops for reportedly being ready to take the Texas A&M job. I’m not. After 11 years at UK, it would have been a chance to start over at a school with deeper pockets. Sure, Stoops has done a terrific job at Kentucky, but a couple of down seasons in an unforgiving league that is adding Texas and Oklahoma, and the 56-year-old coach would be out of a job, too. These days, no coach is immune, no buyout too high.
Nor do I buy the argument that because of his dalliance with A&M, Stoops won’t be fully committed to his job here. He’s a competitor. He wants to win. It doesn’t matter where or who he’s coaching. And Stoops has a lot invested in the program he still leads.
For all those who see the funny money, NIL and the transfer portal as the end of college football, consider that the television ratings have never been better. Through Week 11, Fox reported its college football viewership was up 10% over last year. We might not like all that we see, but we’re still watching.
©2023 Lexington Herald-Leader. Visit kentucky.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.