In today’s Blue’s News, we take a look at my offseason evaluation of Big Ten coach contracts to see who might be next on the chopping block.
Thank you for joining us for Free Week. We’re giving non-subscribers a peek behind the Meet at Midfield curtain. If you’re among that number, please consider signing up if you like what you see.
MONEY ISN’T REAL EXCEPT WHEN IT’S VERY, VERY REAL
If you missed Sunday night’s big news, Wisconsin fired head coach Paul Chryst and promoted promising young defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard to interim coach. Getting out-Badgered by Bret Bielema’s Illinois, 34-10, while getting out-rushed 137-2 proved the all-too-fitting final straw.
I’ll save the autopsy for Ryan, who’s working on that and a Wisconsin coaching hot board as you read this. I want to focus on this part:
Getting rid of Chryst at a reasonable price is important for the notoriously penny-pinching Wisconsin program, especially when they have a potential cheap young internal hire to give a test run for the remainder of the season.
It’s also notable because Chryst’s buyout was already one of the more reasonable in the Big Ten. While that’s partly because the conference boats a lot of onerous contracts, it’s also because UW clearly left themselves some wiggle room:
Given Chryst’s success in Madison, Wisconsin is getting a bargain paying him “only” $5.25M/year after agreeing to an extension last year that runs through 2027. Based on his 2019 extension, he’d make 85% of his remaining salary if fired, the highest mark this side of Kirk Ferentz.
That number is also misleading. If Chryst’s team fails to win seven games in a season, a year’s worth of compensation will be removed from the buyout equation. Wisconsin can only backslide so far before the cost of change becomes feasible.
The above is from my offseason rankings of the B1G’s coach contracts by absurdity. Chryst came in 12th out of 13. (Pat Fitzgerald isn’t included because Northwestern, as a private school, doesn’t have to make contract details public.)
The No. 5 coach from that list, Scott Frost, preceded Chryst in this year’s in-season firings — and he only ranked that low because of a restructured deal that saved Nebraska $8.5M if they waited to fire Frost until… yesterday. They did not wait until yesterday.
The Big Ten is certainly acting more like a Real Football Conference. They’re throwing wads of cash around knowing they can solve the problems caused by spending too much money on a coach by spending even more money. It’s not a perfect system by any means but also it’s not my money.
SO, WHO’S NEXT?
Let’s review those absurd coach contract rankings, which I’m happy to say have held up pretty well so far this season:
- Kirk Ferentz, Iowa
- Mel Tucker, Michigan State
- James Franklin, Penn State
- Tom Allen, Indiana
Scott Frost, Nebraska- Jim Harbaugh, Michigan
- Mike Locksley, Maryland
- Greg Schiano, Rutgers
- Jeff Brohm, Purdue
- P.J. Fleck, Minnesota
- Ryan Day, Ohio State
Paul Chryst, Wisconsin- Bret Bielema, Illinois
That serves as an approximate order for how hard it’d be to get rid of each school’s coach except in the case of Ryan Day, who’s paid in line with his remarkably high level of performance.
Based on contract situation and performance, how safe is each Big Ten coach? Let’s break the relatively safe coaches into categories.
COACHING TOO WELL FOR THIS TO BE AN ISSUE: Bret Bielema, Ryan Day, P.J. Fleck, Jim Harbaugh.
IT’S WAY TOO EARLY TO FIRE THIS GUY: Greg Schiano.
SAFE RIGHT NOW BUT FIREABLE IF THINGS GO SOUTH: Jeff Brohm, Mike Locksley.
PROHIBITIVELY EXPENSIVE TO FIRE BUT DOING JUST ENOUGH: James Franklin.
UNKILLABLE CORN GOD: Kirk Ferentz.
This brings us to two very different coaches at two very different schools: IU’s Tom Allen and MSU’s Mel Tucker.
Allen received a healthy contract extension in 2019, when he’d transformed the team’s identity after the all-offense-no-defense Kevin Wilson era and making the Hoosiers a legitimately tough team to play against. His subsequent coordinator hires have been iffy at best, however, and they collapsed in 2021 after a fluky COVID season in 2020.
Unfortunately for Indiana, they didn’t see it that way at the time:
After the Hoosiers went 6-1 in the Big Ten during the COVID-impacted 2020 season, IU raised the value of that contract to $34.3M — fully guaranteed through 2024, then 50% thereafter. Allen can trigger automatic extra years to his contract by making bowl games, too.
Indiana’s 2021 season was an unmitigated disaster: a 2-10 (0-9 Big Ten) record preempted the firing of offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan. Allen’s extension didn’t last a year before it was revised to include a $200K pay cut from 2022-25, an acknowledgement that he didn’t perform well enough last season.
The illegitimacy of IU’s winning record this season was exposed last weekend by, of all teams, Nebraska. While Allen has accomplished a lot at IU, he’s also hired Mike DeBord, Nick Sheridan and Walt Bell to run his offenses, mistakes a defensive-minded head coach can’t afford to make.
Unless there are unreported changes to Allen’s contract, IU would be stuck with a huge bill if they fired him before — oh, man — 2025. There are football programs that would eat it if the situation got dire enough. While the Hoosiers might get there on the field, I’m not sure they’re dedicated enough to football to jettison a well-liked coach with that kind of price tag.
On the other hand, Mel Tucker is going to get more time to earn his $95M(!!!) contract no matter how poorly this year plays out. He earned that leeway in 2021 and the money is obviously massive.
The reason Tucker has that contract, however, is also the reason MSU could get out of it: multi-billionaire booster Mat Ishbia, a former Tom Izzo walk-on who made good by, uh, taking his dad’s mortgage brokering company public while miring it in controversy.
The ugly start to this season has soured some fans on Tucker. If Ishbia, a very involved booster, starts to get antsy, that money could burn a hole in his pocket. I highly doubt it’d happen this year; I also don’t believe Tucker’s job is as safe as his contract would normally indicate.
HOCKEY’S BACK
Let’s start with the fun stuff:
Windsor, unsurprisingly, couldn’t keep up with the Wolverines in a tuneup game.
Unfortunately, Mel Pearson’s desperate little game is still happening:
Please take away this man’s ticket pass and emoji keyboard.
MICHIGAN-ADJACENT VIDEO OF THE DAY
You’ll be missed, Paul.