Feel like talking about the game with Syracuse this weekend? It’s homecoming… Throwback unis…
Yeah, not really feeling it.
Especially when USA Today published their annual college football coaches survey.
The usual caveats apply. Private schools don’t have to report salaries and contracts, meaning that Brian Kelly at Notre Dame is more then certainly making more then that base salary reported (which USA Today acknowledges). So, the numbers at Syracuse, USC, TCU and others are dependent on what the schools make public. And it’s why Baylor and several other schools down at the bottom have no numbers reported.
Pennsylvania has crappy-ass sunshine laws to start; and certain public universities (Pitt, Penn State, Temple and Lincoln), have carved out some amazing exclusions from what public reporting there is. Effectively, the schools don’t have to report salaries thanks to the law. Pitt and Penn State do for their highest earners via tax returns. That’s how we have those two schools’ coaches salaries. Temple doesn’t even bother.
The numbers at the top are astounding, but the names for the most part are not. An eyebrow might be raised when you see Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy is getting $5 million, but then you remember T. Boone Pickens finances that athletic department. But Lovie Smith getting that same number at Illinois? Hoo-boy.
It really does say something about the money that flies around college football. The top-25 in coaching salaries is illuminating in that 13 of the highest paid coaches are in the SEC (6) and Big 10 (7). Not really surprising, given that those are the two conferences that bring in the most money. Five Big 12 schools are in the top-25, and there are five ACC programs. The Pac-12 brings up the rear with two.
Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi clocks in at number 42 on the list. Making a bit over $3 million/year. Just behind Paul Johnson at GT and just ahead of David Doeren at NC St.
In the ACC, Pitt’s head coaching salary is ranked 8th. Right in the average spot for the conference.
Right now (and for the foreseeable future), Narduzzi looks to be overpaid. But it could be worse. It could be Louisville and Bobby Petrino’s nearly $4 million dollar salary with a stiff buyout.
If Louisville fires Petrino without cause — i.e., for losing too many games — it has to pay out his guaranteed money for the rest of that year and three years following it. (If Louisville were to fire him in the last three years of the deal, the school would only owe him whatever remained at that point. The structure of Petrino’s contract would make his buyout slightly bigger if he were fired in 2019, so Louisville might not have reason to wait.)
His contract also includes a $500,000 annual payment when Louisville’s Academic Progress Report score is above 935, and his team is above that mark, as is almost every Division I program.
Petrino’s 2018 pay, including the APR bonus, comes out to $4.475 million. If Louisville fired him on Dec. 1, right after the season, it would owe:
$4.025 million for 2019
$4.075 million for 2020
$4.125 million for 2021
That’s $12.225 million.But the school would still have to pay him whatever remains of his $3,975,000 base pay for 2018, going to the end of the calendar year. If Louisville fired him on Dec. 1, 2018, that’d leave him one more month of base pay for this year (about $331,000) on top of everything above. (His $500,000 APR payment is due in November, so he’d get that before being fired in this case.)
His buyout would total about $12.6 million at that point, but because of the deal’s structure, that likely would not be all. The language also suggests Petrino would likely get three more years of the $500,000 APR bonuses, even if he weren’t coaching. Unless Louisville argued against that or somehow failed to keep up its APR, Petrino’s buyout would rise by another $1.5 million, going to about $14.1 million on Dec. 1, 2018.
Petrino signed this extension back in 2016. A deal cut with then AD Tom Jurich. The deal was to cement Petrino to Louisville long term — there was a large buyout Petrino would have to pay if he left for another job as well. But now that seems… unlikely.
While the recruiting may look fine on paper, several things seem apparent. Few of the young guys have taken jobs from the upperclassmen, and no one is consistently making big plays.
There are few elite or stand-out players on the team. These type of players catch your eye, regardless of coaching.
Coaching can only do so much to raise the level of play. If recruiting ia good enough, why is there only one O-line recruit, a walk-on starting? Why are three seniors starting at linebacker? Why do we have transfer wide-outs and tight ends beating out our recruits?
We are losing too many of the individual battles, basic blocking and tackling are not good enough.
There are no Donald’s, Bisno’s, DJ’s, O’Neil’s on our lines, that consistently won the battles. No Conner’s, Boyd’s or Henderson’s making the big plays on a consistent basis.
Not enough plays being made on third down on either side of the ball. Sure some of it is coaching, but more is that we don’t have enough playmakers.
But where to find it… that’s the rub. At the moment I think Pitt is at an inherent disadvantage. I find it hard to believe that HCPN is a complete idiot – he knows where the talent is, but you can only offer what you can offer. Pitt won’t play dirty – we all know that – so you end up taking what you can get.
I’m not even pissed about it anymore. The game changed. Money changed it. Conferences grew wealthy and powerful and everyone wanted in on the action. No one and everyone is to blame.
link to pittsburghsportsnow.com
The problem is coaching. Plain and simple. It is clear to anyone watching that our players are simply unprepared and outcoached every week. Perhaps Duzz is in over his head or he has simply delegated everything to the coordinators and they simply arent getting it done? Look what Walt Harris was able to do with a program that was burnt to the ground, a run down stadium, no facilities, no money, and a tough sell to recruits… Was he perfect? No, but he coached his players up and got the most out of what he had to work with. Right now, Duzz is severely underachieving given the facilities, the money, money to hire staff, being in a Power 5 conference, etc… He has every advantage to build this program and right now in year four this is a disaster. I think however we finish this year, Pitt will give him year 5 to right the ship and after that its a coin toss.