We don’t know yet whether Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly is really going to leave to become the next head coach at Notre Dame. But we do know there are people close to the Cincinnati football program who think Kelly is gone.
We’re hearing that people connected to the Cincinnati program think that a deal is already in place for Kelly to coach Notre Dame. There’s even talk about who will lead the football program in its bowl game, which will be a BCS bowl thanks to Cincinnati winning the Big East.
Overall, the mood at Cincinnati is that it’s hard to celebrate a conference championship when you think the coach who got you there is about to bolt.
Of course, Charlie Weis does still have the Notre Dame job, and if he can pull off a miracle upset at USC tonight, all of that talk that Weis is on the way out will disappear. But for now, Weis is in serious jeopardy of being fired, and Kelly appears to be the favorite to replace him.
November 29th, 2008 at 4:23 pm EST
UND needs a lot of money to pay out Weis AND then hire Kelly; wow.
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November 29th, 2008 at 5:46 pm EST
Buyout is around 10mil, which is nothing
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November 29th, 2008 at 10:03 pm EST
Buyout in all probability is even less, in the neighborhood of $4.5mm, because typically the buyout is only the amount of the coach’s base salary from the school times the number of years left on the deal. Most of these coaches make well more than half of their total comp with side deals with boosters for speaking engagegments, personal appearances and so forth. I think Charlie’s base was reported in the first deal in the $450k range, so even if the extension bumped the base to $650k, you’re looking at a 4.55mm buyout. Boosters have repeatedly gone on record as saying the amount was immaterial, the decision would be made based on the direction of the program only.
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