Where else can you make about 4 mil a year while performing medocre at best, get fired for substandard performance, and still collect the remainder of your contract salary? Oh yeah, CEO's do it all the time. Just curious, how long have the buyouts been a part of the college football landscape. What is the major incentive for a university to enter into such a financial situation that has them over a barrel if the coach is fired. Yay for the coaches, boo for the schools. My biggest shortcoming when speaking of coaches is I always look at it in business terms. Maybe they should start paying these coaches per win. If a coach makes 4 mil a season divided by 12 games is $333,333. He then gets that amount for each win. $0 for a loss. That means Butch would be owed $1,333,332. Dang, he would still kinda be overpaid. But it might make some of them put more urgency into each game. Doesn't make sense to owe a guy 4 mil if he wins 12 games or just 4 games.
It's not the entire contract value, but some pro rata amount.
The purpose of buyouts is to prevent a successful coach from leaving and also are used heavily in recruiting.
The NCAA presidents should get together and pass a rule limiting buyouts IMO.