Buyout Reality

Out of all your figures, this one is the only one that matters. You are paying the buyout to Jones regardless. You are going to be paying a staff regardless. So the only real additional expense is the roughly 15 mil it takes to buy out Pruitt and his staff.

Now, I don't have a dog in this hunt and I'm not going to opine on whether Pruitt gets it done or not. My point is strictly from a financial point of view. If Pruitt continues to flounder and attendance drops, merchandise and concessions fall and the brand is further damaged, 15 mil over the course of 3 seasons COULD be a drop in the bucket when measured in terms of lost real dollars and damage to the brand long term.

If JP can't get it turned around and win at least 4 or 5 games in a very weak SECE and UAB still on schedule, the numbers game will get dicey. Sometimes the best financial move is to cut loses and move on esp if the ROI starts looking shady at best.
15 million is a big ass drop in the bucket.
 
I can’t picture Coach Fulmer going to anyone to ask for more money under the current situation. My best guess is that Fulmer won’t even think about that until Butch is paid off. (That’s what, two years?)

Order a round of beer for your section! Write it off as a donation.
 
Buyout reality, not, ain't gonna happen, dosen't need to happen, he got 6 years and we are gonna come out of this, he is gonna work his plan and he will succeed, he has something that most of you on here don't, grit and determination, all the great ones have it. Just watch in 2 years this whole program is gonna look different
 
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15 million is a big ass drop in the bucket.

Sure it is but over the course of the remain contract, UT could lose much more than 15 mil in real and potential revenue. I'm not going to say it happens but it isn't terribly difficult to leave more than 15 mil on the table if you have the wrong guy leading any huge organization. College football is changing and damage to a brand can have much more impact than a decade ago. It's simply not a given that 100K will show up every Saturday and schools can't allow their brand to fall off a cliff.

The calculation that matters is whether UT maximizes revenue potential with JP at the helm or not. All the 15 mil represents is his cushion.
 
The Vols are in for the long run now, no turning back, occupying the bottom of the SEC may become the norm for next couple of years or longer......maybe forever, God forbid!
We are the new Vandy the yearly doormat and laughingstock of the SEC and college football.
 
So the past few weeks I have read the posts on how we need to fire CJP and Staff and start over. The reality is the University simply cannot do that from a money standpoint. I am just going to use some dumb ranger math to break this down.

Butch Jones' last payment is scheduled for Feb 2021, that is 17 more months. 17x200k=$3,400,000M owed.

CJP and Staff would be owed roughly $15M if fired before Dec.

New staff and the infamous Proven P5 winner would cost anywhere from $20-25M.

I will round down Butch's cost to $3M and split the difference on new staff at $23M

3M+15M+23M=$41M............I don't care who the big boosters are, no one is going to float that cost. Love it or hate it; we are married to CJP for the next couple of years similar to when Auburn wanted to fire CGM last year. It could be worse, we could be like Texas A&M and signed a $75M guaranteed contract.

Buyout is total nonsense and would be counter-productive. We just need better recruits and more experience.

Most of the butch players have hit their performance ceiling so we will play more young guns who are more capable and talented but will make a few more mistakes too! Other than a slow start for JJ Peterson, most of CJPs recruits are looking good.
 
Sure it is but over the course of the remain contract, UT could lose much more than 15 mil in real and potential revenue. I'm not going to say it happens but it isn't terribly difficult to leave more than 15 mil on the table if you have the wrong guy leading any huge organization. College football is changing and damage to a brand can have much more impact than a decade ago. It's simply not a given that 100K will show up every Saturday and schools can't allow their brand to fall off a cliff.

The calculation that matters is whether UT maximizes revenue potential with JP at the helm or not. All the 15 mil represents is his cushion.
They’re not going to do anything anytime soon. Regardless of how this year finishes. Pruitt is getting a third year regardless; if he shows ANYTHING on the field in the third year he’s getting a fourth year.

There’s Haslam and then there’s every other booster at Tennessee. Again every other booster would rather back Pruitt and Fulmer till it blows up than go back to unilateral decision making through Haslam. Pruitt hasn’t looked great but Haslam has proven to be a dumbass over several years.
 
Why can't I? Everyone compares Pruitt to every coach in their 2nd year. Are you saying Jumbo can have a bad year LATER in his career, but game 16 of Pruitts head coaching career and the judgement is final???

Also, I don't think anyone would say CJP has not won anywhere he's been. He may not have been the head coach, but he won some games.

How would you define Jimbo as successful now? Not disagreeing, but I'm curious what the metrics are.
It’s not apples to apples that is why. Pruitt has never coached a d1 program until last season. Jimbo, Saban, Muschamp, Mullen, Kelly and others have coached before and all of them have won. Coach Pruitt has last season to build on. Other coaches (such as who I just mentioned) have years to pull from. It’s not apples to apples.
 
I was thinking end of next year for when CJP gets canned. At this point Pruitt is going to have to show me something before I have faith in him again. But with those salary numbers, he isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Unless Butch gets another HC gig, we're stuck with him until 2021, barring a major scandle.
 
They’re not going to do anything anytime soon. Regardless of how this year finishes. Pruitt is getting a third year regardless; if he shows ANYTHING on the field in the third year he’s getting a fourth year.

There’s Haslam and then there’s every other booster at Tennessee. Again every other booster would rather back Pruitt and Fulmer till it blows up than go back to unilateral decision making through Haslam. Pruitt hasn’t looked great but Haslam has proven to be a dumbass over several years.

I think head coaches should get 3 yrs minimum to get their programs rolling outside of moral turpitude issues. I think Pruitt definitely gets a third yr. However, I think 7 wins is a must in 2020. UT football supporters should not accept 4 or 5 win seasons with multiple blowout losses. By yr 3 any coach worth the salary should have UT competitive in almost every game.

But, that's not my main point. My point is you don't refuse to pay the 15 mil to fire a guy that may cost you 50 mil in lost revenue over the course of his contract and beyond.
 
Yea, that's where I think a school should be more forceful, but I'm also not sure how what works with assistants. If a school owes a head coach 50% of his remaining contract if they fire him at year "x", I think the same amount should be owed by the coach if he voluntarily leaves for another job. Yes that coach won't really be the one to pay it, the hiring university would, but I think the amounts should be equal.
No reason not to try to get that in negotiation, but at the end that is what it comes down to, and when your program is as downtrodden as UT's the hiring party generally doesn't have much leverage in the negotiations. It's a downward spiral in the truest sense.
 
So the past few weeks I have read the posts on how we need to fire CJP and Staff and start over. The reality is the University simply cannot do that from a money standpoint. I am just going to use some dumb ranger math to break this down.

Butch Jones' last payment is scheduled for Feb 2021, that is 17 more months. 17x200k=$3,400,000M owed.

CJP and Staff would be owed roughly $15M if fired before Dec.

New staff and the infamous Proven P5 winner would cost anywhere from $20-25M.

I will round down Butch's cost to $3M and split the difference on new staff at $23M

3M+15M+23M=$41M............I don't care who the big boosters are, no one is going to float that cost. Love it or hate it; we are married to CJP for the next couple of years similar to when Auburn wanted to fire CGM last year. It could be worse, we could be like Texas A&M and signed a $75M guaranteed contract.
Coaches that are unproven as capable of winning big time college conference championships or making it to the college playoffs should not be offered deals as though they have accomplished that. Obviously, the athletic directors who made these deals are to blame. It is not the salaries that are a problem for us. The problem is these ridiculous buy out terms that their lawyers seem to have no problem getting our (and most other ADs across the country) to agree to.

Now, there will be those who say, "they would not have signed a deal without that". I'm not so sure, and, if you're write then, ok, just tell them to go away then. Go and find you a high school coach who has won a bunch of state championships, offer him $500,000 a year, offer to increase that 8x if he wins the SEC, offer ZERO buy out. That would have just as much of a chance of winning the SEC than these stupid deals would and it would be the proper way to handle the taxpayer's money of the great state of Tennessee.
 
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Fire Pruitt. Promote Cheney, make Tee the OC. If we are going to keep hiring coordinators, hell, let’s at least hire our own like Clemson did with Dabo and like FSU did with Jimbo. Keep continuity within the staff and system.

Lol. Jimbo was head coach in waiting. He was always going to get that head coaching job because Bowden handpicked him to replace him.
 
Coaches that are unproven as capable of winning big time college conference championships or making it to the college playoffs should not be offered deals as though they have accomplished that. Obviously, the athletic directors who made these deals are to blame. It is not the salaries that are a problem for us. The problem is these ridiculous buy out terms that their lawyers seem to have no problem getting our (and most other ADs across the country) to agree to.

Now, there will be those who say, "they would not have signed a deal without that". I'm not so sure, and, if you're write then, ok, just tell them to go away then. Go and find you a high school coach who has won a bunch of state championships, offer him $500,000 a year, offer to increase that 8x if he wins the SEC, offer ZERO buy out. That would have just as much of a chance of winning the SEC than these stupid deals would and it would be the proper way to handle the taxpayer's money of the great state of Tennessee.

Easiest way is for Tennessee to lead the rollout of next level coaching contracts.

Basically go after a solid name that isn't a big timer right now. So no Saban, Dabo, Riley, Urban, Smart, etc......

But what you do is basically give someone like 3.5 million as their base and then you lace that thing with so many effing incentives that they could become the highest paid coach in the country in a single year if they win it all. That was my argument for Kiffin after Schiano Sunday.

Because would Tennessee pay 15-20 million dollars to a coach for a national title in any given year? Of course they would. But would they want to spend that on a coach for a 9-4 year with a win in the Gator Bowl? No.

Just have to find the right coach with the ego. Because in the majority performance based contracts, you could have a 5 year window where a coach in theory could make the following:

  1. 7-5 : 4.2 Million
  2. 11-2: 6.5 Million
  3. 14-1/15-0 Natty Win: 15 Million
  4. 9-4: 5.5 Million
  5. 10-3: 6 Million

So for a coach that goes say 51-15, we could in theory spend 37 million...... Sure we could pay 7.4 million per year to a coach, but I do think that saying "you could be the highest paid coach every year by a landslide if you win it all" is more of a motivating factor than having a coach who just gets a 7.5 million per year contract.
 
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This administration has proven on multiple occasions they will never hire a big name coach for huge dollars. The SEC network and bowl split revenues are equal to ticket sales now and those are guaranteed regardless of won loss record. They care about "butts in seats" but that no longer drives the ship. They want to be in full control of the operation, which is why no one wants to work for them.
 
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He should be sitting at an arbitration table right now for milking the buyout, instead of seeking another coaching opportunity. This Bama stunt is simply an effort to stick a thumb in our eye.

This is 100% correct. His buyout stipulates that his owed money would be offset by any coaching salaries he would receive at a new gig.

Instead of taking a Coordinator or HC position, he takes what is basically an unpaid analyst position. It's a win-win for him and Alabama, he gets to be the token mascot that Alabama uses when they beat us, they don't have to pay him and he gets to stick it back to UT.

He might get the Rutgers job if they don't rehire Schiano... otherwise I don't think he wants to take a job. He gets paid a ton to do nothing but be a puppet.
 
Agreed, the cost of making a change makes this a non-starter.

We have another huge issue, the perception of Tennessee football in the coaching community.

We worked our way down a long list of candidates, rejections abounded, finally being spurned by the HCs at Purdue and NC State. Seriously?

Even if we could offer $7M/year, who is out there that is both, worth it, and willing to accept the job?
 
Butch's buyout is already accounted for. It's a non issue. $15 million to replace Pruitt will seems like a bargain with all the money the AD will lose without a miracle turnaround. I understand that a lot of you don't want amother coaching search and some of you may even believe that this clown show really will turn the program around if everyone just hold their noses and gives him 5 years. Money will not be what keeps Pruitt here. He's going to have to win a bunch next year with tougher schedule and an even less experienced roster or its over. He may not even survive this year if he can't get more than 3 wins.
 
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This is 100% correct. His buyout stipulates that his owed money would be offset by any coaching salaries he would receive at a new gig.

Instead of taking a Coordinator or HC position, he takes what is basically an unpaid analyst position. It's a win-win for him and Alabama, he gets to be the token mascot that Alabama uses when they beat us, they don't have to pay him and he gets to stick it back to UT.

He might get the Rutgers job if they don't rehire Schiano... otherwise I don't think he wants to take a job. He gets paid a ton to do nothing but be a puppet.
There is definitely something weird about the whole thing. They should've cut him off after one year for willful underemployment.
 
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Ironically Butch and Schiano are after the same open job at Rutgers. Pulling for ya Butchy Boy.
 

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