A Sea Of Red

paradox wrote: ↑February 10th, 2022, 10:26 am They say that Junior wanted just plain black silk for home games and leopard-skin for away games. But I think people just looked at him, turned their heads, and pretended he was jesting

Actually, I think Becki may have modeled this similar outfit for a game or two....

I can't remember exactly; I was in bathroom throwing up

According to ESPN Auburn will announce today that HCBH will remain at the school for next season.

We can put the Hugh Freeze rumors back in the jar for now:

https://www.espn.com/college-football/s ... ry-program

Not sure where to put this but APR rankings just came out for the 2020-2021 season. The football team ended up being ranked 13th of all FBS programs with a score of 993 out of 1000. We used to be among the worst teams in the country in this area before HF took over.

aredd33 wrote: ↑October 28th, 2022, 1:45 pm

Does this mean that Freeze is going to stay or is I an thinking long term just in case another school wants to buyout Freeze's contract? We shall see.

Kudos to his agent. The speculation about Auburn, VT & WVU created a perfect storm to get this deal done. Coach Freeze has proven that he can win after losing a player of Malik's caliber. I am sure there are likely buyout number sthat will likely discourage even the biggest SEC boosters from stepping up. And trust me, those are the only real threats to us losing him.

Sly Fox wrote: ↑October 28th, 2022, 1:54 pm Kudos to his agent. The speculation about Auburn, VT & WVU created a perfect storm to get this deal done. Coach Freeze has proven that he can win after losing a player of Malik's caliber. I am sure there are likely buyout number sthat will likely discourage even the biggest SEC boosters from stepping up. And trust me, those are the only real threats to us losing him.

Solid point. Morgantown...seriously?

I'm assuming right now the buyout would likely be close to the total value of the contract so 30-35ish million but I'm sure someone on here with more knowledge of how these contracts typically work could enlighten us.

aredd33 wrote: ↑October 28th, 2022, 1:57 pm I'm assuming right now the buyout would likely be close to the total value of the contract so 30-35ish million but I'm sure someone on here with more knowledge of how these contracts typically work could enlighten us.

That would equal a couple a decades of CUSA revenue. Just reset the next coach at a $1 million and repeat the process until he gets bought out and we become the first G5 to make $.

Sly Fox wrote: ↑October 28th, 2022, 1:54 pm Kudos to his agent. The speculation about Auburn, VT & WVU created a perfect storm to get this deal done. Coach Freeze has proven that he can win after losing a player of Malik's caliber. I am sure there are likely buyout number sthat will likely discourage even the biggest SEC boosters from stepping up. And trust me, those are the only real threats to us losing him.

His Agent is a shark. Kudos to him. What’s the Agent take again? It used to max at 6%.
At what point point does Freeze become TOO expensive?

At no point does he become too expensive as long as liberty is being relevant, this football team is finally at the realized vision and that is huge. To be a top 25ish team at liberty is unbelievable and coach freeze brings that credibility

Not sure there will be any other coach who makes more than $2 million in the new CUSA.

I can understand making him the highest paid group of 5 coach and making it fully guaranteed, you want to keep a coach and recruiter of that caliber at liberty because the program and university is unique and you aren't just going to get anyone to come coach there and he's done an incredible job. However I would think you could have made an enormous buyout (like all of it) to make sure he doesn't get poached and to make sure if he does get poached you get a lot of money to put back into athletic programs, I would think coach freeze would be agreeable to that because what would he care? A buyout gets paid by the hiring school, not him.

cruzan_flame13 wrote: ↑October 28th, 2022, 1:56 pm

Sly Fox wrote: ↑October 28th, 2022, 1:54 pm Kudos to his agent. The speculation about Auburn, VT & WVU created a perfect storm to get this deal done. Coach Freeze has proven that he can win after losing a player of Malik's caliber. I am sure there are likely buyout number sthat will likely discourage even the biggest SEC boosters from stepping up. And trust me, those are the only real threats to us losing him.

Solid point. Morgantown...seriously?

All you can eat pepperoni rolls. Don’t knock it until you try it!

The other piece to this is that it shows P5 conferences our ability to pay into our program and that we’re serious about athletics. (As if, our facilities etc hasn’t already shown that.) Not saying it’s going to bring an invite anytime soon but it can’t hurt!

Technically, we don't know the buyout (which you would expect to have been raised). I think the buyout will keep out most schools except the top programs.

An important detail that is being missed in all of this is that our assistant coaches are also getting a raise. Damian Sordelett is reporting that our coaching staff as a whole will be the highest paid in G5. I assume that is excluding cincy and Houston. Obviously our assistant coaches are going to move on to bigger and better things but we need to do what we can to surround HF with a strong supporting cast if we want to maintain success.

Ill flame wrote: ↑October 28th, 2022, 11:19 pm An important detail that is being missed in all of this is that our assistant coaches are also getting a raise. Damian Sordelett is reporting that our coaching staff as a whole will be the highest paid in G5. I assume that is excluding cincy and Houston. Obviously our assistant coaches are going to move on to bigger and better things but we need to do what we can to surround HF with a strong supporting cast if we want to maintain success.

Some crazy/great quotes from this....

"Freeze’s new salary will more than triple that of coaches already in C-USA. Tyson Helton, whose Western Kentucky team is currently tied for second in C-USA, just got a raise to a $900,000 base salary. Middle Tennessee's Rick Stockstill has a base salary of $821,000 through a contract extension signed earlier this season."

“Our expectation is to contend for a conference championship in Conference USA in Year 1 and put ourselves in a position in an expanded CFP environment,” McCaw said.

The below article is a year old now, but I don't know if you all appreciate what sort of territory we are in with this kind of money being paid out to HCHF and co. It's likely that HCHF is in the Top 25 of all College Football coaches at this point in terms of salary, and he may be pushing into the top 20. The updated data is compiled by USAToday and is behind a paywall that I don't intend to climb. That being said, HCHF has a higher base salary than all G5 schools (including Cincy's Luke Fickell at ~$3.5M). He also beats out the majority of the P5 schools too in particular in the ACC (minus Dabo @ Clemson).

What's interesting to me about all of this is the timing. Right after the biggest victory in school history, and especially considering the mentions of his name in the news re: Auburn, he signs an extension? If he were planning or interested in going somewhere else after this year, it would seem to me that this would deal wouldn't have been done, unless it's just to protect LU to give us a higher buyout. I think he may mean it when he says he's very happy here on the mountain.

https://footballscoop.com/news/highest- ... abase-2021

I guess we will see how big that buy out is soon. Not saying he’ll go but they have the money to make a run at him

https://www.al.com/auburnfootball/2022/ ... utType=amp

I told someone yesterday morning that he would be fired before today's end. He was a bad hire from Day 1. Money talks, but why would anyone leave a ranked team to go to a "dumpster fire" ?

Freeze last week when the extension was announced: “It would take something very special for me to even entertain leaving at this stage in my life (he’s 53) and for Jill and my daughters.. I have already refused - and I’m not saying that I’m anyone’s choice and I’m ok with that. But even at this point I’ve had a couple reach out to my agent saying, ‘can we talk to him?’ And I have no desire to talk. Can there be some where I say maybe I should talk to them? Maybe. I’m not going to lie and say that’s not the case but I know I’m at total peace with where I’m at.”

ballcoach15 wrote: ↑October 31st, 2022, 1:48 pm I told someone yesterday morning that he would be fired before today's end.

Ballcoach, the Prophet.

More like, the Revisionist Historian.