Why would a school pay a recently fired head coach a big salary?

[matt]

What incentive do you have to pay them a big salary?

PSU was on the hook for $49 million for James Franklin which would be offset by future earnings. Could Virginia Tech underpay him a semi-reasonable salary (say $2m per year) and then use the extra $4m of head coach budget to get top tier coordinators and assistants?

Franklin would be getting topped up by PSU, and he would have a very strong assistant budget. Plus, the school doesn’t have to pay a buyout to hire a sitting coach. It’s a win-win for everyone except the idiot ADs hiring and firing with big contracts.

 

[gopherphil]

I was actually kinda wondering that myself… and if someone owes me 49 million I’m done with coaching… Its what James Franklin is made of, I guess.

 

[GopherTheJugular]

I figured the contract would have some stipulation on that. Here's what AI says:

Yes, under the terms of his contract, James Franklin had a
"duty to mitigate" which required him to make a good faith effort to seek a new job at a market-appropriate salary. His new earnings would offset the original buyout amount Penn State owed him.

 

[Ope3]

I figured the contract would have some stipulation on that. Here's what AI says:

Based on that, just a guess Va Tech has to pay Franklin roughly the same amount as the previous coach who just got axed.

 

[Gophergrandpa]

I figured the contract would have some stipulation on that. Here's what AI says:

If VT paid Franklin at the low end of normal coaches salaries in the conference, it seems that PSU would have to top him off every year. I think if Franklin wanted to change his lifestyle, move out west and coach Montana for $1.5M, PSU might still have to send him a big check every year for the term of his contract--though PSU might argue that, by not going to a P4 school (despite offers from them), Franklin had failed in his duty to mitigate PSU's damages. Sometimes these things get negotiated with a single, lump-sum payment agreeable to both sides, that ends the ongoing issue of mitigation and other contractual provisions.