is there no performance clause in the contract

[TopSecretBoiler]

Seems to me it would be wise to have a minimum performance expectation to retain a large buyout. He could just tank the team on purpose (not saying he is) and run off with the money. Any time I have done contracts there is some kind of performance clause where I don't get paid if a certain threshold isn't met. Hard to believe there is not one in a FBS football contract. Why should a coach get a golden parachute for the worst seasons in the history of the school?

 

[nat100]

Most coaches contacts don't work like that. The performance thresholds relate to bonus, not buyouts

 

[Purdue Grad in Texas]

Generally not for the "major" conferences......it's a "sellers'" market right now. You'll have the standard "cause" termination provisions if there are recruiting/program NCAA violations or some sort of intentional misconduct, etc. but not many coaches, especially those in demand will ever agree to those kind of performance measures that would allow them to be let go without severance/buy-out......maybe for some additional incentives or bonuses, you'd see it.

JMHO.

Even so, I get the feeling most of the posters and Purdue followers feel Morgan Burke "overpaid" for CDH in a number of ways.

 

[BoilerGrad02]

Generally not for the "major" conferences......it's a "sellers'" market right now. You'll have the standard "cause" termination provisions if there are recruiting/program NCAA violations or some sort of intentional misconduct, etc. but not many coaches, especially those in demand will ever agree to those kind of performance measures that would allow them to be let go without severance/buy-out......maybe for some additional incentives or bonuses, you'd see it.

JMHO.

Even so, I get the feeling most of the posters and Purdue followers feel Morgan Burke "overpaid" for CDH in a number of ways.

Burke was under a lot of criticism after firing Danny Hope for being too cheap and not vetting him well enough.

He then missed on signing Butch Jones after he flew him into Purdue on the private jet, this was pretty common knowledge at the time. You don't fly a candidate in a private jet to tell him you're "considering" him for the job. There were rumbles that Burke couldn't get his top candidate and he felt even more pressure on top of his mistake hiring Hope.

That was when Burke lost his poker face and shot the moon on the price for Hazell (I still think he could have had him at something like 5yrs/7.5 mil, he was making 300-400k at Kent St and I don't think there was heavy interest from other suitors. Turning down 7.5 guaranteed would have been very risky for Hazell to gamble there was a better offer out there). Burke knew if he was turned down by Hazell everyone would have been questioning his ability to get a decent candidate hired.

It was just poor negotiating on Burke's part in his own interest for his reputation. Certainly this is my opinion but I think it's pretty close to what happened.

 

[pboiler18]

Purdue overpaid for Hazell because he sucked in the end.

At the time, Purdue paid market price for the MAC flavor of the week. It is what it is.

To hire a Babers or Fleck level guy after this year, to fend off competition from the other 6-8 teams that will be looking for new coaches Purdue will have to pay upwards of $3mil this time and even then, there's no guarantee that we hire the right guy.

At the time Hazell was hired, he was paid market rate and there were no indicators that he was going to suck this bad. Burke shouldn't be flogged for the contract, he should be flogged for who he hired.

I also don't get all of the gnashing of the teeth on Hazell's buyout. It is what it is....and with the AD most likely taking in about $75 mil in TV money over that 3 year period we would be paying Hazell's buyout....its literally a drop in the bucket. The problem will be if the NEXT guy doesn't work out and we have to pay multiple buyouts at a time AND pay an expensive new coach.

 

[banshee90]

Generally not for the "major" conferences......it's a "sellers'" market right now. You'll have the standard "cause" termination provisions if there are recruiting/program NCAA violations or some sort of intentional misconduct, etc. but not many coaches, especially those in demand will ever agree to those kind of performance measures that would allow them to be let go without severance/buy-out......maybe for some additional incentives or bonuses, you'd see it.

JMHO.

Even so, I get the feeling most of the posters and Purdue followers feel Morgan Burke "overpaid" for CDH in a number of ways.

Morgan def overpaid and over extended the contract. I think Morgan was given a number and ran with it to Butch and once Butch started playing off of Colorado we couldn't meet his demands and backed down. Lucky for Butch because it allowed him to stay in the market just long enough for Tenn to snag him. IDK if we had anyone else marked as our back up plan, but I think we gave Hazell the same deal (if not a better one) that we showed Butch. Honestly I could see 1.5 mill by 6 or 2 by 5 but 2 per 6 was way too much. Morgan Burke either got bent over by hazell's agent or he just offered a high number so he could "fill" the vacancy as soon as possible. I doubt its the latter since he allowed Hazell to coach KSU in their bowl game. Whats the point in hiring someone quickly if we don't even fill the position.

Morgan's biggest mistake is the contract the second biggest mistake was the bowl game. CDH should have been getting his coaching staff in order. I think we should have been looking to pay .5-.75 mil per coordinator looking at some young hungry guys that coordinated at major universities under successful coaches.

I think if we are looking at a mid season replacement and not promoting an OC within, I'd honestly give Weis a call. I think his offenses had a lot of success at Notre Dame and New England. We don't have the right players to run pure power, but I think he could get us a passing offense that would be successful here quickly. We need to look at 2 and 3 step drops quick slants, out routes, and mix in a fade and post route to keep defenses honest. The issue with shoop offense I see there are so many plays that we don't see multilevel penetration. Last week there were a couple of passes that we weren't sure who the intended receiver is. Bunching WR down field makes it easy for the defense.

My ideal offense is 4 linemen and a TE, qb under center with HB behind, TE and WR1 on the right, WR2/3 on the left with WR2 offset on the outside. WR3 runs a 5 yd button hook, WR2 runs a quick slant, TE runs a 5 yd out route, and WR1 runs option fade/post reading what the safety says. The qb checks the left and reading the DB and lb, if lb show blitz dump to WR2, if DB stuck your WR you look to the right read your WR1 then TE if they are covered throw it away. This allows us to either pick a DB and get an easy 5 or read the defense and possible get a big play. I don't think we have the playmaking abilities to just draw up big plays and hope they work WR are soft and QB isn't quite accurate enough to overcome poor WR play. If the QB and WR1 play smart we could see good option downfield or just dump it to TE or throw it away in the TE area so its not grounding.

 

[pboiler18]

Mid season replacements dont happen.

Weis won't be...and shouldn't be getting a call.

 

[BoilerGrad02]

Purdue overpaid for Hazell because he sucked in the end.

At the time, Purdue paid market price for the MAC flavor of the week. It is what it is.

To hire a Babers or Fleck level guy after this year, to fend off competition from the other 6-8 teams that will be looking for new coaches Purdue will have to pay upwards of $3mil this time and even then, there's no guarantee that we hire the right guy.

At the time Hazell was hired, he was paid market rate and there were no indicators that he was going to suck this bad. Burke shouldn't be flogged for the contract, he should be flogged for who he hired.

I also don't get all of the gnashing of the teeth on Hazell's buyout. It is what it is....and with the AD most likely taking in about $75 mil in TV money over that 3 year period we would be paying Hazell's buyout....its literally a drop in the bucket. The problem will be if the NEXT guy doesn't work out and we have to pay multiple buyouts at a time AND pay an expensive new coach.

Dan Doering was a MAC coach hired at the same time and got 5yrs/1.8 mil. He's the only real comp to Hazell and he got 9 million guaranteed to Hazell's 13.2. 4.2 million isn't peanuts. I have to see Hazell's contract as above the market rate at the time.

 

[IamBob]

Weis won't coach again, he collected or will collect around $20m in buyouts from ND and Kansas. He's just gonna sit around and get fat ...er

 

[pboiler18]

Dan Doering was a MAC coach hired at the same time and got 5yrs/1.8 mil. He's the only real comp to Hazell and he got 9 million guaranteed to Hazell's 13.2. 4.2 million isn't peanuts. I have to see Hazell's contract as above the market rate at the time.

Dave Doeren....

Anyhow.....he was already off the market when Hope was fired. His terms are irrelevant. That said, do you put a BIG job on the same spectrum as a low end ACC job? I don't. There's vastly more TV money available in our conference than theirs. That's just the facts.

You can bitch about it now, but it looked like a good deal a few years ago. It would CERTAINLY be a good deal for Purdue now if Hazell were winning. Any deal would have been considered shitty had the coach been crappy.

Lots of gnashing of the teeth over a few million dollars that the AD can well afford. They took a risk and lost. Happens everywhere in college football, the business world, etc. etc..

 

[SIBoiler2]

Simple answer to the original question: "Is there no performance clause in the contract"? The answer is yes. There is a "no performance" clause and DH is doing exactly that by not performing which makes him in full compliance.

 

[New Pal Boiler]

Morgan def overpaid and over extended the contract. I think Morgan was given a number and ran with it to Butch and once Butch started playing off of Colorado we couldn't meet his demands and backed down. Lucky for Butch because it allowed him to stay in the market just long enough for Tenn to snag him. IDK if we had anyone else marked as our back up plan, but I think we gave Hazell the same deal (if not a better one) that we showed Butch. Honestly I could see 1.5 mill by 6 or 2 by 5 but 2 per 6 was way too much. Morgan Burke either got bent over by hazell's agent or he just offered a high number so he could "fill" the vacancy as soon as possible. I doubt its the latter since he allowed Hazell to coach KSU in their bowl game. Whats the point in hiring someone quickly if we don't even fill the position.

Morgan's biggest mistake is the contract the second biggest mistake was the bowl game. CDH should have been getting his coaching staff in order. I think we should have been looking to pay .5-.75 mil per coordinator looking at some young hungry guys that coordinated at major universities under successful coaches.

I think if we are looking at a mid season replacement and not promoting an OC within, I'd honestly give Weis a call. I think his offenses had a lot of success at Notre Dame and New England. We don't have the right players to run pure power, but I think he could get us a passing offense that would be successful here quickly. We need to look at 2 and 3 step drops quick slants, out routes, and mix in a fade and post route to keep defenses honest. The issue with shoop offense I see there are so many plays that we don't see multilevel penetration. Last week there were a couple of passes that we weren't sure who the intended receiver is. Bunching WR down field makes it easy for the defense.

My ideal offense is 4 linemen and a TE, qb under center with HB behind, TE and WR1 on the right, WR2/3 on the left with WR2 offset on the outside. WR3 runs a 5 yd button hook, WR2 runs a quick slant, TE runs a 5 yd out route, and WR1 runs option fade/post reading what the safety says. The qb checks the left and reading the DB and lb, if lb show blitz dump to WR2, if DB stuck your WR you look to the right read your WR1 then TE if they are covered throw it away. This allows us to either pick a DB and get an easy 5 or read the defense and possible get a big play. I don't think we have the playmaking abilities to just draw up big plays and hope they work WR are soft and QB isn't quite accurate enough to overcome poor WR play. If the QB and WR1 play smart we could see good option downfield or just dump it to TE or throw it away in the TE area so its not grounding.

Vols fans are souring on Butch- I say we make a trade for him. He's making $3.6 million per, so here's the package we offer for him:

An slighly overpaid receivers coach with a sweet vest- $2.1 million per

An "eccentric, mad scientist" offensive coordinator with odd facial hair - $400,000 per

Defensive coordinator who specializes in the "bend and then break defense" AKA- "delaying the inevitable defense" -
$300,000 per

An athletic department executive who specializes in spending lots of revenue on non-revenue sporting venues - $400,000

That's about $3.2 million, so the salaries almost match up. Somebody get the Tennessee AD on the horn.

 

[banshee90]

Dave Doeren....

Anyhow.....he was already off the market when Hope was fired. His terms are irrelevant. That said, do you put a BIG job on the same spectrum as a low end ACC job? I don't. There's vastly more TV money available in our conference than theirs. That's just the facts.

You can bitch about it now, but it looked like a good deal a few years ago. It would CERTAINLY be a good deal for Purdue now if Hazell were winning. Any deal would have been considered shitty had the coach been crappy.

Lots of gnashing of the teeth over a few million dollars that the AD can well afford. They took a risk and lost. Happens everywhere in college football, the business world, etc. etc..

The issue is lets say Hazell was successful and year 3 shows us as a top 25 team, We have 3 years left on his contract and his buyout if he leaves is only a few million so any big boy would easily eat it. Hazell would get a contract extension (probably 2 year extension) and a pay raise to 3-5 mil/year (Sumlin at A&M went from 3 mil to 5 mil). There is no way that Morgan Burke could pull the Painter shtick again and try to make his coach play for way under market value, because as we saw with painter its a coach's market not a school market (especially at a nonblue blood).

So what's the point of a 6 year deal, it only protects an underperforming coach. At best it allows you to pay an average coach a million or so less maybe, but we already had an average (by purdue standards) coach in Hope and we fired him.

The value for a G5 to P5 is set at 1.5-2 mil/year for 5 years, we decided to go on the high side and add an extra year. We are now paying for Burkes lack of negotiation and valuation skills.

I when Hazell was picked up, I thought he was probably the best guy available. I think it was good go to get him, the issue I have with the hire is the contract is anything but team friendly (even taking into account its a seller market). The next biggest issue is we allowed other teams to make moves while we didn't have CDH working 100% for us yet.

 

[BoilerBulldog]

I don't recall a single post here at the time suggesting we overpaid for Hazell when we hired him. We now are stuck and hopefully a Secret Santa will write a big check.

 

[banshee90]

Vols fans are souring on Butch- I say we make a trade for him. He's making $3.6 million per, so here's the package we offer for him:

An slighly overpaid receivers coach with a sweet vest- $2.1 million per

An "eccentric, mad scientist" offensive coordinator with odd facial hair - $400,000 per

Defensive coordinator who specializes in the "bend and then break defense" AKA- "delaying the inevitable defense" -
$300,000 per

An athletic department executive who specializes in spending lots of revenue on non-revenue sporting venues - $400,000

That's about $3.2 million, so the salaries almost match up. Somebody get the Tennessee AD on the horn.

I agree I think we dodged a bullet with Butch, the only issue is in dodging the bullet we jumped in front of a train. I am just adding some context in why I believe Morgan gave him such a coach friendly contract.

I think the main issue with Morgan is he started at the end of the Loyal Era. Joe tiller and Gene keady were the last guys that were going to go from no connection with purdue to retire there. Morgan got this false sense of that was what NCAA coaches were like.
Enter the new era, coaches are way less stagnant (Nick Saban went from MSU to LSU to NFL (Miami) to Bama and rumors him going to Texas in the past and possibly back to the NFL).

 

[BoilerBulldog]

I don't recall a single post here at the time suggesting we overpaid for Hazell when we hired him. We now are stuck and hopefully a Secret Santa will write a big check.

 

[TopSecretBoiler]

I don't recall a single post here at the time suggesting we overpaid for Hazell when we hired him. We now are stuck and hopefully a Secret Santa will write a big check.

Is there a difference in the buyout if we wait until the end of the season? The issue is not what we paid him, the issue is there is no OUT for Purdue when he turns in the 3 worst years in the history of the program. My cat could coach this team to 1 B1G win in 3 years. If there's no difference in the buyout we should cut and run immediately and hope he donates some of that money to needy kids or something. What a disaster.

 

[banshee90]

I don't recall a single post here at the time suggesting we overpaid for Hazell when we hired him. We now are stuck and hopefully a Secret Santa will write a big check.

I don't think 2 mill/year is super overpaying in the market. I have said I thought at the time that Hazell was the right guy, I admit it is looking less and less like that is true. What I want is an AD that has the foresight closer to an average persons hindsight. The standard contract you'd expect from a G5 to P5 coach that year was set at 1.5-2 mill/year. The pay per year is fine honestly (hindsight shows that was too much). My main point is 6 years is dumb for an AD to give.

I want our AD to have the foresight that signing a 6 year deal gives Purdue no advantage (see 3 scenarios below)

1) If he is successful after a few years you are going to pay him (he isn't going to be getting 2 mill year 5/6 more like 4-6 mil)
2) If he underachieves you are sitting on a huge buyout (where we are now).
3) If he is just average (5-8 wins 5-7 losses) you are going to be extending his contract in year 3(assuming 5 year contract) anyways and he isn't going to see a huge pay bump (maybe an extra million).

From the above we see that if he is the next Joe tiller he is going to get paid (six year contract gives us nothing) like Sumlin at A&M
If he is unsuccessful you increase his buyout by $2 million
If he is just average you save $~1 million that's assuming we don't fire him (We fired an average to below average Hope).

The next part about the hire is letting him still coach KSU. No one else ever does that, because you need your coach to build up his staff and play damage control on the recruiting trail.

Is it so much to ask for an AD to have these types of thoughts?

 

[pboiler18]

I don't think 2 mill/year is super overpaying in the market. I have said I thought at the time that Hazell was the right guy, I admit it is looking less and less like that is true. What I want is an AD that has the foresight closer to an average persons hindsight. The standard contract you'd expect from a G5 to P5 coach that year was set at 1.5-2 mill/year. The pay per year is fine honestly (hindsight shows that was too much). My main point is 6 years is dumb for an AD to give.

I want our AD to have the foresight that signing a 6 year deal gives Purdue no advantage (see 3 scenarios below)

1) If he is successful after a few years you are going to pay him (he isn't going to be getting 2 mill year 5/6 more like 4-6 mil)
2) If he underachieves you are sitting on a huge buyout (where we are now).
3) If he is just average (5-8 wins 5-7 losses) you are going to be extending his contract in year 3(assuming 5 year contract) anyways and he isn't going to see a huge pay bump (maybe an extra million).

From the above we see that if he is the next Joe tiller he is going to get paid (six year contract gives us nothing) like Sumlin at A&M
If he is unsuccessful you increase his buyout by $2 million
If he is just average you save $~1 million that's assuming we don't fire him (We fired an average to below average Hope).

The next part about the hire is letting him still coach KSU. No one else ever does that, because you need your coach to build up his staff and play damage control on the recruiting trail.

Is it so much to ask for an AD to have these types of thoughts?

The thoughts here are nice, but at the time we hired Hazell, he was basically the only top tier candidate left, so he had us by the balls a bit there. His buyout, salary and all that wasn't that far out of line with what everybody else was getting AND he was coming to the conference with the most TV money to give.

I don't see a problem with the deal, besides who it was given to.

 

[C-Paranoia]

...hopefully a Secret Santa will write a big check.

What kind of strings would a benefactor want attached to this? Probably several, especially related to selection of the next coach. Not sure Burke would want to take that donation.

More likely we can get another snippy note from Nancy Cross. "Dear JPC Members, you are cheap so you are stuck with him."

 

[banshee90]

The thoughts here are nice, but at the time we hired Hazell, he was basically the only top tier candidate left, so he had us by the balls a bit there. His buyout, salary and all that wasn't that far out of line with what everybody else was getting AND he was coming to the conference with the most TV money to give.

I don't see a problem with the deal, besides who it was given to.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_NCAA_Division_I_FBS_football_season#Coaching_changes

Minus Doreen we were in the round of first hires. there was plenty of time left we dropped butch jones off our list at the right time. We missed out on Doreen, but there was plenty still available. Doreen also set the market price.

 

[pboiler18]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_NCAA_Division_I_FBS_football_season#Coaching_changes

Minus Doreen we were in the round of first hires. there was plenty of time left we dropped butch jones off our list at the right time. We missed out on Doreen, but there was plenty still available. Doreen also set the market price.

We were in the first round of fires....not hires.

Here's a list of guys who took jobs AFTER Hazell:
Ron Turner
Skip Holtz
Butch Jones - Turned us down
Tommy Tuberville
Bobby Petrino
Kliff Kingsbury
Ron Conagher
Gary Andersen
Matt Wells
Brian Polian
Scott Shafer
Mark Helfrich
Doug Martin

Which of these guys would you have rather had at the time? I can name 1 that as of today, IMO would have been a better option from the get go.

 

[banshee90]

Hired the same day as Hazell
Bret Bielema
Gus Malzahn
Steve Addazio
Day after
Sonny Dykes

I am assuming Morgan thought he had Jones but wasn't going to offer what Colorado offered. I think our top Targets Had to be Jones, Doreen, Hazell, and Dykes and probably in that order. By the time we stopped pursuing jones Doreen was gone.
Arkansas, Auburn, BC also signed their coach Dec 4th. Since their hires weren't G5 to P5 type hires I don't think they were looking at Dykes and Hazell the days before the signing.

I honestly think at this time Colorado thought they had Jones. This left Cal and Purdue looking at G5 flavor of the month which would be Hazell and Dykes. Hazell was our #1 target after Doreen was off the board, but it wasn't like Hazell had a bunch of suitors in the P5 at the time.
Obviously Hazell could have waited and gambled that a bigger program may have lost their HC.