Speculation surrounding Vanderbilt’s successor to Robbie Caldwell has literally been all over the map over the past couple of weeks.
Temple’s Al Golden reportedly pulled his name from the mix early on in the process. This week reports have emerged that Maryland’s James Franklin and Stanford’s Greg Roman are the two finalists for the job. Subsequent to that, it was reported that Vandy would hold off pulling the trigger on a hire until they could speak with Navy’s Ken Niumatalolo after the game with Army Saturday.
Now comes the biggest bombshell, financially, of Vandy’s search.
According to The Tennessean, Auburn offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn is “thought to have received” an offer in the neighborhood of $3 million annually to take over the reins of the Commodores. Not only would that number more than double what his predecessor was pulling in, it would also put him inside the top ten of the highest paid coaches in college football — in his first collegiate job at the collegiate level.
If Malzahn continues to shun overtures — he was in Nashville Wednesday according to the paper — the front-runner appears to be Franklin. Until tomorrow when a new report surfaces, of course.
They do realize Cam Newton is not coming with him right?
Idiots. over pay a completely unproven coach. They wonder why they are Vandy….
Gus is waiting for the right job BUT if they’re going to throw in $3 million to take a job that if he wins 5 games in any single season that he can expect to get an offer from one of the better schools, he should jump on it. Everyone knows that Vanderbilt is the worse BCS job and they don’t expect much from the guys that take the job so he can get the experience of being a head coach without the taint of failure. Win-Win.
Malzahn is a great offensive coach and proven everywhere he goes.
The problem is that he will need money to sign good assistants.
Vandy paying him 3 mil will mean he is going to be signing a bunch of graduate assistants and guys from the La Techs of the world.
“They do realize Cam Newton is not coming with him right?”
Friggin hillarious!!!!!
If this is true, this signifies that Vanderbilt is ready to get serious about its football program.
To the boob who said he would only be able to hire grad assistants as coaches, logic wold say the school is putting serious money behind the head coach – as in staff and facilities.
They’ve gotten it done in basketball and baseball.
That doesn’t leave alot of money for the players.
bender, you do realize that Cam Newton wasn’t there at Arkansas, when they increased their points scored from 283 to 404 or at Tulsa and Auburn LAST year when his offense broke those schools offensive records. His 2007 team was the first to have a 5,000 yard passer, a 1,000 yard runner and 3 1,000 yard receivers. The 2008 team was a little more balanced but still managed a 4,000 yard passer, a 1,000 yard runner and a 1,000 yard receiver and they scored 661 points and a cursory look at their roster finds no one named Cam Newton on that team. His 4 teams pre-Cam had more than 5200, 7600, 7900 and 5,600 yards of total offense. I leave it up to you to see exactly how much better those offenses became the first year after he took over to see that it’s more than Newton.
“To the boob who said he would only be able to hire grad assistants as coaches, logic wold say the school is putting serious money behind the head coach – as in staff and facilities. ”
How is that logical? Vanderbilts program has defied logic for 40 something years
How is it not logical? This is the first time they are signifying that they are willing to pay real money to upgrade the football program.
Do you disagree with the remainder of the post or are you just taking select potshots?
Vandy is all over it—The Vols and Titans BOTH suck so they see themselves as potentially the Big Show in Tennesse football. Vandy could hire some of the UT assts since they have given up football in Rocky Top—-GO VANDY………
You’re the one that called me a name. How did I “potshot” you?
I think that Vanderbilt is going to give HIM a bunch of money and then he is going to scrape the bottom of the barrel for assistants given how much money they are going to let him tie up in assistants.
History should tell you that. He needs 1.5-2 mil per year to get good assistants. 5 mil per year for coaches ain’t gonna fly at Vandy.
Vandy is a job old guys in Furman-type jobs take when they are ready to retire and want a nice pay bump before then. Its not a stepping stone job because success is 6-6. Big programs aren’t going to come calling for a 6-6 coach.
I think he should wait until the Florida stuff hashes out and better jobs come available. He is definitely settling with that one.
thompgk says:
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You’re kidding right? You can get damn good assistants for a lot less. A NAME is a NAME but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re worth the money. That being said, if they’re going to pay him that kind of money, they’re going to put out money for a staff.
Wrong—just the opposite, if he goes 6-6 a couple of yrs in a row bigger programs will come calling plus not many places he can get $3 mil as a first time HC.
You must not understand how hard it is to recruit at Vandy with their higher than normal academic requirements.
Going 6-6 in the SEC at Vandy equates to 9-3,10-2 in a lot of other places plus he will be winning for the most part with far less talented players than his fellow SEC coaches.
thompgk says:
Its not a stepping stone job because success is 6-6. Big programs aren’t going to come calling for a 6-6 coach.
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Gerry DiNardo won 5, 4, 5 and 5 games and then he was given the head coaching job at LSU. I guess that LSU isn’t a big program, right?
edgy says:
Dec 10, 2010 2:08 PM
thompgk says:
Its not a stepping stone job because success is 6-6. Big programs aren’t going to come calling for a 6-6 coach.
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Gerry DiNardo won 5, 4, 5 and 5 games and then he was given the head coaching job at LSU. I guess that LSU isn’t a big program, right
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Poor Edgy- always has to find the exception to the rule or a contrary point just to “prove” that he is right. Insecurity can be a hard demon to shake.
Edgy, do you ever get a chance to talk to Gus or Urban or Chip? You seem to be on a first name basis with them.
Make sure you have plenty of tissues when you watch the Utah-Boise State tilt.
frank, just why in the hell would I care about Boise and Utah? Oh, that’s right, you obviously think that I’m a fan of both of those teams. One will win and one will lose and only frank will be singing the blues. Don’t stop bigoting, hold onto to that felling. Bigot people……
BTW, BigotSaurass Rex, I don’t see you getting on to blitz for having the same opinion.
We’re in the middle of the worst recession in most of our lifetimes and you guys are arguing about whether edge likes Boise, whether frank is a (lol) “BigotSaurass Rex, and whether thompgk is a boob for thinking Malzhan will only have enough money to get assistants at La Tech (which I thought was thompgk’s best comment).
Obviously it takes a woman to see the Big Picture: $3 million
edge and blitz are right. Win-win. I still don’t think he’d be offered the Florida job. If he takes Vandy at this price, he’s sitting pretty financially. It appears Vandy is serious about football, so they’ll give him the support he needs to build a good staff. These guys have money. It gets him out of Auburn in case there’s any further fallout from the FBI investigation. The expectation isn’t as high as it would be for some other SEC schools, so if he gets even respectable results, he’ll have better football opportunities in a couple of years.
Edgy,
That’s all well and good, but Bo Pelini’s defenses were ranking in the top 10 for LSU, including winning a National Title largely on the defense. He doesn’t make $3 million yet.
OVER PAYING for someone who’s not proven. No coach with no head coaching experience is proven.
If you are going to argue with everyone, address what they said, not what you want to say to try and look smart.
bender4700 says:
Edgy,
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Ok, boob, Malzahn’s offenses have been rated among the top TWO in the nation and if they win the NC, that gives him one, as well. Did I address what you said? Please, you try your best but it just ain’t going to happen. It’s no coincidence that from high school to college, his offenses have set records where ever he’s gone and the irony is that he started out as a defensive coach.