Derek Dooley‘s seat (or, a stool, as was the case last Saturday) is warming up rapidly with each passing week -- which has usually equated to each passing loss -- this season. Halfway through his third year in Knoxville, Dooley is winless against top-25 opponents and has just four SEC wins. Try not to cringe too much, Vols fans, but that would be the same number of conference victories as a certain current USC head coach.
So the pressure’s on Dooley to start winning and fast -- a win at No. 17 South Carolina this weekend would go a long way to alleviating that pressure -- otherwise, it could mean his job at season’s end and bring in that guy Jon Gruden I hear he’s a football coach, right?
Lee Corso says not so fast.
Evan Woodbery of the Knoxville News-Sentinel did a little number-crunching and determined that if Tennessee was fire Dooley and his assistants, the university would have to pay “at least $5.6 million, and perhaps as much as $9.3 million, over the next four years...”
You can read the entire piece HERE (and it’s well worth five minutes if you have ‘em), but here are some of the highlights.
- Tennessee would owe Dooley and offensive coordinator Jim Chaney $5 million over four years and just under $650,000 over one year, respectively. Those numbers are guaranteed and are therefore not affected by future employment. Dooley’s buyout was adjusted to remain static through early 2014 as part of an extension he received from UT following his first year with the Vols.
- However, all other staff members, including defensive coordinator Sal Sunseri (the program’s highest-paid assistant), would have buyouts varying on good-faith efforts to find new and comparable employment.
- Outside of special teams coordinator Charlie Coiner‘s whose contract runs through this upcoming February, all coaches are on multi-year contracts. Sunseri, for example, would be due another $1.84 million through February 2015 if he’s unable to find employment by then.
There are obviously a lot of variables in this situation, which affects whether the total buyout cost is somewhere between $5 million and $6 million, or over $9 million. A difference of $1 million alone came in Dooley’s extension after Year 1. Add in the university’s $40 million-plus athletic facility and the salaries of a new coaching staff, and the decision to can Dooley becomes more complicated.