Retaining Coach Liepold

I keep reading that Coach L is a candidate for several other jobs, and that they pay double what KU pays.

Why is that? Why can Nebraska pay double over KU? I’ve even seen Colorado mentioned.

Other than not wanting to piss off Bill Self (who makes approx $5 mil, which is what Nebraska pays their head football coach), why wouldn’t KU match other salaries to keep him. If he leaves for a better program, or a place where he’s not rebuilding from scratch, I get that. But if it’s the money that is enticing him, can’t KU just match?

At some point KU has to pay equivalent to better programs, or we will always be second tier.

My guess is because we don't have the money. I could be wrong (ask my wife, I usually am) but IIRC the bulk of Self's contract is NOT from the university. And Nebraska alumni have deeper pockets and the BigG TV contract pays a lot more than the BigXII.

USAF, I guess that’s still my question. Why would NEbraska, Colorado, Wisconsin, etc. have deeper pockets than KU.

It would take maybe ten alums to come up with $5 mil a year for five years. Or even just the $2.5 mil increase over his current salary.

I was wondering if it was something in our legislature or board of regents that was somehow limiting what we could pay.

To understand, you need to look at his current contract vs. what others pay.

KU rolled the dice on him and paid a "reasonable" rate. He makes $2.2 million per year with $200k increase every year. Through 2024. Now that's a decent living wage by any standard, but in terms of college football, it's nothing crazy. Let's have a look at the top coaches:

1.) Nick Saban, Alabama: $11.7 million
2.) Kirby Smart, Georgia: $11.25 million
3.) Dabo Swinny, Clemson: $10+ million
4.) Brian Kelly, LSU: $9.5 million

So as you can see, $2.2 is nowhere near the top (not that you'd expect that).

Les Miles was making $2.8 million before he was booted, which in 2018 ranked him 47th. Therefore it's easy to presume that Liepold's current $2.2 million is somewhere in the 50-ish range.

Nebraska (who apparently are sniffing around Liepold's door) paid Scott Frost $5 million per year. Assuming Nebraska did nothing salary wise, Liepold could easily double his salary going there.

Wisconsin was paying Bret Bielema a cool $4.2 million a year. Again, without doing much of anything, Liepold could almost double his salary if Wisconsin kept the same coach salary.

So while $2.2 million sounds like a lot for you or me, in college football it's "respectable". KU aren't idiots. He's filled the stadium 2 weeks in a row. KU knows that other schools are eyeing him, so they'll likely give him a nice bump. I imagine if KU gets into the $4.5-$5 million range with incentives we'll keep him. By incentives I mean that KU needs to hedge the bet that the current 5-0 record isn't a fluke. So maybe they come back and offer him $4 for next year, but with an annual $500k increase for every year he makes a bowl. In that scenario, if KU hits 4 bowls in 4 years, he's jump from $4 million up to $6 and it would be worth every penny.

The good news is that the money is there. This season along should show KU football exceeding revenue projections on the sellout games alone. Why HASN'T the money been there previously? KU's streak of bad luck hasn't made it justifyable to spend more on a coach until that coach can show some proven results. Once we see results, the money will be there. We're seeing rusults now, so I imagine KU will be more comfortable pushing more chips onto the table.

But in the short term, it looks like the current suitors are somewhere in the $5 million range, so KU has a benchmark to work with. It does appear that Liepold is happy with his situation and committed to seeing the process through, so that's in our favor. His roots in Wisconsin work against us. Nevertheless, I'm sure that the atheletic department is doing a much more comprehensive deep dive than I just did, and will come up with a solid offer to try and keep him.