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Based on what?... based on the fact that they all run programs that lose money. Just because colleges are going broke paying coaches $300,000 - $700,000 to coach teams in front of 1,800 - 4,000 fans doesn't mean they are worth it. The market is broken. You want to be a coach? well you better coach a program that has some value, or take salary that is more in line with what you do (coaching teams that nobody will pay to watch).. don't want to coach a MAC team for $200,000/yr?... find something else to do. Colleges have overpaid for years.

Yes, I'm not saying giving 5 year deals hasn't been the norm in the past. I just don't feel it should be the norm moving forward. It seems our logic is very similar behind this as I actually mentioned the WMU hire in my edited post. The guaranteed money is the bigger thing for me. If they wanted to sign a guy to a 5 year deal, but only the first 3 years were fully guaranteed, I'd have no problem with that. Ianello was the university's 3rd (behind Dambrot & Bowden) highest paid employee for 3 years despite working as an assistant at some other college. That can't happen.

I think the 5 year deal is that norm and that any school going outside of that norm would be at a disadvantage in the short term. I say short term as I think we're about to enter into a new era of coaching contracts with schools backing away from long term big money deals that tie them down in the event of bad hires. This will happen more on the level of the UA's than the Alabamas, but it is coming. An early example is what Western Michigan did with basketball. Pressed by the coronavirus and financial concerns, they hired an assistant of Hawkins (the coach they canned) on a two year deal at $120K salary and $100K for media obligations. Hawkins was making $225 salary plus $160 for media obligations. Hawkins last deal was signed in 2014 and still had a year left on it when they recently canned him.

Stop giving them straight up 5 year contracts. Make it 3 or 4 years with 1 or 2 optional years based on performance. Gives both parties an out. Given UA's history with football head coaches, it's more likely to work out in UA's favor and ensure avoiding the complete $inkhole iCoach could have been if he had not been hired elsewhere by an even more incompetent HC.

In a heart beat. A better contract would have paid him $24K per win. 12-0 gets him his $300K and would have dramatically reduced his salary for last season, but I don't want to see his family using food stamps so how about $100K base and $17K per win.

16% chance of a bowl game?

If college coaches were getting paid based on profits they bring in, most of them would be volunteers

Steve Z.....the legend !!! https://gozips.com/sports/2020/4/23/in-their-own-words-steve-zakuani-alumni-postcard.aspx

We should be so lucky.

Walk on before anyone comes on here and acts like the world is falling. Looks like we may be replacing him with a former NIU quarterback.

We've been doing this and where exactly has it gotten us? There is no rule that states you have to give a coach 5 years nor is there a rule that says you have to pay them $500k/yr. When we extended Bowden after his deal expired, we give him a 2-3 year extension, not 5. The vast majority of FBS coaches have less than 5 years left on their current contracts. I suppose all of them must have it used against them when it comes time for recruiting... Edit: Also, I think you're going to see things change. Coaches are going to be getting lower salaries and fewer fully guaranteed years. You already seen it happen at WMU with their basketball coach. Akron throwing money around loosely for the previous 3 decades (not just on athletics) is why we're in the financial mess we've been in and that predates covid. Continuing to try to operate the way we have in the past won't fix anything. Maybe to you 500k isn't a lot of money (must be nice), but that's probably nearly enough to cover the cost of cross country for a year, which is one of the sports we just cut

If you don't think a coach can be successful, you shouldn't hire him. You hire coaches assuming they will be successful. This is a ticket sales conversation. The extra year between four and five is irrelevant. It is the cost of doing business. It is customary. Not offering it can impact recruiting because other schools will use it against us. We would be the only school offering contracts like that. It would be setting ourselves up for failure, again. How does Akron do when it acts unilaterally?

This right here. If we're not prepared to keep a coach around for 5 years, we shouldn't be offering him a 5-year deal. If it's deemed it takes 3-4 years to effectively evaluate a coach, we should be offering coaches a 3-4 year deal, especially inexperienced ones. I didn't see anyone else bidding for Arth so his only other option would have been to stay at Chattanooga for about 1/3 of the pay.

Interesting. Make the potential grad transfers pay for setting themselves up? Seriously, I would think that Arth would want guys taking courses in the summer, especially this summer.

Nice go see us get back to getting commits from guys with offers from other FBS schools. Beat out Kent is this case.

It's a strange world where we have to hope for the kind of success that leads a more prominent program to take away the person that brought that success.

He should get 5 years because I believe that's how long his contract was signed for and frankly we're in no financial position to pay someone $500k to not coach for us, even if only for 1 season.

Great idea. We could each bring one or two of our sex dolls to the game and double or triple the attendance. Who said marketing was dead at our university!

Takes a pandemic to bring me back for a bit I guess .. or the Great GP1. I do think that saying "no" is a largely undervalued skill these days. What is the big picture? GP1 makes some interesting observations. What's the actual objective of adding a non revenue sport to the athletic department of an (awesome) midwestern university? What's the objective of adding a sport which is at a distinctive disadvantage to southern schools in a sport where the weather is a problem in the north, and leveling the playing field requires substantial travel budget or indoor facilities? I'm not sure .. other than perhaps pacifiying some medium (deep) pocket vendors who played UA baseball or have an affinity for it. This is interesting to me as I'm in a funny spot with baseball. Years ago, I really had a disdain for MLB after the strike shortened MLB year, and the fake manufactured season of Sosa / McGuire. Now that my kids are playing lots of baseball and softball, I really enjoy the summer evenings at the ball field. But it's the ball field with my kids playing on it .. there's no real or imagined sense that anyone out there will ever make any money playing the sport .. they're with their friends and having a good time, and hoping they can get the win before Bossie's ice cream truck shuts down at around 9PM. We like an MLB or MiLB game here and there, but it's based on the fact the kids are playing the game. Opportunity exists in chaos. And opportunity to reshape the athletic department exists in the current situation. The current climate calls for real and substantial efforts in belt tightening by the current UA Administration .. the same type of belt tightening that was called for by Scarborough (and hampered by clumsy PR) and attempted by Wilson through better administrative approaches. Understand that the lens through which I currently view sports is one defined by what my kids are currently interested in. Winter church league basketball is one of the main reasons I'm not at the JAR as much as I'd like. The simple fact for me is that a 5th grade girls CYO game on a slippery lineoleum floor in Parma at noon on a Saturday is the best use of my time and energy. As much as I love the Zips .. I love CYO hoops more. It's not close. A recent thing I've gotten exposed to due to our boys' interest is rugby. Our youngest picked it up last year as a 6 year old .. and it led our oldest picking it up as a freshman in HS. It's a fascinating sport, with its own unique culture and history. I'm certain that the biggest thing I'll remember out of this pandemic shutdown is the lost season from our oldest as he was carving out a spot contributing on his HS team. Not much exceeds the joy in seeing your kid find a sport he / she likes and gets after while also finding supportive and demanding coaches to push them. Why do I mention this? It occurs to me that if you want to add sports to an Athletic Department, you'd pick one which is a growth opportunity. What sports are growing in the US on a participation basis? Baseball sure isn't one of them. What sports are there that are currently niche sports which not every university has but are among the fastest growing in the US (look it up)? And what sports are growing in the region of the University which might be quickly adopted by the region if a University nearby fielded a team? Finally, what sports could be added which require minimal capital investment for facilities or training ground? If you ask these questions .. there are only a couple of sports that fit the bill. Sad to say, I don't think baseball is one of them. Lacrosse does seem like it's a growth opportunity. Tons of kids (boys and girls) are chewing up their parent's hard earned quid to play this now. I think they got it right in adding Women's Lacrosse. I'd also submt that rugby would be another to be considered. It's a winter / early spring sport and could leverage First Energy Field at a time that doesn't conflict with Soccer. Northeast Ohio is one of the bigger youth and HS Rugby areas in the US .. and a couple of teams in the area are among the best in the nation annually. And not a lot of Universities have it, especially locally. UA could be the regional leader in multiple GLOBAL sports .. not just an also-ran in the usual menu. While now isn't going to be a time to add sports .. cuttiing and sensible budgeting are the order of the times, I wonder if the Athletic Department has a broader view of the horizon which includes more than "what we've always done at Akron", or "what the rest of the MAC does" .. or "what we need to have to be attractive for some mythical future realignment frenzy?" Shouldn't UA be asking more fundamental and existential questions of it's Athletic Department now? What is the real objective of the department? What are the real goals? And what sports should be sponsored to help reach those objectives? A pissing match between fans who see UA as a football school vs. hoops school or vise versa isn't productive. I guess I went ful DiG here .. thanks for sticking with me. Hope all of ZN.O is safe and healthy. Go Zips!

After reading some of these posts I feel alot of you are living a bygone era. Rivalries? Hell we can't get enough people to show up to our fiercest one! (Kent). I think Covid-19 is the worldwide correction on all the house-of-cards that have been built over the last 30-years. No way Covid-19 doesn't change College sports irrevocably. With Akron cutting 6 of it's 11 colleges? Should it honestly be funding teams at all?

That's dated 4/25

I would expect any football reduction not to be in terms of scholarship numbers, but the cost of attendance $... but thats my guess