RaisingFenix

Lol. I said it gave us flexibility, not that it guaranteed we'd get home-and-homes with Ohio State every couple years.

With two 6-team divisions, 8 conference games makes the most sense - 5 in division, and half of the other division. You could do 9, but you'd have some year-to-year overlap in your cross-division games. Plus, having 4 OOC gives you a little more flexibility in scheduling those games, which might help when trying to get higher profile teams in the schedule. Just my $0.02.

That's true. All I'm saying is that there were two extreme possibilities: we offer $1 and leave the whole obligation on Texas, or we offer $10M+, and thereby completely eliminate Texas's obligation. Anything in the middle is gray area and carries the possibility of litigation based on interpretation of the contract. If I were involved, I'd rather have buy-in from the third party before proceeding, as a CYA measure.

I don't think anyone was suggesting that Texas had a strong say in the contract talks, but that they may have requested to have a representative oversee the negotiations to make sure everything was on the up-and-up. If we had offered Strong $100k for two years, and he had no other offers - would he be obligated to take it? The way I read that section of the contract, there were two clauses that required a "best effort": to find a new job, and to minimize Texas's financial obligation. All of that is gray area, and whether Texas would have standing to bring a suit in the event that we significantly underpaid, I don't know. I am pretty sure that none of the three parties wanted to go down that potential road, so it was in everyone's best interest to make sure they were all on the same page before the new contract was signed.

I don't know for sure, but I always assumed they stories were automatically sorted based on teams/people that are significant to the story or mentioned in it. Since just about every story about CWR right now mentions that he was the former coach at USF, they all show up under our section.

Maybe a trip to Mons is in order before he leaves town

Where is smazza today? I'd be interested in his opinion on this.

Sure, and if the Texas buyout weren't in play, the most wet could pay for Strong would be, what, 2M per year? So Texas would be protecting a 2M gain - maybe not worth the bad PR possibility. But sometimes you don't need to swing the hammer, you just have to hold it over someone's head.

But does he have a responsibility to negotiate the highest salary he can? I think he does, but that's hard to quantify or prove. Maybe Texas sent a chaperone along and said, "Hey Charlie, you make whatever deal you see fit, but if our guy isn't satisfied with the deal, we may have to take this to court and hold our payments to you until a judge decides if you really fulfilled your obligation to us."

Thanks!

True, and if that is what's being negotiated, that would be the leverage we have. Texas wouldn't be able to just force our offer up, because at some point we could just walk away from the table and leave them holding the bag.

If the amount of money Texas has to pay is dependent on Strong's future employment, they've got skin in this game, and I'd imagine there's some kind of language preventing him from signing a contract that's backloaded like we're suggesting.

Not sure, but I'd be curious what the actual language is and what kind of legal interpretations are possible

Any chance the snag over the buyout clause you're hearing about has anything to do with the Texas buyout, rather than ours? Strong came on a Texas booster's plane and they do have a vested interest here - maybe they're trying to protect their interests and limit their liability, and that's what's holding up negotiations?

Fair enough, Brad, but when someone says they haven't even watched a game in 7 years, you can't blame people for disregarding his opinion

Notre Dame and Miami would like a word with you

And sometimes the baby needs to grow up and move out of the parent's house - especially if the parent was (allegedly) abusive. And for the record, I would rather have 7-1 or 8-0 conference records than 3-4 with the occasional big win.

If only Harlan would live tweet the whole hiring process, we could all sleep better. Seriously, it's better for everyone if these dealings are kept under wraps as much as possible. You know we're talking to Strong, too, but if he decides to stay out of coaching for a year or takes another job, then whoever we do hire doesn't have "second choice" written all over him (see LSU and Jimbo Fisher). Don't panic, have a little patience. We will be fine. Like BAW said above, nobody was talking about Rhule to Baylor until it was done.

We should just have 22 conference games. Everyone plays everyone home-and-home, then it's all fair. </sarcasm>

This broadcast is amateur hour at best. I'm not sure who's worse - the cameramen or the guy in charge of the down and distance display.

Is the lucky bucket hat still in play?

That's probably true, but we should go ahead and solicit applications from anyone interested, then make them sing and dance for us for a few months - it's the only way to be sure.

Do these idiots know that we all know that they're full of crap, or do they think they're selling this really well?

Shockingly, they don't want to discuss what the networks are paying them to not expand.