Punting in 2007

It’s safe to say that no one really enjoys punting. Punter is the only position without a representative in the NFL Hall of Fame (though Ray Guy should have been in long ago). Punting is an important part of the field position battle, but honestly, no one enjoys doing it. We’d rather see our teams score.

It is with that in mind I present you with the most and least prolific punting teams in college football a year ago. Keep in mind that avoiding punting is not necessarily an indication of an elite offense – turnovers end drives too, and often in more damaging ways.

The most prolific punting team was UCLA, with an astonishing 93 punts on the season for a robust 3899 yards. That’s right; the Bruins had more punting yards than 14 teams gained on offense. For comparison, UCLA punted for 992 more yards than Notre Dame gained with its offense. Karl Dorrell, this is your legacy.

The Ray Guy of coaches. Or something.

Other frequent punters included Virginia Tech (89), Iowa (87), FIU (83), Oregon State (83), East Carolina (82), Virginia (81), Syracuse (80), Duke (80), and Mississippi State (80). There’s a mix of good, bad, and mediocre in there, showing that punting a lot doesn’t necessarily mean your team will lose. It is telling though that a fourth of the ACC is in the list of the ten most frequent punters.

On the other end of the spectrum, Navy had the fewest punts with just 24 on the season for 895 yards. I’ll be interested to see if Paul Johnson’s Georgia Tech offense can keep the punting down anywhere close to that much in the punt-happy ACC. Georgia Tech punted 67 times last season, 3.1 more than the average team.

The remaining nine of the top ten least frequent punters are Texas Tech (30), Hawaii (35), Florida (37), Air Force (47), Louisville (48), Boise State (48), West Virginia (49), Southern Miss (49), and Arkansas State (50). This list is a bit better than the ten most frequent punters, with Arkansas State’s 5-7 record being the worst of them.

Granted, I don’t have a list of the number of drives for every team so I don’t know how these compare on a relative basis. Still, it’s interesting to see how justified UCLA fans were in their frustrations with Dorrell and to see how efficient the Gator offense really was last year.

Only 37 punts? Magnificent. If only we forced more than 10 the whole year…

SEC Roundtable: Florida

I was asked to write the SEC Roundtable entry for Florida over on Bleacher Report, so check it out here.

This page is keeping track of the other articles as they’re published so you can keep up with all of the teams in the finest conference in the land.

The Guys Who Follow College Football’s Coaching Legends

We’ve all heard it a million times: “You don’t want to be the guy who follows a legend; you want to be the guy who follows the guy who follows the legend.”

It makes intuitive sense, and it certainly would seem true. Urban Meyer is the guy who followed the guy who followed the legend at Florida, and things have worked out quite well for him so far. Then again, Bill Callahan was the same at Nebraska, and the fans were ready to run him out of town two years before he finally got the axe.

To see how true this adage is, I’ve looked at some coaching legends and the guys who followed them. They are as follows, in chronological order from when the legend was hired:

OKLAHOMA

Legend: Bud Wilkinson, 1947-63, 145-29-4 (.826); 3 national and 14 conference titles

Follower: Gomer Jones, 1964-65, 9-11-1 (.452); 0 national or conference titles

Next: Jim Mackenzie, 1966, 6-4 (.600); 0 national or conference titles

This is somewhat of a bad example to start off with, since Mackenzie sadly passed away due to a heart attack after his first season.

Jones definitely had a difficult time following Wilkinson though, having not been able to break even in his two years. Wilkinson is the coach who led Oklahoma to its famed 47-game winning streak, and he failed to win the Big 8 title in only three of his 17 years.

AUBURN

Legend: Shug Jordan, 1951-75, 175-83-7 (.674), 1 national and 1 conference title

Follower: Doug Barfield, 1976-80, 29-25-1 (.536), 0 national or conference titles

Next: Pat Dye, 1981-92, 99-39-4 (.711), 0 national and 4 conference titles

Jordan held the job for 25 years and the stadium is named after him, but his .674 winning percentage is lower than any of the other legends on this list. Barfield followed him up with 5 forgettable seasons, with 8-3 being the best record he posted.

Dye had the most success in his tenure of the three, though he was forced out of his coaching and AD position when it was revealed that assistant coaches and boosters had paid a player. He still is fondly remembered, though, as the field at Jordan-Hare stadium was named after him in 2005.

OHIO STATE

Legend: Woody Hayes, 1951-78, 205-61-10 (.761), 5 national and 13 conference titles

Follower: Earle Bruce, 1979-87, 81-26-1 (.755), 0 national and 4 conference titles

Next: John Cooper, 1988-2000, 111-43-4 (.715), 0 national and 4 conference titles

Earle Bruce did an admirable job in following Woody Hayes after Hayes’ unexpected meltdown and firing. He did not see the same success however, though he nearly won the national title in his first year.

John Cooper is a goat in OSU annals, having posted a 2-10-1 record against Michigan and having presided over numerous academic and discipline problems.

TEXAS

Legend: Darrell Royal, 1957-76, 167-47-5 (.774), 3 national and 11 conference titles

Follower: Fred Akers, 1977-86, 86-31-2 (.731), 0 national and 2 conference titles

Next: David McWilliams, 1987-91, 31-26 (.544), 0 national and 1 conference title

Akers did a much better job than McWilliams did. Akers caught flak though for losing bowl games and in his final few years having bad records against Oklahoma and Texas A&M.

McWilliams’s 1990 SWC championship year looks like a fluke in light of the rest of his seasons, with the 7-5 record in his first year being the second-best record he had.

ALABAMA

Legend: Paul Bryant, 1958-82, 232-46-9 (.824), 6 national and 13 conference titles

Follower: Ray Perkins, 1983-86, 32-15-1 (.677), 0 national or conference titles

Next: Bill Curry, 1987-89, 26-10 (.722), 0 national and 1 conference title

Perkins left the New York Giants to coach at his alma mater, and he left four years later to take a rich contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. An incident where a former player that he had recruited claimed he was paid led to the school being placed on probation in 1995.

Curry was doing well in his three years, though he was 0-3 against Auburn. He didn’t like the contract offered to him in 1990, so he left to coach Kentucky.

GEORGIA

Legend: Vince Dooley, 1964-88, 201-77-10 (.715), 1 national and 6 conference titles

Follower: Ray Goff, 1989-95, 46-34-1 (.574), 0 national or conference titles

Next: Jim Donnan, 1996-2000, 40-19 (.678), 0 national or conference titles

Neither Goff nor Donnan panned out for the Bulldogs. They both failed to win even an SEC East title, and both were used as Florida’s whipping boy. Goff is perhaps most famous for being called “Ray Goof” by Steve Spurrier.

MICHIGAN

Legend: Bo Schembechler, 1969-89, 194-48-5 (.796), 0 national and 13 conference titles

Follower: Gary Moeller, 1990-94, 44-13-3 (.758), 0 national and 3 conference titles

Next: Lloyd Carr, 1995-07, 122-40 (.753), 1 national and 5 conference titles

Moeller is a controversial figure for Wolverines due to his messy departure following a drunken altercation at a restaurant. Some argue his best years were already behind him; some argue that he was trying to modernize the program and that Carr won his national title with Moeller’s players.

Carr is one of the few followed-the-guy-who-followed-the-legend guys who actually won a national title. His legacy will remain mixed due to his futility against Jim Tressel and the loss to Appalachian State.

BYU

Legend: LaVell Edwards, 1972-2000, 257-101-3 (.716), 1 national and 19 conference titles

Follower: Gary Crowton, 2001-04, 26-23 (.531), 0 national and 1 conference title

Next: Bronco Mendenhall, 2005-present, 28-10 (.737), 0 national and 2 conference titles

Crowton won the MWC his first year with Edwards’ players, but failed to reach .500 in his remaining three years. Mendenhall has put together consecutive 11-win seasons, winning the MWC title each year. His 2008 team is expected to contend for a BCS bowl.

NEBRASKA

Legend: Tom Osborne, 1973-97, 255-49-3 (.836), 3 national and 13 conference titles

Follower: Frank Solich, 1998-03, 58-19 (.753), 0 national and 1 conference title

Next: Bill Callahan, 2004-07, 27-22 (.551), 0 national or conference titles

Solich is probably the source of the modern “You don’t want to be the guy who follows a legend” movement, having been fired after a 9-win season. Callahan ended up being a disaster, and will probably be despised by Husker fans forever.

FLORIDA

Legend: Steve Spurrier, 1990-2001, 122-27-1 (.817), 1 national and 6 conference titles

Follower: Ron Zook, 2002-04, 23-14 (.622), 0 national and conference titles

Next: Urban Meyer, 2005-present, 31-8 (.795), 1 national and 1 conference title

Zook was doomed from the beginning, having been a fallback choice for the coaching position and having never been a head coach before. He won games he shouldn’t have, but lost games he shouldn’t have too. He also presided over an explosion of off-field issues, including Zook himself being involved in a fight at a frat house. Some Florida fans still defend him, but the overall sentiment is that his hiring was a mistake.

After doubts about his offense abounded in his first year, Meyer solidified his position in his second by winning a national title. Some fans are uncomfortable with his highly aggressive recruiting tactics, which have drawn scrutiny from other coaches and the NCAA, but otherwise Gators are more than happy with his job so far.

*   *   *

Following a legend, regardless of place in line, is not easy. Only Pat Dye clearly surpassed his legendary predecessor’s accomplishments, but his departure was not the stuff of legends.

None of the followers distinguished himself after leaving, though Earle Bruce had a nice run with Iowa State before coaching the Buckeyes. Ron Zook still has time to carve out his legacy at Illinois.

The book is still open for Mendenhall and Meyer, but both appear to be in good shape. Despite their records, most of the coaches in that coveted “guy who followed the guy who followed the legend” role didn’t fare much better than the guy who did follow the legend.

There is some truth to the adage, but in the end good coaches will succeed in good situations regardless of who came before.

Surfing Through the SEC Football Schedules

The Gainesville Sun’s Robbie Andreu put out his preliminary projections for the SEC, and it got me thinking. I am not ready to put out my projections yet, mainly because there are too many good teams in the conference just to throw an order together right now. Projecting the SEC finish will take a lot of research.

I did end up looking at each school’s schedule, mainly focusing on the non-conference games. If you haven’t yet done that, you’ll be glad to know that the SEC schedules this year are less cupcake-y than past years.

For the record, I am fine with schools raiding the bakery for fundraiser games a couple times a year, but I do expect BCS schools to play at least one BCS opponent. I also think playing I-AA teams is inexcusable except for the very best I-AA teams, like Appalachian State, which are better than the Utah States and FIUs of I-A anyway.

Here’s a rundown of the SEC non-conference schedules, in alphabetical order:

ALABAMA

BCS Opponent: @ Clemson (Aug. 30)

Cupcakes: Tulane (Sept. 6), Western Kentucky (Sept. 13), Arkansas State (Nov. 1)

ARKANSAS

BCS Opponent: @ Texas (Sept. 13)

Respectable Non-BCS: Tulsa (Nov 1)

Cupcake: Louisiana-Monroe (Sept. 6)

I-AA: Western Illinois (Aug. 30)

AUBURN

BCS Opponent: @ West Virginia (Oct. 23)

Respectable Non-BCS: Southern Miss (Sept. 6)

Cupcake: Louisiana-Monroe (Aug. 30)

I-AA: Tennessee-Martin (Nov. 8 )

FLORIDA

BCS Opponents: Miami (Sept. 6), @ FSU (Nov. 29)

Respectable Non-BCS: Hawaii (Aug. 30)

I-AA: The Citadel (Nov. 22)

GEORGIA

BCS Opponents: @ Arizona State (Sept. 20), Georgia Tech (Nov. 29)

Respectable Non-BCS: Central Michigan (Sept. 6)

I-AA: Georgia Southern (Aug. 30)

KENTUCKY

BCS Opponent: Louisville (Aug. 31)

Cupcakes: Middle Tennessee (Sept. 13), Western Kentucky (Sept. 27)

I-AA: Norfolk State (Sept. 6)

LSU

Respectable Non-BCS: Troy (Sept. 6)

Respectable I-AA: Appalachian State (Aug. 30)

Cupcakes: North Texas (Sept. 13), Tulane (Nov. 1)

OLE MISS

BCS Opponent: @ Wake Forest (Sept. 6)

Cupcakes: Memphis (Aug. 30), Louisiana-Monroe (Nov. 15)

I-AA: Samford (Sept. 13)

MISSISSIPPI STATE

BCS Opponent: @ Georgia Tech (Sept. 20)

Cupcakes: Louisiana Tech (Aug. 30), Middle Tennessee (Oct. 25)

I-AA: Southeastern Louisiana (Sept. 6)

SOUTH CAROLINA

BCS Opponents: NC State (Aug. 28), @ Clemson (Nov. 29)

Cupcake: UAB (Sept. 27)

I-AA: Wofford (Sept. 20)

TENNESSEE

BCS Opponent: @ UCLA (Sept. 1)

Cupcakes: UAB (Sept. 13), Northern Illinois (Oct. 4), Wyoming (Nov. 8 )

VANDERBILT

BCS Opponents: Duke (Oct. 25), @ Wake Forest (Nov. 29)

Cupcakes: Miami University (Aug. 28), Rice (Sept. 13)

* * *

Only LSU doesn’t have a BCS opponent. Alabama, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt do not have I-AA opponents. LSU should not lose anything for playing Appalachian State, though, especially because Mountaineer fans have already begun predicting a victory on Charlotte sports talk radio.

LSU’s slate is the only one I’d call “shameful” in the bunch, though I am not happy about all of the non-App State I-AA teams you see listed. However, until the NCAA reverses the rule and stops allowing wins over I-AA teams to count towards bowl eligibility, those games are sadly inevitable.

No One Drafted From Alabama? Really?

Mike Shula was the head coach at Alabama from 2003 to 2006. He had one good year, a 10-2 season in 2005, but was fired for the mediocrity of the other three. Most people around the country saw the hiring as a bad move, and the truth in that could not have been clearer this weekend.

Not one single player from Alabama was drafted. That fact boggles the mind, because it’s Alabama. The program is not what it once was, but the Tide being shut out on draft weekend is inconceivable. For comparison, Florida hasn’t been shut out of the draft since 1951, and only once since then (1977) has a Gator not been selected in one of the first seven rounds of a draft.

It really is.

The fourth and fifth year seniors on that 2005 team were recruited by Dennis Franchione in 2002 and 2001. The real leaders on that team weren’t Shula’s recruits. The fourth and fifth year seniors on this year’s team were Shula’s recruits, having come to campus in 2003 and 2004. I’m going to give those years a look to see how it’s possible that Bama could have no one drafted this year.

His first class in 2003 (numbering 19) had only one player drafted: DT Le’Ron McClain in the fourth round last year. Granted, Tyrone Prothro probably would have been drafted if not for the nasty string of injuries he went through. It is worth mentioning though that the injury that started it all was sustained in the fourth quarter of a blowout (in 2005 over Florida), and he should not have been playing that late in the game in the first place. Well done, Mike.

I’ll give him a pass in 2003 though, since Coach Fran left unexpectedly and classes during transitional years tend to be rough anyway. If you want a comparison, though, Florida’s 2002 class, despite Steve Spurrier leaving a month before signing day, had four of its 23 players drafted from it. I’ll now look at Alabama’s 2004 class.

Of the 27 recruits, nine are listed on Alabama’s spring football roster. Four were listed as potential draftees on ESPN. None were listed as potential draftees in 2007. That means of the 18 that are gone, 14 weren’t even serious candidates to be drafted. Those 18 players had an average star rating of 2.79 (according to Rivals), with just two 4-star prospects among them.

Wake up, Mike. It’s time for good football.

The nine remaining players are a mixed bag. Antoine Caldwell became a permanent captain, an honor that got his name misspelled in cement but is still prestigious at the school. John Parker Wilson has played a lot of games, but “infuriating” doesn’t come close to describing his inconsistency. Beyond them, only DL Lorenzo Washington (3 sacks) and TE Nick Walker (2 TD receptions) made any significant plays last season.

It’s just astonishing that Alabama could have had such a bad class. Even that 2002 Florida class had a decent number of players considered draftable in 2006 and 2007. With all of the financial and tradition-based advantages the school has, it makes no sense for Alabama not to have anyone drafted in a particular year. Since Derrick Harvey and Andre Caldwell could have left last year, Florida almost had no one drafted this year. However, that would have been caused by extreme amounts of early entries not two consecutive bad recruiting classes.

In 2008 Appalachian State, Bentley, Coastal Carolina, Delaware, Eastern Kentucky, Furman, Gardner-Webb, Grand Valley State, Hampton, Idaho, Jackson State, McNeese State, Middle Tennessee State, Montana, Mount Union, North Dakota State, Northwest Missouri State, San Diego, Washburn, Weber State, and Winston Salem State all had at least one player drafted. Alabama did not.

Wow.

Coaches’ Contracts: Les Miles

The next stop on the SEC coach contract tour is Baton Rouge for Les Miles’ legally binding document with LSU.

The first thing you find out, and it’s in bold and all caps too, is that LSU’s full name is “Lousiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College.” That’s LSUA&MC for those of you keeping score at home. So does the contract use Leslie Edwin Miles’s full name? Nope, he’s just Les Miles.

As with Nick Saban at Alabama, Miles had to initial every page of his contract, including the one with everyone’s signatures. The contract also has the odd convention of writing out numerical values and putting the value as expressed by numbers in parenthesis after. Money values are written out as if it was a check. See the selected quotes below for an example.

His bonuses are pretty standard – for bowl games, winning the SEC West, winning the entire SEC, and appearing in the BCS national championship game. He does not get any extra money over the $175,000 for appearing in the BCS title game, but you’d think a coach wouldn’t need extra motivation to want to win it.

This one’s for you guys, Trindon. I’m all out of performance bonuses.

On top of those, though, he gets relative pay adjustments. If he wins 10 games, his total pay must be at least the 5^th highest in the SEC, if he wins the conference his total pay must be at least the third highest in the SEC, and if he wins the national title his total compensation for the year must be at least the third highest in all of Division I. This is notable because the USA Today shows him as having the sixth-highest total pay in the conference, not counting those relative pay kickers.

The rest of the contract is mostly bland legal stuff regarding conduct, buyouts, and everything else you’d expect in a contract. Attached after the contract, though, is a letter to Miles dated December 5, 2006 from former LSU Chancellor (and former NASA administrator) Sean O’Keefe announcing that the school would extend his contract. It concludes with:

“Congratulations on another successful season! Geaux Tigers!”

Only at LSU.

Selected Quotes:

“The UNIVERSITY agrees to pay COACH an annual salary of Three Hundred Thousand and No/00 ($300,000.00) Dollars, payable in twelve (12) equal monthly installments.”

This is an example of the odd phrasing of numerical values.

“COACH further acknowledges that he has no expectation of the granting of tenure by UNIVERSITY.”

I can’t recall a mention of tenure by other contracts. It makes sense, of course, not to give a coach tenure because then it would be impossible to fire him.

“Within ten (10) days of the expiration or termination of this agreement… COACH shall return to the UNIVERSITY all credit cards and keys issued to him by UNIVERSITY.”

Do coaches usually get to keep credit cards and keys? This is the kind of frivolous contract-padding that makes me think the lawyers got paid by the word. The document already established that anything LSU gives to him as a part of his job must be returned, so why do credit cards and keys warrant their own sentence?

Keys? Wait, where did I put my keys? Crap, someone frisk Perrilloux.

Coaches’ Contracts: Rich Brooks

The parade of SEC coach contract analysis continues on with Rich Brooks’s contract with Kentucky.

The tidy, 19-page contract between the University of Kentucky and Richard L. Brooks is interesting, but not because it has a lot of unintentionally funny legalese throughout it. It also goes beyond the fact that page 14 of it somehow got moved from between pages 13 and 15 to the end, after the signature page.

First of all, it indicates that Kentucky is serious about fielding a competitive football team within the SEC and will reward the coach handsomely for doing so. He gets a performance bonus of $50,000 each for his fifth and sixth SEC wins of a season, and $75,000 each for his seventh and eighth SEC wins in a season. He also gets $100,000 for winning the division. So, winning all 8 SEC games would give him $350,000 right there, more ten times as much as Mark Richt would get for winning all 8 SEC games and activating his SEC East championship bonus. If he wins the SEC championship game, that’s another $200,000. His non-BCS bowl bonuses are tied to the payout of the game.

Beyond the on-field bonuses he gets, Brooks also gets some for off-field achievements. If gross ticket revenue increases from the previous year, he gets 10% of that increase. So, if UK ups their ticket prices, you can bet he’s behind that all the way. In terms of academics, his bonuses are tied to a cumulative team GPA above 2.75, and curiously a minimum .925 Academic Progress Rate. If you’re not familiar with that, it’s an NCAA stat based on graduation rates, and if your team goes below .925 it loses scholarships. The academic bar is clearly not set that high.

Rich Brooks applauds his team for not flunking out of school in droves, thereby earning him up to an extra $55,000. Any picture of Rich Brooks in UK gear must really unnerve Oregon fans.

One of the key arguments in the Rich Rodriguez contract dispute with WVU is an allegation by Rodriguez that the school promised him they’d upgrade the facilities, but the school has yet to do that. He should have borrowed Rich Brooks’s agent then, because Brooks had university-provided “improvements to the Football Program” written right into his contract. The lesson, as always, is that if you want something done you need to have it in writing.

There really isn’t much else to note, other than the use of fake-sounding words like “effectuate,” because this is a remarkably clear and concise contract. If you’re wondering about any mentions of the basketball program, because this is Kentucky we’re talking about and I know you are, he gets four tickets to every home game. That’s the only mention of basketball in the whole thing.

Selected Quotes:

“Coach’s duties, responsibilities and obligations shall be those normally associated with the position of head football coach at a Division I university such as the University of Kentucky.”

Because we wouldn’t want to require anything extraordinary out of Rich Brooks. Then again, competing in the SEC at Kentucky probably falls in the “extraordinary” bucket.

“The University agrees to undertake and provide additional improvements to the Football Program in an effort to increase the overall success of the Football Program.”

Yeah, it’s somewhat vague. Still, had Rich Rodriguez got this put in his contract, well, he’d actually have leg to stand on in his current dispute with WVU concerning unfulfilled promises regarding facilities upgrades.

“It is not the intention of the parties that this Agreement be terminable for minor, technical or otherwise insignificant University regulations or for NCAA or SEC violations which do not entail the risk of major institutional penalties.”

No coach ever gets fired for a technicality unless the school really, really wants him gone, but I have yet to see another coach have a protection against that written in his contract.

When Rich Brooks speaks, the media fires up the bleep machine.

Coaches’ Contracts: Mark Richt

The series of SEC coaching contract analysis passes the midway point with Mark Richt’s deal with Georgia.

Image from georgiadogs.com

At first glance, it looks as though Mark Richt’s contract is between him and the University of Georgia Athletic Association and therefore he’s not officially a state employee, just like Urban Meyer is not a state employee of Florida. However, it clearly states a little later that he’s an employee of the University System of Georgia. Any other speculation regarding his employment is moot, since he has an excellent record as a head coach and has no incentive to leave.

The contract leads off with his duties and powers, the only contract to mention “powers” of any kind. It would be awesome if his contract gave him powers like flying or the ability to transmute into a liquid, but instead it gives him empty, so-called powers like the ability to recommend assistant coach candidates (that the AD can unilaterally veto) and to agree with the scheduling choices the AD already made. Most other coaches get full power for hiring and firing assistants, as well as significant influence in setting the slate of games.

His goal as coach as spelled out here is at first seems noble, but the ulterior motive is found a couple paragraphs down. It first says he must keep the team competitive and supported by the “University Community,” a fine endeavor to create a unifying force in the state of Georgia, right? Except that, it specifically states later that one of his duties is to increase student and fan interest not for the good of the community, but to make enormous amounts of money.

The progression from child to booster really flies by, doesn’t it? Gotta indoctrinate them early! Image CC by Flickr user Natalie Blackburn.

In the way of bonuses, Richt’s deal is pretty straightforward. He gets either $25,000 or $75,000 for winning the SEC East or the overall conference title, and he gets the same amounts in addition for going to a bowl or a BCS bowl, respectively. A top-5 AP poll finish nets $50,000, but a national championship named by the BCS and/or the AP gets him $150,000. He gets $50,000 for his team finishing in the top third in the conference in academics; that’s a bit unique since most other academic bonuses are tied to absolute terms, not relative terms. He does have the sweetest longevity bonus I’ve seen – a cool $2.4 million if he stays through the 2013 season.

Overall, the contract has more of a money-focused feel to it than most of the other ones do, though it’s hard to pick exactly what it is that gives it that feel. Maybe it’s that Richt or the athletic associate twice a year can recommend ways to restructure his pay to reduce his or the university’s tax liability for it. Or maybe it’s that if he leaves for another job, he can pay his $2 million buyout in quarterly installments between his leaving and the end of his contract in 2013. Regardless, it’s a surprisingly restrictive deal for a guy with such a great track record.

Selected Quotes:

“WHEREAS, football is a high emphasis sport at the University;”

Huh. You don’t say. You mean making Mark Richt the highest paid state employee wasn’t enough to demonstrate that?

Someone fire up the “O” signal!

“Richt’s duties and powers include… [t]aking any and all reasonable actions to increase student and fan interest in and support of the Team in order for the Team to generate substantial net revenue for the [UGA Athletic] Association and the University.”

This part of his deal immediately discredits the idea that the UGA football program exists solely for righteous pursuits like giving kids a good education and a great start to adult life. Or that getting students and fans involved is intended to “give back” for their support for that matter. It’s all about keeping them engaged to keep getting their money, and according to this section, poor revenues could be a breach of contract on the head coach’s part. Of course, every other I-A football program exists for the same reason, but few if any others are so brazen in talking about it.

“Richt’s duties and powers include… [w]orking in good faith with the Athletic Director to schedule future opponents identified and approved by the Athletic Director.”

In other words the AD picks out Georgia’s schedule, and it’s up to Richt to schedule the games. He must support all of the AD’s scheduling pursuits and can only object with “reasonable” complaints. Contrast that with Nick Saban or Houston Nutt who were required to recommend their scheduled opponents. Nutt even had to include “dates, places and times” rather than just submit a list of every non-BCS school in the Gulf Coast region as his recommendations.

Coaches’ Contracts: Urban Meyer

The SEC coach contract train rumbles along, now with Florida’s own Urban Meyer. As always, the contracts are collected and hosted by the USA Today.

Image CC by Flickr user chasingfun.

As I mentioned before, Urban Meyer is tied with Nick Saban for longest SEC contract (excluding amendments) at 32 pages. It read suspiciously like Saban’s contract at times, leading me to think that someone at UF was reading off of Mike Shula’s deal when drawing it up. It’s just something else to throw in the “Stuff we probably stole from Alabama instead of the other way around” bin along with the Gator band’s pregame routine, the “Go Gators” tune, and the unfortunate concept of a gymnastics band.

The defining characteristic of the contract is overwhelming amounts of legalese and non-standard phrasing. Nearly every sentence has the word “shall” in it, and it gives off the impression the lawyers were getting paid by the word. Going through it was an outright chore.

His bonus scheme is a little unusual, as he gets twice as big a payment for winning the SEC title game ($75,000) as he does for going to a non-BCS bowl ($37,500). His BCS game bonus is $100,000, meaning winning the SEC title game is actually worth $175,000 to him. Playing in the national title game is another $50,000 above the standard BCS bonus (so Michigan fans, you can now whine about him trying to get extra money by campaigning in 2006), but winning it all gets him $250,000.

Note that winning a non-BCS game doesn’t get him any more money than appearing in one does, and the BCS bonuses are non cumulative. Winning the national title gets him the $250,000, not $400,000. If you’re doing the math at home, his total bonus in 2006 for winning the SEC and national championships was $475,000.

So Urban, how did you spend your half million bonus after the title game? Image CC by Flickr user bobbyuggles.

The contract does acknowledge in a couple places that Meyer’s coaching services were in high demand (see quotes below), but UF didn’t throw in a clause requiring him to be a “loyal employee” like Alabama did with Saban. Rather, it gave him a $500,000 signing bonus and some of the largest longevity bonuses I’ve seen, culminating in $600,000 just for sticking around to end of the final season of the contract (2011).

About the only other unique thing worth mentioning is that Meyer officially is employed by the University Athletic Association, which from a legal standpoint is more independent than most athletic associations are. Granted, the UAA is inextricably aligned with the school and UF President Bernie Machen is the chairman of the board of the UAA, but it is a Direct Support Organization (definition here) and component of UF for accounting purposes only. That means they are able to get around certain parts of Florida law regarding state employees if they want to since he is legally an employee of the independent UAA Corporation and not the university. DSOs are explicitly allowed by Florida state law, so there are no loopholes at work here if you were wondering.

Selected Quotes:

“Parties. Association is a Florida corporation nor for profit with its principal place of business in Gainesville, Florida. Urban Meyer is a resident of Gainesville, Florida.”

This is at the beginning and just illustrates the fact that Meyer is not an employee of the State of Florida but of a legally separate entity, the UAA. If it seems odd to see that it lists Meyer as being a Gainesville resident, since he was living in Utah when he agreed to take the UF job, don’t worry. The contract was signed in April of 2005, after he already relocated.

“The parties acknowledge that Coach’s skill, success and experience create a demand for his services at other universities and by professional football franchises.”

Great Odin’s raven! Does this mean that pro teams were pursuing Meyer as well, and UF beat out not just Notre Dame but the entire NFL as well? No, probably not; this is just the opening quote from the clause that gives him his signing bonus. I guess in case someone decides to audit something, they have a justification for giving him a signing bonus, something that no other SEC coach got as far as I can tell. But then, they’re all state employees and probably aren’t eligible to get one.

Sorry, but no third quote this time. It’s just too dry and boring to justify pulling anything else out. It’s not homerism; take a look at the thing and see if you get more than two pages through without succumbing to drowsiness.

Meyer asks Tim Tebow how to stay cool when “dot.com and email” gets on your case. Image CC by Flickr user bobbyuggles.

Orange and Blue Review

Well, only a few of my pictures from the game came out since my camera is just a simple point-and-shoot deal and not a professional setup where I can adjust brightness and color. I also got home late last night so I haven’t been able to see all the coverage from ESPN that I recorded, but I have seen some. I can just tell you a few quick impressions from the game.

The Crowd

It was a record crowd, at over 61,000 for the spring game. If you’re wondering why the crowd didn’t react to what the GameDay guys were saying despite hearing their voices echoing through the stadium at times is because you couldn’t hear them that well in the stands. Even when Chris Fowler counted off for the third pregame race and the people in the stands were quiet, it was still somewhat difficult to hear him. Despite the increased numbers, it was still a standard Spring game crowd: they cheered for only for the offenses and started filing out after halftime.

The GameDay set roughly 20 minutes before the game. As you can see, the location wasn’t conducive to a standard GameDay experience.

The Races for a Scholarship

Everyone around me in the stands wondered why Fowler only announced the final heat participants, and it appears from what the TV guys yakking with Urban Meyer said is that they saved the fastest students for the last race against Chris Rainey. It’s too bad they didn’t just start that heat with a whistle because though Rainey would still have won, the students in it did look pretty fast. It did worry some people that Louis Murphy didn’t win by much, but we gave him a pass since he’s been bothered by an ankle sprain this Spring.

Who’s red shorts? I gotta recruit red shorts to come play.

The Passing Game

It didn’t look much like anything we’ll see this Fall since so many guys like Percy Harvin and Cornelius Ingram were out. Tim Tebow is clearly better than Cam Newton still, which makes sense and all but the gap is unsettlingly large. Newton’s nadir was rifling a pass intended for 5′6″ Brandon James about 9 feet high. Still, he’s big (looks like he’s been on the JaMarcus Russell diet this winter), and we’ll see him carrying the ball to pick up tough yards so Tebow won’t have to. All you need to know is that despite the teams having roughly equal receivers, Tebow threw two interceptions and still had the blue team up 28-0 in offensive points by the end of the third quarter.

If the game is any indication, we’ll see a lot of roll outs, sideline patterns, and Riley Cooper on the slant route. Until everyone gets back, though, we won’t know what the total picture will be. I do have a hunch though that we’ll see a ton of Harvin.

Florida may have the rattiest no-contact jerseys in the country. Tebow’s and John Brantley’s have the numbers fading off the front, and here you can see Newton’s with a hole.

The Running Game

Based on who played and for how long, the depth chart here something along the lines of:

1. Kestahn Moore
2. Rainey
3. Mon Williams
4. James
5. Emmanuel Moody

James and Moore started for the orange, and Rainey and Williams started for the blue. Moody then replaced Moore in the orange’s rotation.

As I understand it, the game was a microcosm of Moody’s spring: it began slow, got better, but was marred by putting the ball on the ground. I think we can all give the “Yeah, but we got Moody” talk a rest for a while. Moore will almost certainly start the opener against Hawaii, and Williams will be able to get some tough yards up the middle.

What I didn’t get was rushing Rainey up the middle. We saw Meyer run James up the middle some last year too, and I can’t understand having undersized speed guys go between the tackles. Sure it’s unexpected, but that’s because it’s a bad idea. Rainey will be at his best on the edges in a Harvin-like role. And he will be very, very good.

The Defense

You never get to learn anything about the defense as a whole in the spring game since they can’t go after the quarterback full-on and there’s a lot more rotating of guys than normal. Carlos Dunlap has gotten a lot better, having added some technique to his natural skills, but it’s hard to say too much more.

So, I’ll just say how funny it was to see Tebow lay out Major Wright on Lorenzo Edwards‘ interception return. What you couldn’t see on TV was Wright tugging at Tebow’s sleeve after the play, evidently trying to remind him that it doesn’t just mean that he can’t be hit but that he shouldn’t be hitting other people either. He then got quite a lecture from Dan Mullen, more than what you saw on TV.

A coach’s nightmare: the returning Heisman-winning quarterback in his no-hit jersey winding up to lay out the hard-hitting starter at free safety in the spring game.

Special Teams

Chas Henry has a monster leg now. If he can be consistent, he’ll be a humongous asset in the field position game.

Caleb Sturgis definitely has a big leg, but he’s got to find accuracy. Jonathan Phillips will probably be the kicker to begin the year, but Sturgis will almost certainly do the kickoffs.

Overall

No serious injuries, and everyone had a good time. You really can’t ask for much more out of a spring game, especially when you get 4 hours of free publicity on ESPN while you’re at it.