Joe and Ian discuss the latest details from Sark's contract and how it's designed to benefit both parties. Subscribe to Inside Texas to stay locked in with your favorite team every single day https://www.on3.com/teams/texas-longhorns/join/
Inside Texas Football
Sarkisian's Contract Extension Details Finally Revealed (Buyout Numbers)
Welcome to the Inside Texas football YouTube channel powered by inside Texas.com. I'm Joe Cook joined by Ian Boyd. Today, we got a little bit of breaking news to talk about inside Texas was able to obtain documents via open records requests that revealed a lot of details about Steve Sarkeesian's contract that had not yet been revealed. The main one being his buyout his previous contract was I believe the buyout was 70% of the remaining some now it is 85% some other details include, you know, his total compensation how will be compensated via direct payments and things like that. But Ian, the main takeaways and the main details that we had not yet learned about and that we wanted to know about where his his buyout figures should for some reason. If the Texas wanted part ways with Steve Sarkeesian or if Steve Sarkeesian resigned or decided he wanted to take another job be it college or NFL. Yeah, I think probably the biggest scare for the administration is more so like what if Sark got offered the Falcons job or something, right, or to replace Pete Carroll in Seattle or something. Obviously with the Texas fans, the A&M fiasco was so public and so like present in the discourse that I think Texas fans are probably just a little bit, little bit concerned when they see Sark 10 million a year over whether or not Texas has put themselves in a position where it should not be as good as it seems in the SEC that they'd be busted like A&M was. Yeah, we'll get to A&M but we'll go over first the new information. Obviously that 85% number is that new information so we can run it down and I think we will have a graphic on screen as well. It just says things went decidedly south and through the crust of the earth. After this year, it'd be a 54 million just about 2025 season completed 45 million 2026 it'd be 36 million 2027 it'd be 27 and a half million 2028 would be 18 and a half million and then 2029 it'd be 9.2 million. So obviously the number is it's big, those would be larger buyouts I think except for that 9 million then Texas had ever paid. But at the same time I feel like because it's just a six year extension not this 10 year rolling lifetime contract like you see with people like Gundy and to make a basketball comparison like with John Cal perry. Seems like a very fair deal obviously the 10 million mark the 85% mark up from 70% we had talked about it inside Texas how people on both sides wanted this to come to fruition and when Steve Sarkeesian put pen to paper pen to docu sign on the night of January 12 that was all accomplished for everybody involved. Can you repeat for me the number if they had to fire him after the 2024 season what's the buyout. It would be 54,315,000. Okay and then it goes to like 40 of the following years I write 45 million 475,000. So the interesting thing there is let if Texas could bomb in year one in the SEC and they're not going to fire him. Right. Because like I mean I don't even if they weren't like three and nine or something crazy which probably only happens if like Quinn yours is if Trey Owens is playing significant amount of games. Yeah Trey Owens is playing something like that happens. They're not going to want to fire him like even if the buyout were reasonable you probably don't want to fire your big 12 championship playoff content and coach after one bad year in the SEC you're going to be like. Well what went wrong and can we just shore this up in a year whatever and then and then it drops pretty quickly after that. I mean it's just not the worst case scenario where they have to pay this big someone they have to buy him out to move off the contract. It's just not very that's not going to happen anyway. The years in which they would wait before they would make a drastic move to fire the coach sees the buyout go pretty far down. It's still more than like the Gus malls on buyout which was famous a few years ago, but thanks to the Aggies it's nowhere anywhere near like. I mean with with with Jim Bowie was what 75 million for him. Right. Another like 10 or 15 for his assistance or something crazy. There's there's not going to be anything like that. And then on the other side what are the numbers like if he should if he should leave Texas for a different gig. Well before we get to that I think it's worth pointing out that what you're talking about is worst case scenario. You know and we have seen extensions with Neil Brown just signed one the other day. Jim Harbaugh signed one after the 2020 season where you get these extensions and it's basically like okay we're making this work we're giving you an extension so you can go recruit and still hang on to your job but it doesn't make things difficult difficult because it doesn't make things difficult to part ways just because we're not sold on you. And that was Michigan not sold on Jim Harbaugh after not being able to get over that Ohio state hump and then the 2020 season going downhill. This is not one of those extensions. This is a we believe yeah and I think you know we talked about worst case but nobody here is expecting worst case because of what we've seen recruiting on field deployment. All that stuff this is a we believe in you extension. We we are going to make you one of the higher paid coaches in the sport extension it didn't come attached with a decade long term at least from this season just another six years. But this was something I think the details that we have over at inside Texas.com shows just how much everybody wanted to get this done. It doesn't sound like from recent reporting whether from ESPN or from Sarkeesian himself like the Saban factor really was much of one at all. This was something that both parties wanted and Steve Sarkeesian as someone who enjoys the college game and enjoys being a college head coach. And Texas have their guy locked up for a while and I think that's revealed in just a lot of the very. I wouldn't say it's one sided either way but terms that are probably amenable to both sides whether it be Chris Ocante Steve Sarkeesian and of course Jimmy Sexton. Yeah, I do think that Texas is a little bit protected in this contract because you know they're not going to want to move off the famine for a couple years anyway. But on his side he's getting mega bucks right here and then if he wins if he goes to the SEC and he goes like 10 into next year and he goes to the playoffs again, which I think is pretty realistic expectation. He might just get another extension right in which he's he could be much more he could be much closer to Jimbo if he goes to the SEC contract wise. If he goes to the SEC and keeps up the winning so it's a win for both sides. If it continues to be a win on the field then it probably just gets renegotiated anyway. Right and you know economies change I mean Mac Brown was I think the highest paid or second highest paid and in 2009 with 5 million. And then also as we've noted Texas. Yeah, Texas didn't really deviate from that Charlie strong was in that 5 million range. Tom Herman was as well Steve Sarkeesian I mean admittedly arrived at Texas on a bit of a discount. He was up into a range that shows that that Texas believes he's at a top he is a top notch coach at a top notch program and you know I think the the other side, the NFL like you mentioned the Falcons if they gave them a call or you know who if whoever the Saints whatever of the NFL franchises who saw what Steve Sarkeesian was doing and wanted that on their sidelines. The current contract is pretty industry standard. It's not the same buyout for if the Saints wanted to to hire Sarkeesian. This year like if he left in the middle of the year for some reason not plausible with the way the windows work. He would owe 10 million that drops to 6 million in 2025. And then in 2026, 3 million in 27, 2 million in both 28 and 29 and then just 1 million in 2030 and like you'd mentioned, things will probably have either been reworked by then so that this contract doesn't really apply in 2030. Or who knows what happens but there's a clause or I don't know I don't know proper legal ease but there's a section of paragraph there's a smattering of words in this extension that says, the parties agree that the head coach has special exceptional and unique knowledge still and ability as a football coach which in addition to the continuing acquisition of coaching experience at the university, as well as the university's special need for continuity in its program. Render head coaches services unique. There's a few more sentences of praise and says head coach also recognizes that the university is making a highly valuable investment in his continued employment by entering into this agreement in its investment which would be lost or diminish where he designed or otherwise terminate his employment as head football coach with the university prior to the expiration of this agreement so Texas is basically putting it in writing like hey we're paying you well because you're good please, you know, make things work for us and we'll make things work for you. But that NFL part, another school for whatever reason, whatever reality that may be is not going to have a very high monetary bridge or a very long monetary bridge to cross but I mean they're probably never going to get to that bridge anyway with how Texas operates. Yeah, it's very it seems like it's correct me if I'm wrong in my understanding but it's pretty much impossible that another school would poach Sark from Texas. Right, he's for one he's now he's making 10 million so he's in the top of any school. He's got all the Texas advantages obviously the communities all in on winning around him. And I don't know what the buyout is if another school came calling but it's just not. It would be that range. Okay, the same as the NFL. Correct. But the NFL is the one that's interesting because in a couple of years it's like expensive for an NFL team to poach him in a year or two. But after a couple of years it gets really cheap for the NFL to poach him if they wanted to under this contract. But it just goes to show like it seems like at the very least Sark wants to coach Quinn yours in arch manning and the SEC. And then if he's like has big success, it seems like you maybe he wants to keep the door open to consider the NFL. But I don't think he'd go to another college shop and I don't know if he would. He may find that that that's a pretty nice setup and he wants to just keep doing that other than going to the NFL either. I think if you you're looking at the idea of I don't even know if Lincoln Riley to USC applies for this one. I think the one that's most applicable a feared outcome like the one you're talking about would be Brian Kelly to LSU. But I don't think that's like a potential anymore because it's Texas Texas football and it's Texas in the SEC. Like they're not that it doesn't get much better than that. And you can tell by the paycheck and by the ability of the program that we saw this past year. And to that point in that ESPN article the other day about the end of the Saban era and Greg Byrne, you know, Alabama athletic director search for a new or new head coach that landed on Caitlin de Boer. Chris Lowe basically reported they didn't even bother. Like they knew Sark wasn't going to leave. And that's not only because they probably had familiarity with SART, but they have eyes like the rest of us they saw what just happened on the field. What Sark says, how he says it and his commitment towards building a college football play program in his own image, not Nick Saban's image at the University of Texas. So, obviously this is great news for for all sides to have this coach to have Steve Sarkeesian locked up and also for all terms to probably be amenable to everybody that won the case for arrival though. And that I think that there was when when the contract extension was initially announced on that Saturday, January 13, there was some, some side I from from Aggies and others throughout college football saying didn't you just watch, you know, Jimbo Fisher get paid $76 million to go away like, what are you doing? And that was before the, it was known that Sark's contract wasn't fully guaranteed it went from 70% guaranteed 80% or 85% guaranteed it was before some of the, you know, big numbers were announced that wasn't found out until I think middle of February. So, it's very obvious to me that Kristell Conte looked east saw what the Aggie leadership did, including Mr. Failing upwards himself Ross Bjork in offering that contract extension and decided, we can still pay our guy, we can still make him a highly paid commodity within college football without doing something that hampers the school, which is Kristell Conte's and, and obviously Jay Hartsells, their main responsibility, they can do something right for all sides without being held captive by either an exorbitant buyout or the coach himself. Yeah, plus like another thing to consider is that that SEC TV money is going to start flowing in pretty soon. A&M, that obviously is the case for them too, but when they felt like they had to make a move, they had to pay like an enormous chunk of that salary like upfront. Right, and even A&M, they were obviously gutted in some ways by the Fisher deal, but they are still paying elko like what 8 million a year, or something 7 million a million a year and they were able to pay like some of his assistants top money. So it's not like A&M is like just bankrupt now they're still they're still okay. And if I can also like Notre Dame and Oklahoma who had their coaches poached in this new era of college football, are not really the same as Texas and that like, I think Notre Dame and Oklahoma are very committed to football. And they punch above their weight a little bit in regards to like resources. And Brian Kelly was like, if I go to LSU, I will finally have like the NFL skill athletes that I haven't had at Notre Dame. And Riley it's like, if I go to USC, I can have all the best players, much easier than I can in Oklahoma. Maybe I can ditch some of this roster that I've recruited and developed it isn't really panning out like I thought right. So I just texted that just not like that like there's not really there's no where with a higher ceiling in Texas if you if you know the administration is behind you, then it's like, what are you going to do? Where else would you really want to be that's going to be an upgrade. And definitely this contract I think reflects that now. The other thing is I think we've seen with Texas is that they they don't rush into moves. They do not do things without a lot of thought and maybe not thought but they don't do things without process. Right, under bill under bill content and the new guys they don't with Herman, you know, when they hired him, that was kind of a. That was rush, but Del Conte has shown that, and I know this is all about football, but you have to look at some of his other previous hiring and firing patterns. So he went to a man's basketball. He let a contract expire before he went big fish hunting and got big. Same thing happened with softball. Some some situations his hand was forced like with the varsity blues saying the tennis and a track coach, I think getting into some illicit personal problems. I don't know the full details, but things were obvious when he made moves. In some cases that's been firing, and in some cases that's been suggesting that head men's basketball coaches look for another opportunity. But now I think we also see that he makes the move when it's obvious when it comes to extensions. They don't go out ahead of their skis and extend the coach after a COVID season. I think there was some comparison about why an M did it after one year and now Texas is doing it after one year. I think now we can look at hindsight and say, aside from, you know, Mac Jones, Najee Harris, Devontay Smith, just being otherworldly, there is so much about that 2020 season that you really just cannot apply going forward. A&M made the mistake of paying somebody over $100 million, I think, all told, based off that 2020 season, Texas is going off of incremental improvement from a five and seven June, eight and five to 12 and two with a playoff appearance as they're heading into the SEC. And they're getting like you said with the TV money, they're going to have the money to do it. And especially as already the most lucrative college athletic program in the country. So anything else from from the Aggies decision that you want to look at as it applies to Texas. No, I mean, I just think the Aggies made that mistake. Probably no one else is going to make it. No one else is going to like, I don't, I don't even know how the Aggies did that like they weren't that outleveraged. Right. They didn't need to do it. I mean, I mean, Jimbo Fisher was, remember the Christmas tree that got thrown out like, he was not welcome in Tallahassee past the 2016 season, 2017 season, like it was already gone and they decided that they needed to overpay. And they needed to overpay twice. And I don't think Texas has done that, not only with Steve Sarkeesian's first contract, but also this new extension where details were announced today. Head to inside Texas, you can read all the different details, whether it be, you know, just all the stuff previously reported his salary, some of the perks, everything we got that here on Thursday morning on inside Texas. Make sure you like this video. Subscribe to the channel helps us bring instant reaction content like this on a consistent basis. Ian, thank you so much for joining me and we will see you next time on the inside Texas football YouTube channel powered by inside Texas.com