Chatter is heating up about the chances of this being Gus' last hurrah against UGA in an Auburn visor. Gus is the 6th highest paid coach in college football right now. I mentioned in a previous thread that I thought Gus was coaching for his job, but given the fact that I don't follow the internals of Auburn football, I can say that I misspoke and things are more grim for that program than I thought.
It's interesting to see how college programs are now finally being brought back "bang down" into reality with these ridiculously huge coaching contracts and the sweetheart buyout clauses attached to them. You're going to start seeing these programs start having to live with their decisions. The whole reason FSU couldn't pull Bob Stoops in is because they don't have the money after paying Willie Taggart $20M for the privilege of no longer employing his services. The reason they won't make a marquee hire is because they don't have the money. Auburn finds itself in the same boat right now. So does Arkansas.
If Auburn decides to send the Gus bus to the junkyard, they owe him $28M. Twenty-eight million dollars, and that doesn't include the buyouts for all the assistants. The largest donation to their athletic department last year was $10M. Chew on that for a minute. They literally don't have the money to buy him out AND go after a new marquee hire. The earliest they could part ways with Gus and not take a beating is after the 2021 season. Auburn can't part ways with Gus unless Arkansas really wants him, will offer him bare minimum of $6M per season, and Auburn can convince Gus to walk so that they can avoid the buyout.
Let's say they fire Gus, and pay the buyout money. Who are they going to hire to replace him after dumping that kind of money? They certainly won't have $7M a season + buyout to toss at a new coach and his assistants, which is what it will take to pull down a huge name. And I don't know of any "huge" names out there right now other than Urban Liar, and in no way do I ever see him having any interest in going to Auburn.
In other words - I think there's a large possibility that we're going to be blessed with Gus for at minimum two more seasons.
When I'm wrong, I'm wrong.