OSG CFB: Just How Much Is Kirk Ferentz's Buyout These Days...??? Still Un-Buyoutable...

((HT: Iowa State Daily Online))

Iowa State beat Iowa today in the annual CyHawk affair on a last-second field goal by Cole Netten with two seconds left in regulation.

Netten missed his first attempt, but Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz had called timeout to try and ice him.

Didn't work and now the Cyclones are 1-2 after their embarassing loss to North Dakota State and the Hawkeyes (2-1) have now lost three of the last four in the series.

Here's Paul Rhoads talking about his kicker...


And, now, we address the larger question. Frankly, it's one of the larger questions in the state after a day like today.

It is commonly known that Ferentz has the worst contract for a state employee in the history of contracts for state employees short of Huey Long.

And, for that, he can thank AD Gary Barta for base salaries, longevity bonuses, and anything else resembling supplemental payments that Barta threw at him when the contract was signed and extended.

Patrick Vint over at Bleacher Report did a tremendously face-slapping awareness piece IN 2012 on the sheer madness of the contract and why a buyout will NEVER HAPPEN UNTIL THE CONTRACT IS OVER... and, then, it just won't be renewed.

In the year 2020... let that sink in for a moment...

His contract is SO BAD it cannot be bought out, so a program is stuck with him unless someone befriends Warren Buffet or T. Boone Pickensian-type folks over the next five years or so.

If we extrapolate Vint's base number for buying out in 2012 dollars using his "75-percent of his base salary" figure, and we fire Kirk Ferentz the second this story is published, we're looking at a minimum of 52 payments of $219,742 or $11,426,584...

And that says nothing of any kind of hidden settlements or other hidden paragraphs in the Ferentz-ian contract.

It's almost the Peter Principle of contracts and there's nothing the school or the state can do about it.

Barta is more than happy, apparently, to fire one of the more nationally recognized field hockey coaches in the country when he let Tracey Griesbaum go with three weeks before the 2014 season was going to start a month ago- allegedly when five players went to Barta and claimed that Griesbaum called a player "fat."

Barta fired Griesbaum without cause and went straight to the buyout portion of the contract for that sport- and, probably, ruined it on campus.

A particular paragraph late in the Black Heart piece by Vint speaks volumes about where Barta's head is in the Iowa Athletic Program:

"A football workout actually put nine players in the hospital not long ago, yet not one person was fired or even reprimanded; the strength coach responsible for the workout got a 'Coach of the Year' award from the program two months later. And if yelling at players is grounds for dismissal, then Gary Barta has obviously not watched the basketball coach he hired four years ago."

So, if anyone is looking for any kind of success in Iowa City- good luck with that until Barta and Ferentz are gone...

SIX YEARS FROM NOW!!!

McCaffrey Apologizes For Epic Nutty

((HT: ESPN/Katz))

Let's start by showing you what went down in the loss to Wisconsin...


He officially apologized and AD Gary Barta came out with a prepared statement...

"I've met with Coach McCaffery regarding last night's ejection from the game in Madison. He knows he crossed a line of acceptable behavior and accepts responsibility for his actions.

"All staff at the University of Iowa fully support the Big Ten Conference's sportsmanship policy's fundamental elements, including civility and respect toward opponents and game officials. Fran has my full support moving forward."

McCaffrey talked to Andy Katz:

"There were a couple of calls there that I had taken exception to and felt like 'I gotta change this thing a little bit.' I got the T. The thing that I regret was getting the second T. I didn't want to get the second T. It was not my intention and it impacted the game in a way that wasn't good for our team.

"Anytime a coach does something like that, you feel horrible about it because you don't ever want to do anything other than to help your team win a game. I felt like we needed a shift -- we needed something to change -- and my intention was to do that but not get the second T. I feel terrible about that."

So, Why Does Kirk Ferentz Still Have A Job...???

((HT: WHO-TV))

Because he has a four-million dollar per year deal that has him coaching through 2020

Kirk Ferentz has a contract through January 31, 2020, that pays him between $1.87M and $2.07M per season in base salary, plus another $1.48M per season in "recurring supplemental payments."

He also gets a "longevity bonus" which requires Iowa AD Gary Barta pay him between $325,000 and $575,000 on an escalating scale throughout the balance of his deal...

In the year 2020...

The buyout clause in Kirk Ferentz's contract mandates that Barta pay him 75% of his base salary if he is terminated without cause- $219,142 per month until the contract ends in January 2020.

He is the state's highest paid employee, making $1.4 million more than the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics director Jean Robillard.

Oh, Iowa lost to Northern Illinois yesterday...
Here's the highlights...


So, why is Kirk Ferentz still employed...???

He's too expensive to fire...