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!!!

Drew Brees REALLY Wants Jimmy Graham To Stay...

((HT: Dan Patrick Show))

And he even went to the highest point of the first floor of the Manscraper to express his desires for Saints GM Mickey Loomis to keep his favorite tight end around...

Go the the 8:55 mark...


See what the Roman Numeral Classic does to folks...???

Causes them to channel Rocky during his run...

Or something...

Cubs TV Contract Up For Bid, WGN Could Lose Them...

((HT: Chicago Tribune/Channick))

For the first time since 1948, the Chicago Cubs and WGN-TV could not be television partners after the current contract expires after next season...

Which, for a lot of early cable heads like the HQ, meant we grew up on things like this...


But, what this could mean are the Cubs could be going the way of the Dodgers and creating their own network. Or they could be doing it to jack up the rates for CSN Chicago and WGN. Everyone could be be just posturing to get more money, more games, or just more stuff...

From Channick on the dollars:

The Cubs get about $20 million to air 70 games each year on WGN. If the team didn’t give notice to opt out at this point in the contract, the deal would run through 2022 at the current rate, and the Cubs would lose any leverage for renegotiating the broadcast rights, according to sources.