A lot of posters on here suggest "incentivizing" a QUALITY head coach's pay…

Not likely, but Maybe… Fun for us retired guys to work through the math…

Could reveal stupid answers…

It is the Cesspool, after all…but here goes:

$1 mil base…

Plus…

$250k per DII or Non-Con win…
$500k per SEC win

$2 mil bonus for 10 wins
$3 mil bonus for 11 wins
Addl $1 mil bonus for CFP
Addl $3 mil bonus for Natty

6 wins - Roughly $3.25 mil
7 wins - $4 mil
8 wins - $4.5 mil
9 wins - $5 mil
10 wins - $7.5 mil ($9.5 with CFP)
11 wins - $10 mil (with CFP)
Natty - $14 mil

My math may be sketchy, but each of those numbers seem about right for the associated production…

6-8 wins won't necessarily keep your job, but it's a responsible pay structure…

winning a natty would be crazy lucrative for A&M. I forget what the measurable impact of the heisman was for the 12th man/a&m foundation, but donations increased by hundreds of millions (i guess the stadium capital campaign was also going on at that time). a championship would see multiples of that.

You could offer a coach $25M to win a natty here and it would be worth it- but I dont think wanting to win is what is holding us back.

I would actually hire young, innovative coaches than guys knowingly walking into their sunset job.

You can do this if you're fine rolling the dice with young, up and coming coaches that don't have other major opportunities.....but why would a guy take this to come to A&M vs take way more guaranteed money to go to <insert any big school here>?

This has come up every year for as long as I can remember and the response is usually some form of "coaches want to compete and prove they're the best and believe in themselves" and that somehow they'll take a higher, unguaranteed payout....

I just don't buy it.

We essentially did this, albeit with a base at 7 mil, which was the bottom half of the SEC. Paid him to hit certain metrics... then turned around and gave him the monster contract anyway.

If you are asking could we really hire someone for a 1 mil base, sure we could. Just would have to pick from D3 schools

The only was you get a good coach with an incentive laden contract is if the total payout for reaching the incentives far exceeds what straight compensation would be.

If a coach is making 10 mm per, no one shows is for a contract that pays a base of 3.5 and gets them to 10 if they meet their objectives. Now, if they can make 20 with a NC, then you'd have some overconfident gunslingers show up.

I haven't Read Elmo's contract, but I assume he already has kickers on top of his fat guaranteed money.

I don't think you could ever get a coach to buy into that unless it was a coach you absolutely did not want.

What I think you could do is offer someone a big contract that had both incentives and penalties built in.

Let's say the next savior of Aggie football we try to purchase costs us a 7 year contract at $13MM per year.

We could offer incentives of an extra $1MM for 11 wins, another $2MM for a 12th win, another $3MM for a 13th win, $5MM for a 14th win, and so on. A Natty would earn the HC neighborhood of $25MM.

At the other end, you would implement a penalty of $1MM per loss for failing to reach 8 wins per year threshold.

In fact, if you could get it in the contract someone ought to toss in failure to achieve minor bowl eligibility constitutes just cause for termination of contract with a predetermined severance, call it $5MM.

If someone has an ego, and thinks they can win with the lavish resources we provide, they'll jump on it.

If someone wants a guarantee of $70-$100 Million in generational wealth, that's not the guy we need to hire.

His contract already has incentivized milestones.

Where we screwed up was the extension which locks us into a longer term.

High end hookers and blow after every win.

This kind of thinking is what got us here. Dumb. Countless good coaches. Main problem is accountability with coaches and the ability to cut ties- which hardly any team can do with the idiotic guaranteed money contracts doled out. Sheer stupidity.

we've already been over this a few years ago and proved wrong the guys who said you couldn't. There are literally hundreds of coaches that would jump at the chance to lead Texas A&M, and some of them would be really good.

Determining which is the hard part.

You have to realize that you are competing with every other top program out there. If a coach can get guaranteed money somewhere else the ONLY reason he has to take an incentive laid contract is if the incentives are REALLY good - ie he could make WAY more money than any guaranteed contract offer. Even then it would be tough to attract the right guy.

Good point A.G.

Ok… Double the original number… Triple it..

Would that work ??

At some point, coaches have to be paid for production….

Or, if the market has the pay skewed, we have to quit griping about how much our 6-6 coach gets paid…

Pick one..

Not one agent is letting a coach they represent accept a contract like this...unless the salary is also gigantic to start.

No, I don't have that sort of bargaining power