Fire Gus (merged threads)

[TigerFanAU 586]

3 minutes ago, gr82b4au said:

I don’t either. Now if we lose out and go 4-8 there might be an issue with retaining him. 

If we go 5-7, and miss out on Bowl game money then I think there's a chance he's gone. 

Not sure where we would get the buyout money from, because I think we'll owe him $14MM within 30 days, but losing out on any bowl money will certainly hurt Auburn and Malzahn's seat scorching hot.

[TigerFanAU 586]

3 minutes ago, Butthead said:

i am trying to save the university $50 million

I would think his guaranteed money would be paid out over several years, and if he gets another job then that school will cover a portion of the remaining buyout. 

[aujeff11 6,243]

19 minutes ago, Butthead said:

I've never worked in an athletic department, but I would think the AD could involve himself in such a way as to drive Gus crazy.  

I suggested something similar to @keesler last week. Money is important, but we can take something else away that’s important to him, his pride. Take that away, he either finally makes the right adjustments or he balks and we get out of the contract for insubordination as he is still an employee of the university. 

[Butthead 525]

i am not certain Gus would be a hot commodity on the head coaching market.

[aujeff11 6,243]

3 minutes ago, TigerFanAU said:

I would think his guaranteed money would be paid out over several years, and if he gets another job then that school will cover a portion of the remaining buyout. 

 I don’t think that clause is in his contract. If so, that’s a criminal offense to sanity. 

[kwagoner 214]

6 minutes ago, Butthead said:

i am trying to save the university $50 million, not make a hypothetical new coach happy.  plus, most people that are really, really good at their chosen fields thrive on pressure.

If the work environment isn’t positive, you aren’t going to attract those really, really good at their job. 

Pressure on the field is one thing, pressure knowing the historical drama/pettiness from your employer is another.

[Eagle Eye 7 2,535]

10 minutes ago, TigerFanAU said:

If we go 5-7, and miss out on Bowl game money then I think there's a chance he's gone. 

Not sure where we would get the buyout money from, because I think we'll owe him $14MM within 30 days, but losing out on any bowl money will certainly hurt Auburn and Malzahn's seat scorching hot.

Folks need to understand. Auburn can and will fire Gus if they choose. They have the money to do it . AU football brings in $100+ million a year. The town get millions more. Even the school itself gains Financially due to growth in Student population . Truth be known Gus could cost AU a lot more than $32 million it would lose paying him. This isn’t just about liking or not liking Gus. This is about the AU financial impact that it would suffer to retain him. After reviewing others in the know this weekend  I am confident a 5-7 or maybe even a 6-6 will cause Gus to be fired. Compare it to going out and purchasing a new car for $30 thousand and not getting a warranty. Then all of a sudden a problem occurs and it will only run max speed of 20. So what do you do drive it at 20 for a couple of years or just bite the bullet and by anothe car. Hopefully next time we think to get a warrenty.

[AUsince72 11,084]

5 minutes ago, Butthead said:

i am not certain Gus would be a hot commodity on the head coaching market.

But he'd be a great Quarterbacks Coach.

😏

[casatiger 514]

4 minutes ago, Eagle Eye 7 said:

Folks need to understand. Auburn can and will fire Gus if they choose. They have the money to do it . AU football brings in $100+ million a year. The town get millions more. Even the school itself gains Financially due to growth in Student population . Truth be known Gus could cost AU a lot more than $32 million it would lose paying him. This isn’t just about liking or not liking Gus. This is about the AU financial impact that it would suffer to retain him. After reviewing others in the know this weekend  I am confident a 5-7 or maybe even a 6-6 will cause Gus to be fired. Compare it to going out and purchasing a new car for $30 thousand and not getting a warranty. Then all of a sudden a problem occurs and it will only run max speed of 20. So what do you do drive it at 20 for a couple of years or just bite the bullet and by anothe car. Hopefully next time we think to get a warrenty.

Agree with everything you say here.  What if our new coach can only run a max speed of 20?   Should we expect any better results from the people who hired Malzahn or at least gave him his extension?   Will Green be given full authority to hire the next coach?   It is clear we are headed in the wrong direction fast.   We will take a huge PR hit for firing him and paying the buyout.  We better hit a homerun with the next hire and make people forget about it cause we are winning so much.  We should have let him go to Arkansas and gone after Mullen.  

[leglessdan 1,934]

I love the people in this thread that run with the "REAL FAN" attacks. Gimme a damn break. This is a simple supply and demand scenario. Myself and I'm sure many others aren't going to continue to travel, spend money, take days off of work or rearrange family schedules to continue to watch this soup sandwich product on the field. Not when they can still watch on TV without spending a dime or interrupting their daily lives. I usually try to catch a couple of home games a year as my work schedule allows, but in no way and I going to inconvenience myself and drive 6 hrs round trip, spend hundreds of dollars to support this ineptness. But.....I guess this is where we're at AGAIN.....attempting to question people on their level of fandom. 

[wcware 1,365]

No more time or money from me until a change is made

[TigerFanAU 586]

15 minutes ago, Eagle Eye 7 said:

Folks need to understand. Auburn can and will fire Gus if they choose. They have the money to do it .

How do you know? The lack of significant upgrades to Jordan Hare and the lack of upgrades in general makes me doubt that we have all this money.  Alabama just embarked on a 10-year $600 MILLION dollar athletic facilities rennovation. Northwestern just spent $260 million on a new football practice facility..... yes, NORTHWESTERN. Texas A&M spent $480 million on stadium upgrades.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but we've only spent money on that damn jumbotron and the $28 million addition to Jordan Hare, right? Around $61 million total?   We have yet to see Auburn spend $100's of millions of dollars. So either we really don't have money, or we aren't gaining the trust of big money people. Or maybe we have it and instead of spending it we're just putting it in a piggy bank somewhere.

 

 

 

[Auctoritas 2,828]

Having had a couple days to step away from the computer and calm down, I am wavering in this.

Product on the field is crap, and I don't see it turning around, and I think he is more an 8-win coach vs a 10 win coach.

(Then again, he's had those two seasons where he was dang near unstoppable.)

But my hesitation is, as others have said, buyout money for him and assistants. Butmore than that - there's a lot of ancillary stuff that tells me we should wait. 

Someone mentioned assistants like Garner and Steele leaving. That is a hard pill to swallow. Who do you replace them with?

More than that, though, is who do you replace Malzhan with? The crop of coaching hires this year is underwhelming to me. A few retreads, a few retreads with sex-related baggage, some people with skeletons (something is up with Venables in my opinion), and then some pie in the sky hopes and dreams. Unfortunately, if you pay Gus's buyout and assistants' buyouts, we aren't going to be able to throw the kind of money to entice an established (or retired) head coach. So then you're looking - again - at a midmajor coach looking to prove themselves or someone 1 or 2 years into a power 5 gig. Look what that's gotten us the last two times. There may be some good options, but I strongly feel like it's going to be a guessing game, and we aren't going to be pleased with the answer.

Aside from lack of money, the other reason we will have an issue landing a good, established coach- we literally just gave a guy a major payday that one would think would give some job security. One bad season into the contract (granted, there's history, but not this bad of it) and we are going to cut bait. We already have a reputation of being fickle and not loyal - why would anyone like Gary Patterson want to risk leaving a sure thing elsewhere to come to Auburn just to get dumped? We love Auburn, for everyone else its a business decision.

We are in an untenable position. We have crap on the field and have to weigh not just the return on investment and the intangible and societal costs (at least as pertains to AU fans) - but also the replacement costs. I'm not sure that there's a strong answer either way. 

[auburn4ever 1,266]

If we go 5-7 or 6-6, we shouldn't even think about going to any bowl game.

[aukooze91 11]

On 10/13/2018 at 2:17 PM, TitanTiger said:

Try to negotiate it down or spread it out over a longer time frame.  I think right now we owe 50% of it now and the rest is paid over 3 years.  Offer him an extra $2M but the whole thing paid out over 8-10 years and he can keep the Ford F-150.  This has to end.

This is what I read in the contract.  The numbers are what being paid now and then how much is owed to him after December 1st, I believe.

If you wait until after December 1st:       

42,000,000          

75%       

 31,500,000        Amount agreed to be paid by Auburn

50%                        Must pay 50% of amount owed by 30 days after dismissal

 15,750,000        Amount to paid within 30 days of dismissal

 15,750,000        Remaining amount to be paid over the next 60 months

 

I would then tell the two boosters who said to do the contract to ante up and this their fault.  Otherwise, we don't need them anymore.  Jay had nothing to do with this contract (and this will be the only time you see me post something positive about his tenure); two boosters got the lawyers to draw it up and Leath signed it because he was the only one of any authority still around.

 

Oh and I forgot to emphasize this:  ALL of this is negotiable, because they do another contract that's to buy him out etc, so they could change the payment terms etc.  

One more edit.  JJ did sign the contract on January 26 2018.  I thought Greene took over before then?  Who knows.

 

[gravejd 3,270]

Put me in the boat of people who are against firing Gus this season. I think gus is a bad coach. I think next season will be worse then this season. I think Gus will likely be fired after next season is worse then this one. But with all that said....AU gave him a huge contract and now we have to take our medicine. It sucks....i hate it. But this is where we are. 

Also, i wish people would focus on gus doing a poor job on the field and stop with the personal attacks. This guy just donated 2 million dollars to AU for us to improve our facilities. He doesn't want bad things for AU. He doesn't want to be a bad football coach. He doesn't want AU to not do good this season. That 2 million dollar donation speaks volumes to me. He wants to do well and he wants what is best for AU. Its just not working out for what ever reasons.

So lets all man up and take our medicine. AU is bad this year. AU will be expected to win 1 more game this year. Everybody let that sink in. That is our new reality. If you watch the remaining games with that viewpoint then perhaps seeing the rest of the beatdowns will won't be so bad. 

[DAG 33,988]

18 minutes ago, gravejd said:

Put me in the boat of people who are against firing Gus this season. I think gus is a bad coach. I think next season will be worse then this season. I think Gus will likely be fired after next season is worse then this one. But with all that said....AU gave him a huge contract and now we have to take our medicine. It sucks....i hate it. But this is where we are. 

Also, i wish people would focus on gus doing a poor job on the field and stop with the personal attacks. This guy just donated 2 million dollars to AU for us to improve our facilities. He doesn't want bad things for AU. He doesn't want to be a bad football coach. He doesn't want AU to not do good this season. That 2 million dollar donation speaks volumes to me. He wants to do well and he wants what is best for AU. Its just not working out for what ever reasons.

So lets all man up and take our medicine. AU is bad this year. AU will be expected to win 1 more game this year. Everybody let that sink in. That is our new reality. If you watch the remaining games with that viewpoint then perhaps seeing the rest of the beatdowns will won't be so bad. 

That’s crap. The reality is this team has enough talent to beat everyone safe for UGA and Bama. That should be the expectation. The expectations should not be decreased due to internal shortcomings.

[AUwent 3,753]

1 hour ago, Auctoritas said:

Having had a couple days to step away from the computer and calm down, I am wavering in this.

Product on the field is crap, and I don't see it turning around, and I think he is more an 8-win coach vs a 10 win coach.

(Then again, he's had those two seasons where he was dang near unstoppable.)

But my hesitation is, as others have said, buyout money for him and assistants. Butmore than that - there's a lot of ancillary stuff that tells me we should wait. 

Someone mentioned assistants like Garner and Steele leaving. That is a hard pill to swallow. Who do you replace them with?

More than that, though, is who do you replace Malzhan with? The crop of coaching hires this year is underwhelming to me. A few retreads, a few retreads with sex-related baggage, some people with skeletons (something is up with Venables in my opinion), and then some pie in the sky hopes and dreams. Unfortunately, if you pay Gus's buyout and assistants' buyouts, we aren't going to be able to throw the kind of money to entice an established (or retired) head coach. So then you're looking - again - at a midmajor coach looking to prove themselves or someone 1 or 2 years into a power 5 gig. Look what that's gotten us the last two times. There may be some good options, but I strongly feel like it's going to be a guessing game, and we aren't going to be pleased with the answer.

Aside from lack of money, the other reason we will have an issue landing a good, established coach- we literally just gave a guy a major payday that one would think would give some job security. One bad season into the contract (granted, there's history, but not this bad of it) and we are going to cut bait. We already have a reputation of being fickle and not loyal - why would anyone like Gary Patterson want to risk leaving a sure thing elsewhere to come to Auburn just to get dumped? We love Auburn, for everyone else its a business decision.

We are in an untenable position. We have crap on the field and have to weigh not just the return on investment and the intangible and societal costs (at least as pertains to AU fans) - but also the replacement costs. I'm not sure that there's a strong answer either way. 

Yeah, I can see the benefits of waiting another year, then canning him. But Leath? Get him out of here ASAP.

[nutspanther 73]

So he's guaranteed 75%? I don't understand why people are afraid of the buyout? He's guaranteed that money anyway, just spend it now so you don't lose it times ten in tickets, merchandise, contracts, etc.

[TigerFanAU 586]

1 hour ago, aukooze91 said:

I would then tell the two boosters who said to do the contract to ante up and this their fault.

Who are they? 

[aujeff11 6,243]

2 hours ago, Auctoritas said:

Having had a couple days to step away from the computer and calm down, I am wavering in this.

Product on the field is crap, and I don't see it turning around, and I think he is more an 8-win coach vs a 10 win coach.

(Then again, he's had those two seasons where he was dang near unstoppable.)

But my hesitation is, as others have said, buyout money for him and assistants. Butmore than that - there's a lot of ancillary stuff that tells me we should wait. 

Someone mentioned assistants like Garner and Steele leaving. That is a hard pill to swallow. Who do you replace them with?

More than that, though, is who do you replace Malzhan with? The crop of coaching hires this year is underwhelming to me. A few retreads, a few retreads with sex-related baggage, some people with skeletons (something is up with Venables in my opinion), and then some pie in the sky hopes and dreams. Unfortunately, if you pay Gus's buyout and assistants' buyouts, we aren't going to be able to throw the kind of money to entice an established (or retired) head coach. So then you're looking - again - at a midmajor coach looking to prove themselves or someone 1 or 2 years into a power 5 gig. Look what that's gotten us the last two times. There may be some good options, but I strongly feel like it's going to be a guessing game, and we aren't going to be pleased with the answer.

Aside from lack of money, the other reason we will have an issue landing a good, established coach- we literally just gave a guy a major payday that one would think would give some job security. One bad season into the contract (granted, there's history, but not this bad of it) and we are going to cut bait. We already have a reputation of being fickle and not loyal - why would anyone like Gary Patterson want to risk leaving a sure thing elsewhere to come to Auburn just to get dumped? We love Auburn, for everyone else its a business decision.

We are in an untenable position. We have crap on the field and have to weigh not just the return on investment and the intangible and societal costs (at least as pertains to AU fans) - but also the replacement costs. I'm not sure that there's a strong answer either way. 

Yes. All of this.

[Eagle Eye 7 2,535]

3 hours ago, TigerFanAU said:

How do you know? The lack of significant upgrades to Jordan Hare and the lack of upgrades in general makes me doubt that we have all this money.  Alabama just embarked on a 10-year $600 MILLION dollar athletic facilities rennovation. Northwestern just spent $260 million on a new football practice facility..... yes, NORTHWESTERN. Texas A&M spent $480 million on stadium upgrades.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but we've only spent money on that damn jumbotron and the $28 million addition to Jordan Hare, right? Around $61 million total?   We have yet to see Auburn spend $100's of millions of dollars. So either we really don't have money, or we aren't gaining the trust of big money people. Or maybe we have it and instead of spending it we're just putting it in a piggy bank somewhere.

 

 

 

Believe it or not read this https://auburntigers.com/news/2018/1/25/Auburn_Athletics_posts_record_revenues_for_Fiscal_Year_2017.aspx

for 2016 and 2017 we made about $147 million and actually had $15 million each year. That includes putting money away for future maintenance of facility. Again remember I’m sure to someone like you this seems like a lot. AU can and will write the check. As I said your bot going to risk hundreds of millions of dollars on a 32 million buyout. This is big money football you can’t afford to have a couple of bad years and become irrelevant. We make more from our Under Armor contract than it would cost to ditch Gus.

[Eagle Eye 7 2,535]

On 10/14/2018 at 1:18 AM, AUJedi said:

I get sick of hearing crap like this! This is typical Auburn loser victim mentality.  ‘Poor pitiful us. Bama cheats, we can’t win’. I don’t deny stuff don’t go on there. Probably goes on everywhere, but if this is the whole reason for Saban’s success, then what happened to coaches like Shula and Dubose?? Where’s their championships?? I never saw their players play with the intensity that Bama players play with now.  I hate the turds as much as anyone, but give Saban his due. The man is successful because he’s worked his butt off recruiting and coaching. I despise tide fans but I can’t help but have respect for Saban and what he’s built there. 

Saben is not sucessful because he is cheating. He successful because he sees a problem he fixes it. If it takes new coaches no problem. When the new uptempo offense came in he changed the type defensive players he recruited and changed the way they play. He was hung on trying to keep a simple offense till it became obvious that he had to change. Then he went and got a new OC and give him room to work. The point is he wants to win more than he wants to prove he is smart. Does he bend the corners on the rules yes. He takes advantage to any thing he can. I read an article by Kiffen tat he said Saben looks at everything not just on the field but off too. He brought in the tent on the field for the purpose of giving the opposing team any valuable info on how hurt or not the player is. He has people test the winds in the stadium to find any advantage. They talk about the sun during the day or the lights at night. He doesn’t leave anything to guess at. Notice this year they attack early out of the gate. Because he knows when you get an early advantage that make the opponent get out of there comfort zone. The only thing Gus thinks about is if he has enough Double Bubble to last the whole game. Probably has an assistant just to carry his gum for him.

[TigerFanAU 586]

22 minutes ago, Eagle Eye 7 said:

Again remember I’m sure to someone like you this seems like a lot.

No need to get personal. I'm in finance and see plenty of money in my line of work. It doesn't necessarily go to me, but I work with a lot of it.

And $32mil is alot of money right now. The Harbert Family recruiting center addition to Jordan Hare cost $28 million. With Malzahn's buyout money Auburn could build a matching second one on the other side of the jumbotron and still have $4mil leftover. The Plainsman Park player development facility cost $4million. So that's 2 facilities that cost as much as one man's buyout..... Gus Malzahn.

Maybe we have it, I'm sure we do, but to act like $32mil isn't a significant amount of money is ignoring the fact and putting heads in the sand.

[WDE0007 166]

I would hope that Auburn signed off on the buyout amount after crunching numbers and seeing what they could realistically afford. I would like to think those involved in the negotiations and approval brought up the possibility of losing seasons and what would happen in the event he wasn't producing the expected results, and then discussed how they'd handle the buyout if he were to be fired. But quite frankly, I don't know how things like that work, so I'm probably way off with my hopes of how his contract negotiation even went down and got signed off on.