It appears as if Notre Dame is now paying the price of signing Charlie Weis to an exorbitant extension in the first year of his tenure. If you remember back in ’05, Weis signed a seven year extension that took him through ’15, worth around $40 million in total value. Weis I believe is three years into that extension, so the school would need to buy out the remaining seven years of the deal. Some reports last week suggested the buyout wouldn’t be as costly as initially anticipated. That logic suggested the school would only need to buy Weis out at the base salary amount of his contract, not the total value. The base salary probably reflects less than 25% of Weis actual salary.
Now WNDU is saying a buyout would cost ND around $20 million, considering they’d have to pay almost the entire amount of the remaining contract. One major problem they’re facing is that the school might not even have enough money available to even pay for a buyout. To that end, the school could be contacting alumni in efforts to raise money to fund a Weis buyout. Seriously, I cannot remember money ever being this much of an issue when it came to hiring or firing a coach in college football. How can you afford to sign a guy to such a monster deal and not leave yourself any outs? Alabama did that with Nick Saban, but at least they’re getting a run at a perfect season first. Notre Dame is being punished for their capricious actions in ’05, namely extending a coach for losing a game (against USC). As desperately as they may need a new coach, it appears as if they might be stuck!
