Urban Meyer paid to stay
Urban Meyer, coach for the University of Florida football team, which has won two national championships in three years, got a pay raise. Meyer’s set to make an additional $750,000 a year, bringing his annual paycheck to some $4 million, which makes him the highest paid coach in the South Eastern Conference. He’s only a few bucks shy of what USC and Notre Dame’s coaches make.
But Meyer’s just within the top five highest paid college coaches.
Speaking of Notre Dame, Urban Meyer has expressed that a head coaching job for the Fighting Irish would be his dream job. Notre Dame can obviously pay him more, since the school is one of the most profitable institutions in the nation, with some $6 billion in endowments and a $9 billion NBC contract.
The UF athletic director has made it clear that Notre Dame won’t get the highly sought after coach without a fight, and that UF intends to keep its programs successful by any means necessary, even with past financial difficulties.
Whether or not we will see Urban Meyer in Gainesville through the 2015 season remains to be seen, since he only has a $500,000 buyout on his contract. If Notre Dame wished to buy him out of it, the money would hardly be missed and would likely be considered a great investment in the future of the football program.
Meyer has had plenty of success with the Gators, forming a legacy that no coach other than Steve Spurrier can claim to compete with, so any decision he makes will be one that is carefully balanced with the full understanding that betrayal in Gator Nation comes with a lot of baggage.
Rob @ August 4, 2009