Not sure how his contract is worded, but typically a school is still on the hook if there’s a balance remaining if he takes a new job. Not always, but sometimes.

Meaning, if he’s owed $5 mm, takes a job for $3mm, then Tenn would owe him $2mm. In other cases, if he takes a job at all in football they are off the hook. Some have heirarchy clauses – if he’s a coordinator they would owe x percent; if he’s a head coach nothing. Things like that.

I would assume the first option that Tech92 laid out. It’s the easiest to arrange and count out. If not that, then perhaps a percent reduction. Using the $5mil buyout / $3mil head coaching gig example from Tech92, perhaps only 75% of the $3mil gets knocked off the buyout so that UT still owes $2.25 mil. That at least gives some finanacial incentive to find a new head coaching gig.

But again, I don’t know.

so if he has 8 years left he gets $6 mm, but if he’s down to one year he gets a gold watch. You are basically giving him enough money to live on while scanning the classifieds for cigar store indian jobs. He’s got kids to feed remember.

I don’t know what happens if he signs a 5 year deal with someone else immediately, but I’d say if he does go somewhere else, the next coach’s contract will have a non-compete or similar clause. Lots of times these buyouts are a reaction. When WVU’s old basketball coach went to Michigan, he had to pay a buyout (I think $2.5 mm) to WVU. Problem was, they didn’t put a schedule to pay it back in the contract so he could have paid $5 a year for a lot of years. Well, Bob Huggins has 36 hours or something like that to pay his “liquidated damages.”