calumnus said:
HKBear97! said:
boredom said:
how much Wilcox and his merry band of mediocrities (or worse) costs is irrelevant. Whether it's $10M or $20M or whatever it's all a sunk cost. At this point owe it to him/them regardless.
From a financial point of view, the question is whether we're better off with Wilcox as the coach or with someone else as the coach with the new coach's compensation being the actual cost. We can pay $5M to go 5-7 with Wilcox as our coach or we can pay $5M + $XM for someone else to have probably a different record. Either way we're paying the $5M so that shouldn't be in the equation. It's whether the $XM for a new coach is worth the difference in result.
Personally, I think we have to take the chance. Our program has 1 foot in the grave. If we believe that around 2030 there is another round of re-alignment musical chairs, we can't wait or we won't have a chair. It's not like having 1 good season in 2029 is enough. We have to have had multiple good seasons with a clearly showing up fan base and TV numbers and etc. That all takes time. It took Tedford 3 years as an example.
It may be a sunk cost, but the money has to come from somewhere. It's a very large sum, particularly by Cal standards and I highly doubt whoever is backing these payments feel the money contractually owed to Wilcox is irrelevant.
If Wilcox stays he gets the same $10.5 million and that money also "has to come from somewhere." Wilcox is getting $10.5 million (plus the $5+ million for this season) no matter what. If we fire him there is an opportunity to negotiate that amount down.
Boredom is right, the relevant cost is "finding" the additional money for the new coach.
Meanwhile we "found" additional money for Rolovich, Gregory and Rivera to be added in full-time non-coaching positions in addition to Wilcox, Harsin and the rest of the actual coaching staff. I really think we are spending just as much trying to prop up Wilcox as it would have or will cost to fire him and give Ron the keys AND the steering wheel or hire an up and coming young coach with a low base and an incentive laden contract.
I really think we are running out of time. The big picture financial situation is only going to get worse the longer we wait, plus leaving little time for a turnaround and to establish upward momentum for a new coach (or replacing them if they don't work out).
Sadly, our Ath dept. has become a clone of our Fed bureaucracy - everyone making crazy money without the ability or will to be and/or demand accountability. All CYA and diversion. No guts whatsoever (what other school would have kept Knowlton on in the face of the swim coach debacle?). Even, I hate to say it, UCLA, as much as I despise them, did SOMETHING.
I thought Lyons, being a biz guy, would start swinging. He has not and, thereby, proven his alliance with the mediocre's. I hate to think that RR is falling into the same pattern. He's becoming just another level of the bureaucracy.
Time for someone to act and deal with the consequences as they arise. Ready, fire, aim. Cal has long since become the home of the perfect plan, accounting for every possible contingency before taking the first step - so the first step is never taken.
PS I don't think you'd have to pay Knowlton a dime, if you fired him for cause and then bled him in court for years. Oh, I know, what kind of message would that send to any candidates for replacement? Only the Knowlton clones out there who want to get away with what he has been.
