When's the Right Time To Buy Another School's Football Coach?

This past week college football has been dominated by the Heisman Trophy selection, bowl talk, and Notre Dame's hire of Brian Kelly as its next coach.

The hire of Kelly garnished the most attention partly because it's Notre Dame, and because Kelly left the undefeated Cincinnati Bearcats to assume his new title, while their season was still in progress.

Cincinnati will play the 12-1 Florida Gators in this year's Sugar Bowl Jan 1, 2010, in New Orleans.

This has been a very controversial hire.  Negotiations appear to have taken place, with Kelly or his representatives, before the Bearcats regular season was complete.  Kelly's official acceptance of his new position came last Friday, at Notre Dame.

Some fans believe that the reason so much attention and criticism has been directed toward this situation is simply because, "it's Notre Dame." 

That may have something to do with it, but this case doesn't stand alone as an example of a large football power sweeping down on a smaller school, and luring their coach away.

In 2004, Urban Meyer had contracted to take over the coaching reigns at the University of Florida.  The deal was complete well before his undefeated Utah team had played in the Fiesta Bowl that season.  Meyer was able to remain at Utah, long enough to coach the Utes to a victory over Pittsburgh.

In 2007, the University of Michigan negotiated with West Virginia's Rich Rodriguez at some point late in the season.  In a bitter break up between Rodriguez and the West Virginia fans, as Rodriguez left a 10-2 West Virginia team to go to Michigan. 

Rodriguez didn't hang around to coach the Mountaineers in the Fiesta Bowl.  Bill Stewart, who is presently head coach of West Virginia, led the Mountaineers to a huge upset win over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.

Both Meyer's and Rodriguez's decisions to change positions caused quite a stir.  In Rodriguez's case, emotions dragged on for a long time.  There was a dispute over a large buy-out that eventually went to court.

These three cases bring to light the question, "When is the appropriate time to hire another college's football coach?"  When's the right time to start negotiations, and when is the right time to make certain that one is interested in another school's coach?

Things would be a lot easier for everyone if the NCAA made it clear that no negotiations could start before the last football game of the season.  Even though there is no NCAA ruling, that's pretty much the way it works in college basketball.

The NBA, NFL, and MLB have seen a need for guidelines, and have adopted "tampering" rules which allow and disallow negotiations with other teams contracted players and coaches, at certain times during the year.

This isn't a perfect system, but it actually has an affect on professional sports, and there have been many instances of large fines levied against offenders.

College football remains unregulated.  We have seen more coaches leaving every year for coaching positions at other schools, and fail to fulfill the length of their contracts in the process.

In a nutshell, these kinds of actions by the schools, and the coaches they seek, unfortunately fall too many times into the category of "dirty politics." 

Too many players feel deserted by coaches who preached commitment, finding out that their idea of commitment was only for the players, not the coach.

Too many coaching avalanches have occurred, where as soon as one coach makes an early more, another coach jumps at the opening created.  Then they start to fall like dominoes.

Too much NCAA hypocrisy appears when the coaches are allowed to break contracts at will, while the players have to sit out a year if they want to transfer schools.

Fans rationalize the behavior of the schools doing the hiring, and the coaches doing the leaving, by saying things like "everyone does it."  They point out that, "everyone is entitled to search for a better job."

I've heard Notre Dame fans make the claim that, "They knew who their man was and they acted.  They didn't sit around and take a chance he would accept another job or re-sign with Cincinnati."

Bottom line:  Notre Dame, Florida, and Michigan disrupted another team's season, in moves which could be labeled unethical and self-serving.

They disrupted championship season's where BCS bowls were on the line, and the coaches misrepresented themselves to the players.  These players were greatly responsible for the success of the coaches.

This past month, Notre Dame decided to interrupt Cincinnati's season, and Notre Dame isn't even going to a bowl game.  They don't even need a coach to run the 15 practices the NCAA allows for bowl prep.

When Charlie Weis was fired, after five years as the Irish coach, Notre Dame wanted to get a new coach in place as soon as possible.  They couldn't wait, they couldn't push the process back a couple of weeks and make it possible for Brian Kelly to coach the Bearcats in the Sugar Bowl.

And it appears that Notre Dame steamrolled their way to Kelly.  Kelly speaks of his beloved Notre Dame as a childhood dream of his, but let's face it, a huge guaranteed contract was an offer that not too many mortals could refuse.

So we've reached this situation—it happens every year—with the irresponsibility of the NCAA, yes!  But the schools have to take responsibility for their actions.

If fans can rationalize entering into negotiations before the regular season has ended, and hiring another school's coach before the bowl season has concluded, I ask this question of them.

Since we know that coaching contracts are made to be broken, and since we know that the hiring school is more than happy to take care of the buy-out, when is the appropriate time to hire another school's football coach?

Is it after the bowls are over?  Is it towards the end of the season, or is it after the third, fourth or fifth game of the season?  If you realize you've identified your man, and you can afford to pay the buy-out, why not do it anytime—everyone does it!