If you believe rumors, then Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops would be interested in coaching Notre Dame should the Irish send Charlie Weis packing after five seasons.
The initial thought: Yeah right.
“That’s ridiculous,” Stoops said of the reports on Monday.
According to a story appearing in the Chicago Sun-Times, Stoops is said to have expressed interest in the Fighting Irish to a confidant who then betrayed Stoops confidence. Makes sense?
“Some confidant, huh?” Stoops said to reporters following Monday’s practice. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Notre Dame doesn’t have a job [open]. And I haven’t spoken to any confidants about anything. Outside of trying to beat Texas Tech.”
Logically, it doesn’t make sense for several reasons, beginning with Stoops’ enormous salary and tough-to-swallow buyout clause in excess of $3 million. Stoops is also revered in the state of Oklahoma and the Notre Dame job is nowhere close to what it use to be. Restrictive academic standards and the unwillingness of the Irish faithful to recognize the changing landscape have diminished Notre Dame’s status among elite programs.
Notre Dame, meanwhile, may or may not be looking for a replacement for Weis. We likely won’t know for sure until a day or two following the Irish’s Nov. 28 regular-season finale at Stanford. That’s just how Notre Dame works.
The problem with firing Weis is the cost of buying him out. A few years ago, reacting to false rumors Weis was being pursued by NFL teams, Notre Dame signed its then hot-shot head coach to a 10-year extension that is paying him somewhere between $4 to $5 million annually. The buyout is also said to be around $4 million to get rid of Weis before the contract ends.
So we are talking more than $7 million in buyout money and a contract for Stoops in the neighborhood of $5 million annually to even make sense. Even for a school being paid exclusively by NBC, that’s steep.
But just for fun of it, let’s look at five reasons it would make …
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