Bill Clark becomes highest paid coach in CUSA @UAB with a salary of just under 1.5 million through 2024.
Clark has done a very good job at UAB, so I will say he's a good coach. But, for programs like UAB deals like this often come back and bite 'em hard. What happens when, say in 2020, and 2021, UAB goes 3-9 or 4-8....??? They will have a coach being paid a lot, and who still has three years left on an expensive contract, especially for a CUSA G5 program.
UAB will be next year's FAU
UAB's problem next year will be youth. A problem any school that dropped the program should have is youth. At least they have a great coach who can coach 'em up. We have a 6 year guy who has "youth problems".
I hope Clark and UAB lose today's CUSA championship by 4 TD's. Without those 37 seniors, most of whom are between the ages of 24 and 27, UAB is going to be much less talented in future years. This was supposed to be UAB's year. This is the year Bill Clark was counting on.
So the UAB AD obviously knows what the team is comprised of now and the age of the players. So how does Bill Clark get this kind of contract when they know they will be losing this many seniors? It's almost like LONG TERM contracts are signed with the IN THE MOMENT performance. He must believe that Clark is a great coach (instructer and teacher of the game), a great recruiter, an excptional personnel manager of his assistant coaches. Or is the AD just succumbing to the usual coaching carousel pressure and sign the popular coach at all costs and worry about the future later.
Time will tell if you are right, but I have a hunch that you are. I've never understood why G5 schools make contracts so long. Seems counter productive to me. I mean, if a big school wants them, they are gone no matter what. If he turns out to be a dud, that's gonna be a whole lot of weight to drag around for a long time for a program like UAB.
But, Clark joins an ever-growing list of coaches who have accomplished two things Holtz hasn't here: win a CUSA championship, and win 10 games.
I guess Charlotte, and ODU, and who knows who else, maybe FIU, will all achieve a CUSA title and 10 wins before we do.
Bill Snyder out at K State again, and this time for good. As I recall, and maybe my memory is off on this, K State eventually hired Snyder in about 1988 to fill the vacancy created when the previous coach was fired after blowing a 28-0 lead over a "cupcake" at their homecoming game....that "cupcake" was Tech. The Dawgs rallied for a 31-28 win in Manhattan.
That's how I remember it, anyway.