If I'm Keli...
- Thread starter CapeCodKnight
- Start date
Exactly the threshold for making a good faith effort is fairly low. Just by interviewing for jobs you've likely met the threshold. However, you wouldn't if you were offered a position you interviewed for and turned it down.
I would probably go more like this.
Keli: Hello James
JF Voice Mail--Please leave a message
Keli: Hi James this is Keli from Rutgers and I would like to talk to you about being our next head coach. Hello? I think I just got hung up on by his voice mail.
Throwing shade? Tate must have okayed teh Kelly hire and his contract. Zinn's background is mostly compliance.. fundraising.. which is good and needed. But Tate rejected exec search firm work product for AD hire... which is fine is Zinn succeeds.. saved money. But we are talking about changing the head football coach. If it is "throwing shade" to have doubts.. then guilty as charged.
Tell us you've never negotiated a major contract without telling us you've never negotiate a major contact.
You don't seem to understand how things work. If things at LSU work the way they do at Rutgers, the BOG approves major hires like football and basketball coaches.
And let's say Tate "okayed' the Brian Kelly hire. It was a good hire at the time. Brian Kelly sh!!t the bed after he got there. Sh!!!t happens.
And Tate DID NOT reject the exec search firm work product. They identified a #1 and a #2, both who passed on the job.
Now that the facts are straight, no need to throw shade at Tate or Keli for Brian Kelly and the mess that exists there, which is largely due to Keli's boss, who was there when Tate arrived, and the Gov, who is a total asshat. He's yammering on about how Kelly's buyout will cost the taxpayers over $50 Mil, like an asshat NJ.com reporter, when he should know there is a donor fund that covers that.
Any other questions?
Okay.. it was reported Tate fired the search firm to hire Zinn.. NJ.com, iirc. You tell me that was after 1 and 2 declined... declined what offers? Were they low-balled so he could just hire someone he knew? I don't know any of that.. I do know this is a rookie AD who never hired a head football coach and we are in a difficult position with buyouts and resources
You don't seem to understand how things work. If things at LSU work the way they do at Rutgers, the BOG approves major hires like football and basketball coaches.
And let's say Tate "okayed' the Brian Kelly hire. It was a good hire at the time. Brian Kelly sh!!t the bed after he got there. Sh!!!t happens.
And Tate DID NOT reject the exec search firm work product. They identified a #1 and a #2, both who passed on the job.
Now that the facts are straight, no need to throw shade at Tate or Keli for Brian Kelly and the mess that exists there, which is largely due to Keli's boss, who was there when Tate arrived, and the Gov, who is a total asshat. He's yammering on about how Kelly's buyout will cost the taxpayers over $50 Mil, like an asshat NJ.com reporter, when he should know there is a donor fund that covers that.
Any other questions?
So.. yeah, I have questions....
And the part about replacing Schiano? What gives you any faith it can be done well?
I measure my faith that, once this NIL situation gets more predictable that Schiano can adjust and rebuild.. I put that up against the unknown next hire and the financial situation that firing Schiano now would bring about.
If anyone looks at this any differently, then they are "delulu". They want to make a move to feel like something is happening.. that their predictions for Schiano's failure would have come true.. combinations of similar ideas. And they could play the coaching carousel game, thinking we will hire the next Cignetti.
Cheapest fan base around in a major conference and you think a name coach is going to come here. The reality is that RU is not prime destination for coaches because of the lack of support.
No amount of contract negotiation expertise is going to change that period.
I could be wrong, but I don' think he "fired " the search firm. Tate got here, and it was nearly a year since Hobbs resigned. Frankly, both candidates the search firm identified paled in comparison to Zinn. Not even close. Rutgers was long overdue to get an AD on the job. He identified a person who worked with for 3 years, was the acting AD at WVU for a year, and nobody had anywhere near this level of experience.
I can't help your Schiano separation anxiety. He should be gone soon, IMO. He's a master of excuses and deflection.
Rutgers Names New Athletic Director After The Patrick Hobbs Affair Scandal
The new Rutgers athletic director is Keli Zinn, and she was recommended by Rutgers president William Tate. Both used to work at LSU.
patch.com
Again, why dismiss the personal and professional motivation of the candidate?
Because it's a fantasy not anything based in reality. SMH
Agreed, he didn't fire them. He choose to go a different path when the guy the BOG wanted said no.I could be wrong, but I don' think he "fired " the search firm. Tate got here, and it was nearly a year since Hobbs resigned. Frankly, both candidates the search firm identified paled in comparison to Zinn. Not even close. Rutgers was long overdue to get an AD on the job. He identified a person who worked with for 3 years, was the acting AD at WVU for a year, and nobody had anywhere near this level of experience.
I can't help your Schiano separation anxiety. He should be gone soon, IMO. He's a master of excuses and deflection.
Rutgers Names New Athletic Director After The Patrick Hobbs Affair Scandal
The new Rutgers athletic director is Keli Zinn, and she was recommended by Rutgers president William Tate. Both used to work at LSU.
I wouldn't say they paled in comparison to Zinn. The BOG wanted to go a non-traditional route with someone who could increase revenues and an AD type was going to be hired to handle the day-to-day. No different than Keli hiring the Learfield guy who was at Ohio St. who will focus on revenue since she is not as well versed there.
Increasing revenue is a must since the school is so lacking in this area when it comes to athletics. It's the only way they can hire quality coaches moving forward and bring in appropriate talent.
It can be perceived as a fantasy for those that have never sat on the other side of the table trying to negotiate a deal. SMH.
I could be wrong, but I don' think he "fired " the search firm. Tate got here, and it was nearly a year since Hobbs resigned. Frankly, both candidates the search firm identified paled in comparison to Zinn. Not even close. Rutgers was long overdue to get an AD on the job. He identified a person who worked with for 3 years, was the acting AD at WVU for a year, and nobody had anywhere near this level of experience.
I can't help your Schiano separation anxiety. He should be gone soon, IMO. He's a master of excuses and deflection.
Rutgers Names New Athletic Director After The Patrick Hobbs Affair Scandal
The new Rutgers athletic director is Keli Zinn, and she was recommended by Rutgers president William Tate. Both used to work at LSU.
Here’s how much Rutgers paid search firm it eventually dropped before hiring Keli Zinn as AD
Here is how much Rutgers paid a search firm that did not end up finding Pat Hobbs' replacement.
www.nj.com
I could be wrong, but I don' think he "fired " the search firm. Tate got here, and it was nearly a year since Hobbs resigned. Frankly, both candidates the search firm identified paled in comparison to Zinn. Not even close. Rutgers was long overdue to get an AD on the job. He identified a person who worked with for 3 years, was the acting AD at WVU for a year, and nobody had anywhere near this level of experience.
I can't help your Schiano separation anxiety. He should be gone soon, IMO. He's a master of excuses and deflection.
Rutgers Names New Athletic Director After The Patrick Hobbs Affair Scandal
The new Rutgers athletic director is Keli Zinn, and she was recommended by Rutgers president William Tate. Both used to work at LSU.
Keli was the WVU interim athletic director for 20 days, December 17, 2014, to January 5, 2015. That 20 day stretch is the least busy of the year.
That didn't stop Rutgers from bragging in Keli's official bio that, "Zinn was appointed the school’s interim Director of Athletics, becoming the first woman to lead the department." I'm not sure how much leadership any executive accomplishes over winter break.
Your charade makes an illogical assumption that Franklin would come to an undesirable program and be open to negotiating a deal. He's linked with much better jobs around college football.
I still like how Tate took someone outside the familiar Rutgers-NJ bubble. We sorely needed someone with big time experience at another school, and we got one with experience at 2 schools and 2 different conferences. I was not warm to choice #2 when #1 passed.
All I needed to read was: "which was formally retained on December 3 but not announced until late April —"Here’s how much Rutgers paid search firm it eventually dropped before hiring Keli Zinn as AD
Here is how much Rutgers paid a search firm that did not end up finding Pat Hobbs' replacement.
They should have been fired for failure to perform.
Your facts are a bit off.
In December of 2014, President E. Gordon Gee appointed Zinn the school’s interim Director of Athletics as she became the first female to lead the University’s athletic department. She served in that capacity until February, 2015.
More importantly:
Keli Zinn is responsible for assisting the Director of Athletics with the overall administration of the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics. She provides strategic direction and operations management to a department that includes 18 intercollegiate programs, 250 coaches and staff and a budget exceeding $93 million annually. As the department's primary liaison to the University's central administration, she works closely with WVU's general counsel, strategic initiatives, finance and human resources. Zinn serves as the administrator to WVU's football program with oversight to the daily operations, including but not limited to, finances, capital projects and infrastructure, contract negotiations, game day and postseason administration.
If you want to pick nits on her interim title, take a closer look at her substantive experience, which commenced 11 years ago. Quite substantial and head and shoulders above anyone that silly search firm identified.
Keli Zinn - Sport Administrator - Tennis Support Staff - West Virginia University Athletics
Keli Zinn is responsible for assisting the Director of Athletics with the overall administration of the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics. She provides...
Your charade assumes that Franklin perceives Rutgers has an undesirable program, incapable of achieving parity or greater in the B1G, and vindicating his conviction of being a really good coach.
Who? The candidates who turned us down.. who were they? And did they turn down what we are paying for AD now?
None of this is meant to say Zinn won't get it done or is not worth her pay.. or that we shouldn't pay an AD that much. You are making judgments that have no evidence to evaluate. Keep in mind, whole thread is silly with the "If I were Kelli I'd call James Franklin" thing. Franklin had as much help as any program could give him and he failed so badly this season. He would be an awful hire AND cost way too much AND have over demanding contract terms.
Last edited:
He's not going to take a job where he is going to lose and wreck any chance he has of getting another top tier job in the future.
I don't remember the name but a simple Google search will give you the answer. He's an alum but had another job offer on the table for significantly more money than what an AD job pays. Had he accepted he would have been there to mainly raise money not run the day-to-day operations per se.
oh.. yeah.. the NHL guy. Don't see how Kelli is "head and shoulders" above him. Doesn't matter, we did not get him. But to suggest teh search firm did a bad job finding him.. why bother? It is weird to use that as an argument, no? Makes other judgments in that same argument highly suspect.
I didn't agree with it either since it was a narrow viewpoint from the traditional AD perspective. She had to hire a revenue guy since it's not her wheelhouse. No different than the other guy needing to hire someone like Keli if he took the job.
The only way to judge either person is by how much they increase revenues because without more cashflow things won't change the way people want.
I am thinking it i
Franklin can go coach a G5 or FCS school and make a small salary if he wants (or even say he didn’t find the right P5 fit and be a “consultant” for a year or two).
My point is that him going to a P5 school with a history of having paid X for their last head coach, in an inflationary head coaching market, and only getting paid 50% of X is going to be pretty easy to litigate against.
Franklin can go coach a G5 or FCS school and make a small salary if he wants (or even say he didn’t find the right P5 fit and be a “consultant” for a year or two).
My point is that him going to a P5 school with a history of having paid X for their last head coach, in an inflationary head coaching market, and only getting paid 50% of X is going to be pretty easy to litigate against.
I get your point but there have been P4 coaches who have had first deals in that 4M area. So something like that isn't unusual and there's precedent. Just because you paid this much for one coach doesn't mean you have to pay the same for another. I think there's a lot of latitude there as long as it's not abnormally low.
Was mentioning the other day in the carousel thread, I heard the average NFL HC salary is 6-7M. There are a bunch in that 10-20M range but that means there are a bunch much lower. So if a NFL coach can make such a salary in that 4M or whatever area, surely a college coach can.
I don't think most schools will do that though to avoid appearances of being frugal or trying to be as efficient as possible with resource and used the saved money for other things like assistants or rev share etc...When have we ever seen that though, you're more likely to find a unicorn than a school trying to be responsible, smarter and efficient with its resources.
I tend to think he'll at least get in that 5-6M area when he gets hired. I could see something like a backloaded deal though which goes up more when the PSU contract runs its course. Rhule had something like that at Nebraska that went up quite a bit after his Carolina contract ran its course.
edit: I should add, schools do seem to be smarter in their deals with players. Less guaranteed deals. Many more highly incentivized deals. I posted an article about that in one of these threads. I don't know why they're not as smart about it when it comes to coaching contracts.
Last edited:
So, we are back to what got me to comment in this thread in the first place.
It seems you agree that OP’s premise is ridiculous that RU could hire Franklin for only “a few million” to help ease the pain of an immediate Schiano buyout?
I'm not talking about us, who knows what we'll do and I don't see JF coming here. I'm talking about other potential landing spots wherever that is in the P4 be it VT, UCLA, UNC, NC St whatever.
I do think whoever hires him could pay him 4M or so and have no issues from PSU suing them.
It doesn't mean that's what will happen. I suspect a school will pay at least 5-6M even if they don't necessarily have to do that. How many times have we seen schools negotiate against themselves or extend deals for no reason whatsoever. They're generally not smart with their resources.
I agree with you, but Franklin is not the only option.
I'm going to keep posting this until it is understood that firing Greg this year is NOT that costly. "Only" $14M over 5 years years versus keeping him if we hire an up and coming coach from the MAC or another G5 league or even Mora at $4M/year. Manny Diaz is making $4M/year at Duke, a P5 school and winning.
As of December 1, 2025, Rutgers would owe him a buyout of $23,318,750 if terminated without cause.
As of November 2025, the scheduled base salaries for the remaining years are as follows (note that these correspond to the contract periods covering the respective seasons, and the 2030 season salary is capped at the final amount per the extension terms):
| Year | Base Salary |
|---|---|
| 2026 | $6,750,000 |
| 2027 | $7,250,000 |
| 2028 | $7,500,000 |
| 2029 | $7,750,000 |
| 2030 | $7,750,000 |
That difference is $14M over 5 years, nominally $3M per year in savings. Hire an up and coming coach for $4M per year, and Rutgers is only paying an additional $1M per year. This does not factor in the lost donations and sales of season tickets as fans lose interest in the same old same old.
#CoachingMatters
Add in the fact that it'd be moronic to fire a coach when everyone with exponentially more cash and their mother is firing coaches and we may even go to a bowl still this year.
But like you said in the other thread loss = tantrum and we have to let them post their way through it. Hopefully we beat UMD and it'll be two weeks of silence from the usual suspects.
Question: is the buyout an immediate lump sum, as compared to a salary that is paid over five years?
Another question: doesn't the buyout decrease as time goes on?
I know for certain the buyout decreases annually. I believe it is paid over a period of years. I wonder, if both sides agree, if a present value could be paid as a lump sum. Agreement on a discount rate may be an issue
Hi, nice to see you posting again. I believe it is paid out over the life of the contract and not in a lump sum, and HC has a duty to mitigate and find work.