UCF AD Terry Mohajir reacts to massive fired coach buyouts, does not foresee major changes
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WACO, Texas — Power Four vacancies are popping up across the country with each passing weekend as the college football coaching carousel spins out of control.
UCLA and Virginia Tech set the dominoes in motion when they dismissed Deshaun Foster and Brent Pry within hours of one another Sept. 14. Since then, six more schools fired their coaches, including high-profile regime changes at Oklahoma State (Mike Gundy), Penn State (James Franklin), Florida (Billy Napier), LSU (Brian Kelly) and, most recently, Auburn (Hugh Freeze).
Front Office Sports reported Nov. 2 that the total cost of buyouts paid across the Football Bowl Subdivision has risen to nearly $185 million. And there is still a month remaining in the regular season.
Terry Mohajir, UCF’s vice president and director of athletics, considers himself fortunate that he has not had to fire a football coach in his career — albeit with the caveat that Gus Malzahn resigned last November following a 1-8 finish and amid an increasingly toxic relationship with the fanbase.
Asked his opinion on the widespread changes and the record sums of money being paid out, Mohajir responded that the problem boils down to confidence in making a correct hire.
“Or when you double-down on a coach when you get the ‘agents’ that go out there and say, ‘So-and-so is trying to get him,’” Mohajir said during a media session Saturday morning, about an hour prior to the Knights’ Big 12 matchup at Baylor.
“As an athletic administration and as a president and a board, you have to have confidence (to say), ‘OK, leave. We’re not going to do a bad deal.’ If they leave, they leave. We’ll go out and hire another coach.”
In his four-year run at UCF, Mohajir has also not bought a sitting coach out of a contract with another school. He brought Malzahn to Orlando shortly after the latter’s firing at Auburn when Josh Heupel followed former UCF AD Danny White to Tennessee.
Last December, Mohajir named Scott Frost head coach, a popular reappointment given Frost’s hugely successful first stint from 2016-17. At the time, Frost worked for the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams as a senior football analyst, primarily assisting with the special teams unit.
Terry Mohajir communicated with former governor Mike Beebe at Arkansas State
Among the moves within the last two months, Kelly’s ousting at LSU certainly grabbed the most attention as Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry publicly criticized Scott Woodward, the school’s athletic director, and said the hire would instead be made by an 17-member Board of Supervisors.
“I can tell you right now, Scott Woodward is not selecting the next coach,” Landry said. “Hell, I’ll let Donald Trump select it before I let him do it.”
Woodward resigned four days after Kelly’s exit, a series of events that a rival SEC athletic director described as a “total clown show” to ESPN’s Dan Wetzel.
Mohajir has interacted sparingly with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and “never” with regards to personnel decisions. However, during his tenure as Arkansas State’s AD, Mohajir said he did communicate with Gov. Mike Beebe.
Between 2012-14, Mohajir hired Bryan Harsin and Blake Anderson as Arkansas State’s head football coaches.
“He was a grad. He had me come to the Capitol building. And it was always great,” Mohajir said. “He was one of the best guys I’ve ever been around. Loved him to death.
“I gave him the whole shakedown on who we were hiring and all that stuff. It was great. He was the best guy to work with. It happens more than you think, maybe not quite as vocal as what we saw this week.”
Beebe’s involvement with Arkansas State athletics predated his time as governor, and he would lend advice if Mohajir found it helpful.
“Actually we ended up more as friends than anything else. He was somebody that I felt did a good job and was always happy to talk to. I never tried to impose my will on him,” Beebe told The News-Journal in a phone interview. “He knew where my heart lay, so he wouldn’t hesitate to tell me the opportunities that were out there and the potential coaches that he was going to hire. And he wasn’t afraid to share that opportunity.”
Terry Mohajir doesn’t see college football coach ecosystem changing
As firings continue, so will renegotiations between successful coaches and the schools employing them.
Indiana made Curt Cignetti one of the richest men in college football with a massive $11.6 million annual salary on a deal running through 2033. Rhett Lashlee penned a seven-year contract Friday that will reportedly put him among the 10 highest-paid coaches in the sport.
Lane Kiffin has plenty of admirers at Ole Miss, as does Mike Elko at Texas A&M, Eliah Drinkwitz at Missouri and so on. Bargaining position strengthens for coaches, and their agents, with each new opening.
And that’s why Mohajir does not foresee any change in the status quo in the coaching ecosystem.
“This year will be the year if it changes,” Mohajir said. “But with everybody leveraging, and you’ve just seen what has happened the last three days with new deals being done, it doesn’t look like things are changing, does it?
“Am I missing something? People are being paid more. People are getting guaranteed more.”
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: UCF Knights football AD Terry Mohajir reacts to fired coach buyouts
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