His salary went from 1.5 million to 2.7 million right before retirement. He got to bring his buddy Banker too. There is no truly bad outcome for him here and accepting Eichorst's offer was a no-brainer.
The question that I can't answer is why Eichorst bet the farm on a 5-7 coach whose own fan base was unhappy. And we didn't interview anyone else?
I think all coaches deserve time (4 years at least, barring scandal). However, it's hard to be patient with the Riley era when you can look at his whole coaching career and see how this will go.
Finding your next great coach takes trial and error (see Alabama, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, etc). I still support firing Pelini but Riley seems like a waste of a hire.
The question that I can't answer is why Eichorst bet the farm on a 5-7 coach whose own fan base was unhappy. And we didn't interview anyone else?
I think all coaches deserve time (4 years at least, barring scandal). However, it's hard to be patient with the Riley era when you can look at his whole coaching career and see how this will go.
Finding your next great coach takes trial and error (see Alabama, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, etc). I still support firing Pelini but Riley seems like a waste of a hire.