DIACO out as Head FB Coach !!!

[the Blades]

HARTFORD COURANT: Bob Diaco Out As Head Coach Of UConn Football

He'll leave the program effective on Jan. 2. His contract included a $3.4 million buyout from the university if he was let go in 2017.

"This is obviously not the way I had hoped things would turn out, but I appreciate having had the opportunity to be here at UConn," Diaco said in a prepared statement. "I thank the administration, staff and fans of the UConn Football program for their passion and support over these three years. Most importantly, I want to say how much I love the players on this team and will be rooting for their success. I know that there are great things to come for all of them."

 

[the Blades]

 

[SU68]

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If he had a $3.4M buyout, what was his salary? It must have been the highest in G-5 and higher than many P-5.

 

[Ozzie3178]

No buyouts are usually the years you have left on a contract in a lump sum.

So he was not making 3 mil or more per year. I think it was around 2 mil max.

 

[KhalidShockedTheWorld]

I don't follow football as closely as you guys, but I am not surprised. I had the sense that the team was a trainwreck this year that got worse as the season wore on. When the OC was demoted and replaced 3 games in I could tell this was not going to end well. I just hope that UConn can bring in a young program builder, a Geno Auriemma clone who can be enticed to stay at UConn despite offers to go elsewhere after wild and unprecedented success.

 

[the Blades]

Warde Manual jumped the gun negotiating a 2 year extension for Diaco after he made a bowl game last year, before he took the AD job at Michigan.....
I guess we can't blame Dave Benedict once he got here from Auburn....seems like Warde and Herbst already had it a done deal....

But his new deal was as follows from ESPN:
"Spokesman Mike Enright said the new contract will pay Diaco $2 million in 2019 and $2.1 million in 2020. The deal also calls for raises of $100,000, $150,000 and $200,000 in the three remaining seasons of his old contract. That will bring his total compensation to $1.7 million this year, $1.8 million in 2017 and $1.9 million in 2018."

Without Warde leaving Diaco a parting gift, I heard his buyout was only $800,000 after this season....Thanks for nothing Warde...SMH !

PS: since he got fired I guess the school won't see this:
UConn Football Coach Bob Diaco To Donate $250,000

 

[manofsteele]

Just visiting....

So who's the next man up?

 

[the Blades]

 

[the Blades]

UConn’s football future at stake with hiring of next head coach

" Benedict can't pull a Jeff Hathaway, who blew it with Paul Pasqualoni. Hathaway got what he wanted: a nice guy who wouldn't make his life miserable. Randy Edsall left on bad terms with Hathaway for many reasons, not the least of which was a perceived lack of support. Edsall wanted to know why admissions was suddenly denying kids it had admitted previously in Edsall's tenure — they started going to Louisville and West Virginia — and Hathaway wasn't fighting the fight with him."

" Benedict can't pull a Warde Manuel, who blew it with Diaco. Manuel got snowed the way the rest of us did. This smooth-talking defensive whiz with the good looks and Notre Dame pedigree. Looked great at the podium in a suit. Sounded great, too. At least at the beginning. And then he turned into a combination of Vivian Stringer and Casey Stengel — venturing on twisted streams of consciousness — and then didn't win enough. "

 

[KhalidShockedTheWorld]

The didn't win enough part is all that matters Blades. C. Vivian Stringer and Casey Stengel were highly successful coaches in their respective sports. It should be noted that Stengel has been vilified for many Yankees fans for years for costing the Yankees the 1960 World Series with the bizarre decision not to pitch Whitey Ford, the Yankees best pitcher at that time and one of the best pitchers in baseball postseason history, on rest rather than 3 times in that series. Ford himself has stated that the Yankees were winning that World Series if he had been pitched games 1, 4 and 7 and they probably would have. Instead, the Yankees lose on a walk off HR to Bill Mazeroski, who then goes to the Hall of Fame although in reality if he did not hit that HR he would not have even sniffed the Hall of Fame.

With Diaco, I saw his press conferences and they were objectively bizarre. After terrible losses he refused to acknowledge there were any problems. He spoke in feel good platitudes and cliches. I would come away from his pressers saying, "that dude should be in politics, not coaching." And now he has that opportunity.........

 

[the Blades]

The didn't win enough part is all that matters Blades. C. Vivian Stringer and Casey Stengel were highly successful coaches in their respective sports. It should be noted that Stengel has been vilified for many Yankees fans for years for costing the Yankees the 1960 World Series with the bizarre decision not to pitch Whitey Ford, the Yankees best pitcher at that time and one of the best pitchers in baseball postseason history, on rest rather than 3 times in that series. Ford himself has stated that the Yankees were winning that World Series if he had been pitched games 1, 4 and 7 and they probably would have. Instead, the Yankees lose on a walk off HR to Bill Mazeroski, who then goes to the Hall of Fame although in reality if he did not hit that HR he would not have even sniffed the Hall of Fame.
With Diaco, I saw his press conferences and they were objectively bizarre. After terrible losses he refused to acknowledge there were any problems. He spoke in feel good platitudes and cliches. I would come away from his pressers saying, "that dude should be in politics, not coaching." And now he has that opportunity.........

For me too..... I don't care what that writer ranted about those 2 in his article...or anything you wrote in red either..
So I agree...guys like Diaco need to learn to skip the sales pitch... it's better to under promise and over deliver...in the mean time just STFU and win !

 

[the Blades]

From Jacobs:
Before Diaco signed a contract extension last spring, the buyout for 2016 was $1.4 million and for 2017 was only $800,000. Those jumps to buyouts of $5 million and $3.4 million were enormous. "I can't speak to all the conversations before I got here, but my understanding is the conversations started last December [with former AD Warde Manuel] after Bob went 6-6 in the regular season," Benedict said. "At the end of the day I had to sign the contract, but the terms and verbal commitments to doing things certainly had already been done."

Full read: Jeff Jacobs: UConn AD Benedict Admits Changing Mind About Firing Bob Diaco

 

[KhalidShockedTheWorld]

Outgoing, lame duck ADs should never be allowed to negotiate contract extensions/buyouts. This should not be allowed to happen again.

 

[the Blades]

I guess AAC Football coaches don't last very long:

 

[the Blades]

WTIC interview:
Joe D with UConn AD David Benedict on coaching change....radio.com

 

[the Blades]

Outgoing, lame duck ADs should never be allowed to negotiate contract extensions/buyouts. This should not be allowed to happen again.

Agree....Wow...someone with big bucks ( Burton ?) wanted him out bad.......Just read this in DiMauro's article:
" Diaco's buyout today: $5 million. His buyout Jan. 1: $3.4 million. Which is why his official termination day is Jan. 2, saving somebody — or somebodies — $1.7 million. Still, though, in an athletic department not swimming in Power 5 revenues, it couldn't have been easy to find $3.4 million of private money to escort Diaco out of the Burton Family Football Complex. University sources indicate this was done with private money. It had to be, given the state's budget travails. We may never know the folks tied to such largesse. But they saved the program. They gave everyone a reason to go back to UConn football games next year. And now we'll never have to hear another coach here speak in parables. Or tell us not to pay attention to the scoreboard. "

 

[KhalidShockedTheWorld]

And now we'll never have to hear another coach here speak in parables. Or tell us not to pay attention to the scoreboard. "

Amen to that.......although actually Diaco spoke in a series of euphemisms, platitudes and cliches which, when all put together, were completely at variance with what was happening in reality on the football field.

 

[the Blades]

" I did some poking around and was hearing rumblings about alumni with deep pockets ready to ante up in order to get Diaco out but I wasn't ready to go to print with what was little more than idle chatter but obviously there was been unrest and dissatisfaction (to say the least) about how things transpired in year three of Diaco's tenure."

Pretty good read from Jim Fuller @ the NHR: Diaco's time is up at UConn

 

[KhalidShockedTheWorld]

I think things work this way at all the big football schools. Charlie Strong got fired for the same reasons, the Longhorn boosters with deep pockets mandated it. What I would like to see is the same private donors put their money where their mouths are and help pay for a great young coach or at least the search to find one. UConn may need to settle for young and up and coming but relatively unknown, just like they did when they hired Geno Auriemma in 1985.