Louisiana's Hudspeth Inks Contract Through 2019 Highest Paid Coach in SBC

[ManAboutTown]

Did Jay mention buyout?
Can't click on link

[roarman]

My fan's mind is never east.

+1. Nice!

[Just1More]

Good article. And all made possible by the ever present demanding fan. All it took was a willing president. Not much more has developed at UL in this timeframe... a willing president. I credit everything I see at UL that has been moved in a positive direction to the highly energized, demanding and vocal fans. Even the dollars so far were contributed by an already willing financial system. It just needed people working at the university to allow it to happen. And now we have a well paid, really good football coach.

You can go back and read our posts on here... precisely describing the type of coach we needed to hire. We said, "younger, energetic coach that has been a successful head coach at a lower level... as opposed to a coordinator from a large, financially robust system.". We, the vocal fan, said, "get a real athletic fund started... one that has tiered benefits... and quit claiming 'we have a fund... just give to it'"... and much more that they finally listened and did to the letter of what we typed. We said, "get the bus driver - football - going at a full tilt first and all else will rise as a result"... and they listened and followed our orders... and we are where we are. We said on this site, "get a contract put together for Hud that challenges anything other than BCS school from grabbing Hud"... and at some point later... following our demands... they did. We said, "get a contract that has buyout language - not that silly nonsense" - and we explained all of the reasons why and how you execute that kind of contract... and they did.

It is amazing how RP's most outspoken critical fans put together, precisely, the plans that have evolved to this date... and all UL had to do was listen and execute... just as we coached them on this site. They followed the orders in the chain of proper command... and great things have happened.

I applaud the fans of this spectacular university for having guided this ship out of the fog. I'm sure Jay meant to add that to his article on the contract with Coach Hud. "This is what the fans did.". It just sounded as if the university itself took credit for it. It was the demanding critical fan that thought of the line, drew the line, funded the line, and gave his right nut for the line. Thank you, you one-nutted warriors. I know what you did whether you get the credit or not.

[NewsCopy]

Hudspeth has coached the Cajuns to three straight 9-4 seasons, all ending with bowl victories. Hudspeth has also won a Sun Belt Conference title with the Ragin Cajuns. Farmer says the new contract "is a show of faith between the university and coach ...

The rest of the story ...

[NewsCopy]

LAFAYETTE – Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns head football coach Mark Hudspeth and University of Louisiana officials announced on Friday an agreement for a new six-year contract that will run through the 2019 season. The contract, which will include ...

The rest of the story ...

[DocCajun]

Wow who would have ever thought we would have coach make pretty much 1 million in base salary 5 years ago

Never crossed my mind when we were paying Bustle $250k a year. We've come a LONG way in 5 years

[NewsCopy]

Hudspeth has coached the Cajuns to three straight 9-4 seasons, all ending with bowl victories. Hudspeth has also won a Sun Belt Conference title with the Ragin Cajuns. Farmer says the new contract "is a show of faith between the university and Coach ...

The rest of the story ...

[NewsCopy]

LAFAYETTE, LA — Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns head football coach Mark Hudspeth and University of Louisiana officials announced on Friday an agreement for a new six-year contract that will run through the 2019 season. The contract, which will ...

The rest of the story ...

[NewsCopy]

Lafayette, LA (SportsNetwork.com) - The University of Louisiana announced head football coach Mark Hudspeth has come to terms on a new six-year contract that will run through the 2019 season. Hudspeth, who will be paid a base salary of $950,000 per year ...

The rest of the story ...

[NewsCopy]

Hudspeth has coached the Cajuns to three straight 9-4 seasons, all ending with bowl victories. Hudspeth and the Cajuns also won a Sun Belt Conference title. UL Athletics Director Scott Farmer says the new contract "is a show of faith between the university ...

The rest of the story ...

[NewsCopy]

UL — Mark Hudspeth has a new deal. Louisiana announced Friday morning that school officials and the Ragin' Cajuns football coach agreed to a new six-year contract that runs through the 2019 season. The contract, which will include a ...

The rest of the story ...

[ZoomZoom]

BOOM! Broke backs reality slap...from the American Mess & their site...they think money fixes it all...lol. SEPARATION...

LIKE IT OR NOT, THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IN TODAY'S AMERICAN PRESS SAYS IT ALL. JINDAL HAS ENFORCED NEARLY 35% HIGHER EDUCATION BUDGET CUTS IN THE LAST 2 YEARS AND USL HAS A FOOTBALL COACH THAT MAKES NEARLY 40% OF McNEESE'S ENTIRE COACHING PAYROLL IN ALL SPORTS. THESE FOLKS TO THE EAST TAKE FOOTBALL SERIOUSLY. POPULATION INCREASE OR NOT, UNTIL WE CHANGE THE ATTITUDE IN LAKE CHUCK WE WILL BE STRUGGLING TO STAY ALIVE IN DIVISION II IN A FEW YEARS.

ULL flexes its financial muscle
ALEX HICKEY
Mcneese Sports
As recently as four years ago, the only way anyone could have dreamed of becoming a millionaire thanks to Louisiana-Lafayette football would have been to bet heavily against the Ragin' Cajuns every week in Vegas.
Things have changed, rapidly.

On Friday, that school announced a new six-year extension with coach Mark Hudspeth that will pay him a base salary of $950,000 per year. If Hudspeth reaches all of his contract incentives — which were not disclosed in the school's news release — he could be swimming in a sea of dollars north of $1 million.

To put that in context, Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly's base salary in 2013 was $1,088,179.
For ULL and Notre Dame to be in the same sentence is an absurdity, unless the subject is "team mascots named for ethnic groups known to enjoy a good brawl." Yet Hudspeth's new contract puts him in the same area code as Kelly as far as the money directly paid by his employer.

For McNeese State fans, this should serve as an eye-opening moment.

Despite being a historical whipping boy to the Cowboys in football, including a 38-17 sandblasting in 2007 that could have been worse had coach Matt Viator not taken a knee in the red zone in the waning minutes, the Cajuns have launched themselves into a financial stratosphere McNeese can't possibly hope to contend with.

Hudspeth alone will make roughly 37 percent of the total amount paid to all of McNeese's coaches in every sport. That's head coaches and their assistants to boot.

In other words, the kid whose head you used to stick in the toilet is back from boot camp and suddenly all jacked up.

It would be a fool's errand for McNeese to attempt keeping pace with ULL. If you want a concrete example of how it would work out, I present you the Soviet Union in the 1980s — it tried spending money like the U.S. in a real arms race and went bust.

That may all change in a decade if visions of Lake Area economic growth and prosperity become a reality.
For all its attempts to bludgeon us with its "Louisiana" rebranding, ULL is still a regional university. It just happens to serve a region that has far more resources and people than Lake Charles does at the present time. Thus the ability to host super regionals in baseball and softball while handing out exorbitant amounts of money to its football coach.

The only way McNeese will ever compete on that level is if this area grows enough to be on Lafayette's level. That means both an increase in university enrollment and an increase in the sheer number of local rich people who like spending their free time and dollar bills on college sports.

Though the two cities were once on the same playing field, that's no longer the case.

In 1970, Lafayette had a population of 68,908 compared to Lake Charles' 77,998. A decade later, Lafayette creeped past Lake Charles, and now we're completely eating their dust.

Lafayette has grown to more than 120,000 people in the present day — a 75 percent increase from 1970. Lake Charles has lost 7 percent of its populace in that same time frame, and with it the realistic means to be in a similar financial ballpark. In terms of their respective metropolitan areas, Acadiana maintains the same 50,000-person edge over the Lake Area as a whole.

That McNeese has respectably competed with, and frequently beaten USL/ULL in every sport throughout the ensuing decades despite its more limited resources, is a testament to the coaches who have served McNeese. For now, McNeese's main focus needs to be on creating a strong enough base at its current level to give it the ability to trampoline up to something bigger should the much-hyped growth opportunities in this area actually arise.
If McNeese can put the proverbial fence around Lake Charles and sell itself as this region's team, its boat will rise with the tide. That growth potential is what sets McNeese apart from the majority of its Southland Conference brethren.

Alas, that growth cannot be forced. The materials haven't arrived yet. It can only be prepared for.

That's a reality no doubt frustrating for some longtime Cowboys fans to deal with. They can remember the glory days of the '70s and wonder why the world can't still be that way. What they might not realize is how much the economics of the situation have changed the game.

Hudspeth's humongous new contract ought to be enough to hammer that point home.
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ALEX HICKEY covers Mcneese State athletics. email him at ahickey@americanpress.com