Cannot defend the trajectory of the program

[CajunEXPRESS]

Perhaps Cajun Field should observe Central Standard Time next September instead of waiting until November. A long beak Ragin Cajun cap might come in handy for those early kick times, too.

That would be the smallest time zone in the world.

[BananaHammock]

How many years is Dez's contract, 3, 4 or 5?

5 year contract signed in 2021

[BananaHammock]

Keep in mind Napier had a $3M buyout in his contract that Florida is paying. Dez signed a 5 year contract worth $3.8M (plus incentives) so in theory the majority of his contract will be paid by Florida. One could argue that UL has no budget for a head football coaches salary after Year 1 and we could have done a national search with little (in the big scheme of things) out of pocket cost.

So we could have afforded a higher paid coach but likely Martin Hall shot that down and wanted to save money,

[BabbForHeisman]

Keep in mind Napier had a $3M buyout in his contract that Florida is paying. Dez signed a 5 year contract worth $3.8M (plus incentives) so in theory the majority of his contract will be paid by Florida. One could argue that UL has no budget for a head football coaches salary after Year 1 and we could have done a national search with little (in the big scheme of things) out of pocket cost.

So we could have afforded a higher paid coach but likely Martin Hall shot that down and wanted to save money,

But but but….nevermind

[jaxmc1023]

What would Martin Hall have done if Napier stayed? We had the donor money to pay him, but also finished millions in the red overall for athletics.. anybody wonder if we even really offered to keep him here? Martin Hall sees a 7 digit red number on the balance sheet, and has an SEC school ready to give you $3m for the best coach you've ever had........

[Scott Malkinson]

5 year contract signed in 2021

Only Maggrard would give crazy long contracts to coach no one else wants.

[JamesTheJeweler]

This is correct. Next season Des needs to coach like his job is on the line

Coach ____ed off. Play ____ed off etc. Things seem too comfortable and ho hum

I thought they were already doing that. I mean, this year was dubbed "the revenge tour". LoL!

[ZoomZoom]

Only revenge this FB season brought was Montezuma’s.

[Fais do-do]

If you had a business and paid an employee $750,000 to do his job and he did it poorly, would you just say it’s alright or would you kick him in the ass? Stop thinking as if these people are your friends, it’s a business! MLGA ( Make Logic Great Again)!

[BananaHammock]

If you had a business and paid an employee $750,000 to do his job and he did it poorly, would you just say it’s alright or would you kick him in the ass? Stop thinking as if these people are your friends, it’s a business! MLGA ( Make Logic Great Again)!

Absolutely not. But then again, I wouldn't have just hired an internal candidate to save money without even having a search to see what the open market could provide.

I like Dez but he's in over his head.

[Cajun Bullet]

It's a totally different time now as compared to when Billy was here. He wasn't faced with the NIL and Transfer Portal debacles. Mike had to face this his first year as a head coach. And just an FYI, Billy isn't knocking the socks off of things at Florida, is he?

[BananaHammock]

It's a totally different time now as compared to when Billy was here. He wasn't faced with the NIL and Transfer Portal debacles. Mike had to face this his first year as a head coach. And just an FYI, Billy isn't knocking the socks off of things at Florida, is he?

Everyone is facing the NIL so not real sure why that keeps getting brought up. If I'm not mistaken Billy is also playing tons of freshman too to rebuild the program. My guess is in another year or 2 they will be back to a Top 25 program again. I'd take Billy's Florida over our program right now!

He also has a lot more fans in the stands than our games.....

[Duckster]

It's a totally different time now as compared to when Billy was here. He wasn't faced with the NIL and Transfer Portal debacles. Mike had to face this his first year as a head coach. And just an FYI, Billy isn't knocking the socks off of things at Florida, is he?

While its true NIL and transfer portal cranked up as CMD became head coach creating some understandable Year One challenges, this is not excusable for the football program backsliding in Year Two. Let's look around at other G5 coaches in their second season. Jon Sumrall at Troy, Rich Rodgriguez at Jax St and Jerry Kill at NMSU are coaching at schools with less resources than UL and getting it done in Year Two of their tenures. We could debate whether losing 2 QB's is affecting our won-loss record, but we lost a couple of stinkers early on with #1 & #2 QB. The question we should be asking ourselves is can CMD lead the program to a future CFP seed? If we don't think so, then what are we doing?

[CajunNation]

What would Martin Hall have done if Napier stayed? We had the donor money to pay him, but also finished millions in the red overall for athletics.. anybody wonder if we even really offered to keep him here? Martin Hall sees a 7 digit red number on the balance sheet, and has an SEC school ready to give you $3m for the best coach you've ever had........

Everybody pay attention to the highlighted part. Couple this with the planned usage of state money for the student side construction.

They have been strategizing the stadium redo for years. I'm guessing when it became clear that part of the redo was going to rely on state money, they started looking for ways to smooth the waters.

Napier leaving provided them with the perfect opportunity to not rock the boat with the next HC. So, they did 2 birds with 1 stone. Downsized the contract and tried to get another Robe.

I am also guessing that CMD is probably safe until all funding has been secured for the completion of the project.

Being completely honest, that is not a bad strategy.

[ManAboutTown]

Everytime the stadium doesn't attract at least 23k (or there about) for a home game, the athletics department is losing tons of money. Care to guess when the last time we actually had 23K for a home game? 2 years ago. So that's at least two complete seasons where we've lost money for every home game, a couple of those crowds not approaching 40% of what we need to make money at CF.

By the numbers, not only is it a horrific strategy, it's creating even more financial problems by hurting attendance well into the future.