Tracy Claeys has a three-year contract and a pittance for a buyout. The university assured itself that protection in making Claeys the head football coach.
If the Gophers flop next season and finish with another 5-7 record or even 6-6 — which would be alarming considering their attractive schedule — the next athletic director might be in the market for a new football coach.
The cost of firing Claeys after next season would be $500,000, which is peanuts in the buyout game. The Gophers paid North Carolina a lot more than that — $800,000 — to cancel two football games.
The point is, Claeys isn't blessed with ironclad job security and he probably realizes he has only one shot at this gig. If he fails as a head coach here, Claeys likely will spend the rest of his career in a defensive coordinator capacity.
Claeys deserves the freedom to make decisions that he feels will enable him to win in the short term to keep his job. Change can be both necessary and painful.
Claeys fired his offensive coordinator Matt Limegrover and quarterbacks coach Jim Zebrowski on Sunday, one day after the Gophers concluded an unsatisfactory season with a loss to Wisconsin.
Was firing the offensive coaches the right move? Vote here.
Jerry Kill's staff had been together a long time. Uniquely long in the coaching world. In college football, a coach's life often follows a nomadic existence, so the continuity of Kill's staff became both an oddity and a source of pride.
But continuity just for continuity's sake shouldn't be a guiding force.