Pay That Man His Money

(repurposed from comments, because we use every part of the shtick here at AoG)

An Open Letter, to the Board of Trustees, Chancellor Zeppos, VCDW, Ingrams, Riches, etc etc:

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen of the Greater Vanderbilt Power Establishment:

PAY JAMES FRANKLIN. NOW.

I am not kidding.  We need a big-dollar, long-term, lock-it-up deal for Coach Franklin and we need it YESTERDAY.

My understanding is that we never actually offered $3 million a year for 7 years to Gus Malzahn.  That's fine.  But if you ask me, that sounds like a good figure.  Big dollars relative to almost any similar program in the country, big dollars even for the SEC for anyone not named Miles or Saban, and long enough to ensure that we can build on the foundation we have set this year.  Put it another way: if you'd said in December that Malzahn would have us .500 going into the UT game and a favorite in Knoxville, would you have balked at $3M for 7?  

There are going to be openings. Never mind the high profile jobs like Penn State, there’s Ole Miss next door. There’s ample reason to think Cal could come open in a year or two. Kansas State - where Coach Franklin developed Josh Freeman - isn’t going to consider Bill Snyder a long-term solution. Hell, Maryland already has buyer’s remorse over Randy Edsall.  Don't overlook that it took only four years at Stanford for somebody to make Jim Harbaugh an offer he couldn’t refuse, and the Cardinal have at least one booster known to be kicking them $10M a year for whatever crosses their minds.  Oh, there are going to be openings, all right, and the vultures are going to be headed to Nashville on the dead run.

James Franklin, in eleven months, has done more for Vanderbilt football than anyone in decades.  Never mind the brief renaissance under Steve Sloan, or the All-American years when Bill Wade was QB - we're talking maybe Dan McGugin. He could be the transformation of our program. This could be the vindication of everything we’ve hoped for. This could be our chance to do things the right way and WIN while doing it.  We got the results we dreamed of and now it's time to settle up and order the next round.

No fooling around. No taking chances. Stack the dollar bills as high as the stars and make the buyout inconceivable.

PAY. THE. MAN.

Hippity Huz,

VI