FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — An eternal Arkansas optimist will probably look at the contract for new Razorbacks football coach Sam Pittman as getting in on the ground floor of a start-up ready to take off.
A pessimist will tell you another word for the ground floor is the "basement."
Either way, the program appears to have no place to go but up as Pittman takes charge of a reeling program in the ultra-tough Southeastern Conference.
His work with offensive line has him in line for a big personal payday compared to his two most recent jobs. His five-year deal will give him $3- million each season before incentives that kick in if he wins at least six games.
The base pay is the smallest salary in the SEC, according to the USA Today coaching database. It's hard to call three million a year "peanuts," but as the league's commercial says: "here, it just means more."
Five of the top 10 highest-paid coaches all come from the SEC, including Pittman's most recent former boss, Kirby Smart in Georgia. The base pay is a million less than Chad Morris earned in his two seasons.
That $4-million contract matches Ed Orgeron's at Louisiana State. The Tigers are the top-ranked team in the country heading into this year's College Football Playoff.
It stings to know a coach like Morris, who won only four games in two years, is making $300,000 a month, but that's the wildly escalating price of doing business in college football.
In addition, Arkansas is technically still on the hook to pay Bret Bielema, the coach fired immediately before Morris. Multiple reports say the university has stopped writing checks to the former coach ever since he joined the staff of the New England Patriots in the NFL, but only as a "consultant" getting $50,000 a year.
That's below the threshold that would mean Bielema is no longer out of work. The entire dispute may end up being decided in court.
Pittman's new boss Hunter Yurachek has publicly stated the importance of getting this hire right. Pittman becomes the highest-paid public employee in Arkansas, vaulting past Yurachek's other big hire, Eric Musselman on the men's basketball team.
For perspective for those who question why so much attention is paid to collegiate sports: The University of Arkansas pays Yurachek and five athletic coaches $7.8 million a year.
The school's chancellor, Joseph Steinmetz, makes $547,520 a year to run the place.
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