Coach Cal Reportedly Heading to the Hogs — and a coaching bloodbath is about to begin
Long-time Kentucky Head Coach, and basketball legend, John Calipari has had enough of the most toxic fanbase in the sport and is packing up the Clampett-mobile, heading from one hillcritter school to another.
The long-suffering Arkansas Razorbacks, blessed with the single richest possible booster on planet earth — Walmart — has reportedly ponied up the money to take on the 65-year-old’s practically impossible contract: Cal makes $8.5 million a year.
The contract was fully-guaranteed until 2029. But it was a one-way guarantee. Cal is free to leave at no costs whatsoever. So, when your football team is mired in suck, you have SEC cash, access to Tyson money, and suckle at the teat of Jerry Jones and the Walton family, you can pick a spending priority. And really, it’s just money when you’re the Waltons.
Cal has had undoubted success with the ‘Cats. Just in the SEC over his 15 year career, he’s won a dozen SEC regular season and tourney titles; he’s been SEC COTY four times; a three-time Nat’l COTY; made 8 Sweet 16s, won one national title, was a runner-up another year, and has four Final Fours under his belt. He’s put more lottery picks in the NBA in just 15 years than any other coach has in history.
But, the Cats have underperformed the last several years, especially relative to all of that talent. The sudden success of Alabama, the surging Vols, and a general increase in quality of play, has left the Lexington faithful really ass-mad about the last several seasons of early NCAA tourney exits. UConn regaining their 90s and 2000s form as a national power hasn’t helped either.
And, let’s be honest here: Kentucky’s rivals are national ones, not local. UK measures itself against the Huskies and the Jayhawks of the world, not the Crimson Tide or Razorbacks.
So, they’re content to let him walk; just as he is content to get out of the stewpot that is Lexington — a town where this one sport not involving horses.
So, the dominoes are falling, but they’ve not even remotely hit crisis level yet across the country.
And that is why I am writing at 1:00 a.m. instead of sleeping — I literally, physically cannot. I’m worried sick.
That Kentucky job is the single most coveted one in basketball. Period. Maybe Kansas, maybe UNC, possibly Duke. But it’s a damned short list of those types of gigs. And that takes us to a man that many in Wildcat nation has drooled over publicly for years: Nate Oats.
It’s hard not to see how he wouldn’t be at least on a shortlist. Kentucky can afford him. If Kentucky wants him, they will afford him — $25 million buyout be damned.
Alabama can pay Nate Oats that kind of money. And Alabama can show Coach Oats more uncritical love than almost anyone in the sport. Success-starved Alabama fans will crawl over broken glass for him.
But is that enough? I honestly don’t know.
When Kentucky calls, it’s hard not to pick up the phone. There’s a reason Kalen DeBoer and Nick Saban are in Tuscaloosa, rather than Seattle and South Beach: When the bluest of blue bloods call, you know you’ve reached the pinnacle of your profession. And the veins don’t get much bluer than the stuff in Lexington.
There are other names on the list, for sure. The guy I’d really back up the truck for coaches tonight — as does another name I’d put on the list. You have to at least call Dan Hurley and make him say no, right?
There’s reporting out that he’s more than willing to listen too — and of course he would be.
Why would he leave UConn, aside from the Kentucky mystique? Simple: stability. There’s almost no way that the major conferences aren’t about to split off from the rest of the world and do their own thing, fueled by billions of college football playoff revenue. The Big East can’t match that exposure, that cachet, or frankly that money. (Plus a buck lasts a lot longer in Lexington that Storrs).
So, if Kentucky wants Hurley, they’ll get him.
That’s why I’d also look at some other guys, as well. People accustomed to high-major ‘ball and winning titles. Billy Donovan comes to mind. Perhaps Matt Painter. And, yes, I call Big Dick Rick up too. The man has a broken moral compass, but as long as there are no Perkins waitresses around, everything about the idea makes sense: he’s still one of the 5-10 best in the game. Besides, he and Kentucky never stopped loving one another. Bring the Slick one home. Take a rider on Hurley. But then that obviously opens the door for the UConn job,
We’re never going to be out of the danger zone until we, collectively, make this a destination rather than a stepping stone.
But please, for the love of god, let us have this one thing. You couldn’t fault Nate Oats for leaving for the Wildcats, but it would damn sure break my heart and almost certainly kill off whatever love I have remaining for college athletics.
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