West Virginia will be searching for a head coach for the second time in a calendar year but will have some extra ammunition this time around in the hunt.
That’s because the Mountaineers will have a buyout of reportedly around $6.15 million to work with from Darian DeVries taking the Indiana head coaching job.
That figure comes from the contractual portion of around $4.67 million and the remainder from other items due to DeVries departing before April 30.
That includes moving costs, a signing bonus and the buyout paid to Drake.
“So that causes that number to go up. And I think the cumulative effect of that number, if there’s a bigger number out there, I’ve never seen it,” Athletic Director Wren Baker said.
Baker has had people ask him if he wishes the buyout would be higher but that total is already significant.
“I’m not aware of anybody paying a bigger one,” he said.
Ultimately that money will be coming to West Virginia, and it will give the Mountaineers a chance to have something more to work with as they embark on the coaching search.
That money will first be directed to go out and identify a coach that is best fit to lead the program and then sort out the compensation and what the contract needs to be. It also will help with what the buyout could be for any potential candidates as well. Any remainder would then likely be spread throughout the department.
“It probably also opens up your search a little bit because you could potentially pay a larger buyout to buy somebody out, right, if you really wanted to do that. Whereas a year ago, that might have been a tougher, a tougher thing for us to do,” Baker said.
But that six million will certainly help the Mountaineers make the transition to a new coach when that time comes. But in the end, the ultimate goal is to build sustained success that people are getting endeared to and feeling good about the direction of the program.
Buyouts are essential to any contract as a sign of commitment. It’s an investment on both sides and there is a lot of guaranteed money on the table, and you want to be compensated if you lose them in a short period of time. But it shouldn’t be the only thing when creating those agreements.
“I don’t ever want the driving force for somebody to be here to be that they’re trapped by a big buyout. I think you want people who want to be here, right? Like you want people who feel a connection to be here,” he said.
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