Will South Carolina fire Will Muschamp? Here are the buyout details
The 2020 South Carolina football season has been a roller coaster under head coach Will Muschamp. Will Muschamp is in his fifth season as South Carolina’s head coach. After this Saturday’s loss to Texas A&M, Muschamp’s full record at South Carolina is 28-29 and 17-21 in conference play. Since going 9-4 in 2017 with a 2nd place finish in the SEC East, Muschamp’s Gamecocks have not had a winning season since. And it appears that the Gamecocks are heading for another losing season after a couple rough losses against LSU and Texas A&M.
After the win against Auburn on October 17, it appeared that maybe South Carolina had turned its season around. But, then came two ugly losses to struggling LSU and ascending Texas A&M. Both losses happened by a combined score of 100-27. The uncertainty has picked up, and major voices such as Paul Finebaum are now saying Muschamp’s future is increasingly in doubt.
Here are the overall facts regarding Will Muschamp’s head coaching career including his time at South Carolina:
- Previous season records: 6-7, 9-4, 7-6, 4-8
- Current season: 2-4
- Overall record at South Carolina: 28-29
- Overall record as head coach (South Carolina & Florida): 56-50
Will Muschamp buyout details
Like any program in college football, firing a head coach means contending with a potential buyout. Here are the buyout details for Will Muschamp at South Carolina.
Originally, Will Muschamp would have been owed just over $15 million if he were fired after the 2020 season, however due to a slight restructuring of his contract last December, his buyout will be $13.2 million if he is fired after the 2020 season. Apparently, the restructuring was Will Muschamp’s idea. Considering there have been some grumblings over his future at South Carolina, it’s not a shocking move.
Will South Carolina fire Will Muschamp this year?
The $13 million plus buyout will certainly be a factor for South Carolina, especially in an environment where athletic department budgets have been slightly compromised due to COVID-19 affecting revenues. In addition to possible reductions in TV revenue related to fewer games being played, SEC schools such as South Carolina are also missing out on major gameday related revenue due to fewer fans attending games as well as fewer home games than a typical season. COVID-19 truly might be what saves Muschamp’s job this year.
However, the rest of the season will be a major factor in what happens with Will Muschamp’s job status. South Carolina currently sits at 2-4 after six weeks of play. According to the schedule, the Gamecocks play at Ole Miss, Missouri, Georgia and at Kentucky. Looking at next week, according to FanDuel, South Carolina is a 11.5 point dog against Ole Miss. Certainly not an easy road.
If South Carolina can surprise and knock off a team they are not expected to win, it could be enough (plus the COVID-19 related financial situation) to save Muschamp’s job for another year. If the Gamecocks finish on an even worse note, the grumblings around the program could be enough for the program to fire Muschamp despite the challenging financial environment.
At this point we’ll take volunteers from the stands to coach. Chump can just stay home because it will make no difference. I know! We can sell raffle tickets to be the guest coach for each game to help raise buy out money!
It would make a huge difference is he stayed home…in-game decisions will improve dramatically. Even with his huge-buyout…this Will-trying to act like a head experiment has been a dismal failure.
An oops type…”head coach experiment”
Amen
“After the win against Auburn on October 17, it appeared that maybe South Carolina had turned its season around.”
Are y’all new?
The lack of responses I’ve been seeing on our news topics leads me to wonder if we even care about our program anymore. Just an observation.
“Forever to Thee” are not just words. We have always supported our teams. I do not however support William Muschamp.
Yeah. What idiot believed that even for a second?
Monday Covid updates making 2020 possibly a shorter than expected year and everything called off. Might be compared to a scrimmage year. Will a couple of schools delay a firing until the 2021 season? It could all come to a halt like the BB season….and no one will care about records.
God I hope not.
I like Will. Frankly, other than the head ball coach I ain’t never seen anything resembling a winning tradition at South Carolina. I sure don’t have anything against them. I’d probably go for Hugh Freeze.
I bet Will is a decent guy to be around and he runs a clean program. What he doesn’t do well is pretend to be a head coach (he is not one of those). He’s actually a team wrecker, and i don’t understand what logic SC used to hire him in the first place. They had to see the decline (each year) of the Gator teams he coached, why would you ever hire that for a HC?
Obviously the South Carolina Athletic Director, Ray Tanner, did not have time to check Will’s record at Florida ? What a colossal mistake…expensive too with that in$ane buyout.
Wouldn’t be a bad hire at all.
It will cost them much more $ to keep him in future losses, on the field and financially. Invest in the future now and get ahead of the rest. Let him go. Also should consider letting whomever approved the buyout go or demoting them.
Yeah! Exactly what you said.
I think he makes it one more year because of the buyout, but I would put money on either him or Pruitt being Bama’s d coordinator in the 2022 season.
If im not mistaken, wasn’t he recommended by Sspurrier when he stepped down?
Don’t recall that. He recommended Shawn Elliot take over as interim, and he did. He’s now the HC at Georiga State.
Tanner made this horrendous deal that has screwed the whole Gamecock nation let him figure out where to find the money to get rid of this imbecile of a coach. Then the school needs to fire Tanner and hire a real AD. Enough is enough. We should not have to suffer through another year of Muschump because Tanner is a freakin idiot.
SC needs to give him a few more years to turn things around.
I would recommend the same thing if I was a fan of any other team.