According to yesterday’s Washington Post, university sources believe a buyout of Ralph Friedgen’s contract might be possible.

Friedgen has two years left on his contract; buying him out would cost more than $4 million. The story doesn’t say they’re going to fire him, it just says this buyout figure won’t prevent them from pulling the trigger if that’s what they decide to do in the offseason.

I think it should.

No one’s happy with his performance this year as coach. I can’t believe we’re staring down the barrell of the first 10-loss season in school history. That’s a pretty lonely mountain right there. Ron Vanderlinden never lost 10 games. We’ve had our issues with recruiting (obviously a coaching issue), but we’re better than 2-9. And this is not the first year the Fridge has lamented that he’s lost his players (another obvious coaching problem). None of these things are positive. So what are they supposed to do?

I’ll tell you what: they hunker down, hold their cards, and take their medicine. Now is not the time to pull off the Mariah Carey Memorial Just Go Away Buyout. The university, as with many state institutions, is in dire financial straits. The school has slashed the athletic department budget to help address the shortfall. The state just made a bunch of severe cuts, which includes a $7 million reduction in financial aid for college students, and transferred millions more out of the University System of Maryland budget to plug other holes. Hundreds of students demonstrated a few weeks ago after a top diversity officer was laid off. They are destroying some valuable green space on campus to build more buildings. 

And this is before we mention that the university was “forced” to lay off or eliminate 175 job positions over the summer. Presumably, these were not jobs that command seven-figure salaries and golden parachute buyout clauses. I have friends who work for UM who report taking mandatory furloughs and working in severely understaffed offices. Maybe ask them how that $4 million could be put to better use.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but elsewhere around the state, other painful cuts are also happening. A hospital is closing. Other services are suffering real setbacks. There’s no more fat to trim, so they’re amputating limbs. All told, the state has had to cut more than $1 billion out of the budget. All indications are that there is more to come.

Whether you agree with the specific cuts or not, this is the reality we’re in. What will people think if the school claims it can’t afford to keep its top diversity officer, but then pays Coach Friedgen $4 million just to not coach the football team anymore? If they do buy him out, it’s clear that they can’t just absorb that money. Other cuts will have to be made. Where will those come from? Student aid again? The other sports teams again? Will they build a Chipotle on McKeldin Mall?

Of course, it all comes down to dollars. Word is the school fell $600,000 short of its goal on football season ticket sales, to say nothing of single ticket costs, concessions, and the like. If they think any future Fridge team is going to be this bad, and might translate to enough lost revenue to justify the cost of the buyout, so be it. I’ll look forward to seeing the analysis. But I don’t see that happening. That’s a lot of unsold tickets. A lot of uneaten hot dogs.

So I say keep him. They’re 66-49 during his tenure. That’s not terrible. And yes, he’s on a bit of a downslope lately, and he’s 63, and he calls crazy plays, and this and that. But we can hang with him, can’t we? Remember the Medifast thing? How that made us all believe again? We can get back there. We literally can’t afford anything less.

(Photo credit: Brant Sanderlin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution)