Randy Shannon Operating With Severe Gold Toilet Deficit Relative To Peers

You know, when Miami hired Randy Shannon a few years back everyone said it was because Shannon was cheap and Miami, blessed with a fickle fanbase at even the best of times, had no money. This turns out to be accurate. Embarrassingly accurate. Shannon is currently the second-lowest-paid coach in the ACC, and the contract negotiations going on right now aren't going to help that much. Or at all:

The latest offer remains less than new Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher's $1.8 million a year. It's less than new South Florida coach Skip Holtz's $1.7 million a year.

It's less than Duke's David Cutcliffe, who is the 10^th highest paid coach in the ACC at a reported $1.5 million a year.

Hello! When Miami is paying its football coach less than Duke is, the world has truly gone mad. Shannon hasn't exactly turned Miami into a juggernaut but he is digging it out from the Coker implosion and seems to warrant more money than Tom O'Brien (zero bowls at NC State), Mike London (zero I-A wins), Ralph Friedgen (only employed because Maryland didn't want to pay his buyout) or any of the coaches currently heading up small private schools that couldn't care less about their football programs.

And these are numbers for Shannon's extension. If the numbers tossed about are accurate, the massive raise Shannon's about to get will get him on par with… George O'Leary at Central Florida. O'Leary is 34-41 in six years at a CUSA school and has never won a bowl game. The only guy in the ACC Shannon is, or would be, making more than is BC's Frank Spaziani, the old warhorse coordinator who was hired in the wake of Jeff Jagodzinksi's bizarre firing and had never been considered for a head job elsewhere.

We're talking about a guy currently negotiating to get his salary into seven figures, so tears should be sparse. Better to look at it as a major reason Miami's fallen and can't get up. If they can't pay their head coach more than Duke can, how can they keep up in the ever-rampant facilities wars? They already play at a soulless NFL stadium way off campus; every time they pay rent on that place they're falling further and further behind Florida and Florida State. The U's decline seems like something more than a temporary down cycle.

(H/T to Chant Rant)

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.