For about 12 hours two weeks ago, Greg Schiano appeared to be the man to replace fired Tennessee Volunteers coach Butch Jones.
That was until Vols fans erupted in a chorus of cacophony based on false allegations about Schiano's involvement in the Jerry Sandusky scandal while at Penn State.
The botched hiring (and the subsequent five failed hirings after that) led to the ouster of first-year athletic director John Currie.
We knew Currie and Schiano had agreed and signed a memorandum of understanding. We did not know the figured involved.
But now we do, thanks to Patrick Brown of 247Sports, who obtained a copy of the document, which reportedly isn't valid due to the failure of UT Chancellor Beverly Davenport to sign the document.
The length of Tennessee's proposed deal with Schiano was for six seasons through Jan. 31, 2024, and the former coach at Rutgers and of the NFL's Tampa Bay Bucs would have earned a starting base salary of $4.4 million.
Built-in annual raises of $50,000 would have brought the average annual salary to $4.5 million and increased the total worth of the deal to $27 million.
[...]
Schiano's buyout for leaving the Vols would have been an initial total of $5 million after the first contract year, then dropped by $1.5 million in the second contract year and by $1 million the next two contract years.
After firing Currie, Tennessee hired Phillip Fulmer, who stepped down as coach in 2008, to replace him. Fulmer worked quickly to secure the services of Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt.
The full document, released by Knoxville News Sentinel, can be seen below:
