MORGANTOWN - After a little more than a year on the job, West Virginia's athletic director has done something about the football program and its future direction. True, Shane Lyons chose not to do anything, and that direction is not clear, but inaction was nevertheless an action.
That's not a jab. That's the truth. Lyons told the Gazette-Mail Saturday he and Dana Holgorsen are no longer discussing an extension to the football coach's contract, the one that covers him for two more seasons and $2.9 million per year.
Lyons established a position. Never mind whether he's happy or disappointed in football. He's dug in, almost certainly about how much money he'd guarantee to Holgorsen in the additional years, and he won't relent. This is good. He needs to be resolute in all matters.
But the timing was curious. For starters, it's February. There's a lot of time between now and the start of the season, when contract talks would be a distraction, but the conversations are done.
You wonder if there's any sort of future together. You wonder if negotiations ever really started and progressed if they ended so soon. You wonder how close Lyons was to guaranteeing no money and how adamant Holgorsen was about getting much more than that.
More revealing was that two days before Lyons explained where things stand with Holgorsen, Brian Mitchell, the cornerbacks coach who is close to Holgorsen and grew close to defensive coordinator Tony Gibson, accepted a job at Virginia Tech.
Though Mitchell never went to Lyons and asked for a new contract, it's nevertheless said that security was a big part of Mitchell's decision.
His only connection to anyone at Virginia Tech is a week or so alongside Hokies assistant head coach Galen Scott after they'd been hired on the new staff at Memphis in 2010. Mitchell, who'd just finished four years at Texas Tech, spent a few days at Memphis before he was named the defensive coordinator at East Carolina, where he spent three years before working three seasons at WVU.
The staff in Blacksburg, Virginia, is new, and former Memphis coach Justin Fuente has a six-year contract. Holgorsen has two years. Mitchell had one. He may only get a year at a time with the Hokies, but he knows Fuente is safe for a while.
The same is not true at WVU. Six of Holgorsen's assistants have one year. Gibson and offensive coordinator Joe Wickline have two, because they're coordinators. Lyons said Saturday that will be his philosophy when it comes to staffing.
(What if WVU wins big next season and seven assistants need new contracts? Does Holgorsen sign run game, pass game, blocking, tackling, pass rush, pass coverage and pass break-up coordinators so they get two-year deals?)
Many assistants get one-year contracts. Many do not. That should not be the concern here. WVU has to be different. It's important to give people incentive to join the Mountaineers, and offering escalated salaries to compete with peers is the same as guaranteeing a coach multiple years. Lyons has even initiated a way to protect WVU against the dangers of multi-year contracts.
If WVU fires a coach with time left on his contract, the cost of the buyout is offset. The school pays what is owed unless the coach accepts a new job where he makes less, in which case WVU only pays the difference. The Mountaineers have come a long way with salaries for assistants, but many coaches will go on to make more money somewhere else, meaning WVU isn't that endangered when it comes to guaranteed money.
Whoever WVU chooses to replace Mitchell will sign a one-year contract, but that entire process will be a chore for Lyons. It's no different than recruiting. He can guarantee a candidate 10 months. He cannot guarantee Holgorsen's longevity. He cannot guarantee the candidate a position so secure that he should leave a job at a college or a high school or move his family to a new city or state.
That's not merely because of what Lyons thinks of contracts, either. It's very much about what Lyons has, or has not, done to rule on the football program. We don't yet know what's good or what's good enough. What are the goals? Where is WVU succeeding and underachieving?
In December, Lyons released a brief statement saying everyone was "disappointed" with a loss to Kansas State that ended the season but that Holgorsen would be coming back. That really only came out because speculation appeared and spread until Lyons spoke out. He said he and Holgorsen "will continue to work together to strengthen our football program," but by all appearances, that has not gone well.
So the uncertainty continues. Do eight victories and a bowl win work? If so, then football should have been rewarded and enabled to keep the momentum going. If that's not enough, then there were just two options: Either football should have been given what it needed so it can get to where it needs to be, or Holgorsen and his staff should have been fired and a new staff should today be working toward unfulfilled goals.