Kelly makes roughly 6 million at UCLA while an average salary as an NFL OC is just a little north of 1 million.
I'm not buying that Kelly is actively looking to reduce his annual salary by 5 million because of the NIL/Transfer portal headaches a college head coach has ..
I agree with this. And I’m not sure I buy what I’m about to say, but this could be a timeline resetting decision as well as a move that allows him to get another good HCing job sooner rather than later. His contract runs through 2027 and he will be fired if they have a bad first year in the B1G. If so, he’ll be owed 18.6M, probably negotiate down to about 10 to walk away and give him the freedom to take the best job. Now he’s negotiating his next contract after having been fired twice. He can get an OC job I’m sure. But at this point he’s probably not going to be a HC again. Which means his future potential earnings will be $1-2m max per year.
If he leaves now, he’s leaving $10m on the table. And his future potential earnings could make up for the difference if he does well as an OC in the NFL. He’d get another shot as a HC with only one firing.