Urban Meyer's New Contract Has Some Massive Buyout Clauses

There doesn’t appear to be anything especially crazy in Urban Meyer’s new contract, but along with a salary bump that at least nominally makes him higher-paid than Jim Harbaugh, the coach of the defending college football champs locked in some nice buyout figures, should Ohio State decide to fire him before his deal expires after the 2020 season.

The buyout amounts are applicable to termination “other than for cause,” so if Urban Meyer kills someone, he’s probably not getting anything. Here’s what it’ll cost the university to move on from Meyer:

The probability of Meyer getting fired without cause within the next couple of seasons is virtually nonexistent—the world of college football isn’t that fickle—but isn’t it fun to imagine an applicable scenario?

For comparison, here are the buyout figures from Meyer’s original contract signed in 2012. A significant part of his raise comes in job security:

You can find the full contract, for your hate-reading purposes, below.

Photo: AP