Despite Kansas rumors, Bret Bielema should be in no rush for next coaching job

The speculation mill has started to tie Bret Bielema to his next head coaching job, but he has the ability to wait for the right opportunity.

It’s safe to say Bret Bielema’s tenure at Arkansas did not go as planned, with a 29-34 record over five seasons that ended by a 4-8 mark last season and practically an on-field firing after the season finale. (And a buyout — more on that later.) His decision to leave Wisconsin for the supposed greener pastures of the SEC looks especially bad now.

As far as job prospects, Bielema did some work during the pre-draft process for the New England Patriots this spring, but he is set to sit out of coaching this coming season. He will, however, surely be a candidate for multiple openings in college football as the coaching carousel spins again once the 2018 regular season ends. One of those openings may be Kansas.

Former Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long was hired to the same post at Kansas this past week. The football program will always be second fiddle to men’s basketball at the school, and expectations aren’t high. But a 3-33 record over three seasons has David Beaty’s status as head coach up in the air, and another zero, one or two-win season will surely bring a change.

Long hired Bielema at Arkansas. So it’s easy to tie the two back together in Lawrence in 2019, as Long faces hiring a new football coach five or six months from now.

But, while it’s safe to say Bielema wants to and will be a college head coach again, he got a nice buyout (to put it mildly) from Arkansas when he was let go. He doesn’t have to rush into a new opportunity.

Bielema’s Arkansas buyout totaled a little over $11.9 million, and through 2020 he is scheduled to get monthly installments of about $320,000 per month. Being a fired college football coach is nice “work” if you can get it, clearly. At more than $3.84 million per year during the payout period, as laid out by USA Today, Bielema will be paid among the top-25 coaching salaries in college football without necessarily coaching at all.

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The $11.9 million full payment is subject to offset, upon Bielema getting another head coaching job. So Arkansas will get be off the hook for a portion of that money at some point, barring something unforeseen. But there will be far better opportunities out there than Kansas for Bielema, unless his relationship with Long is enough to blind him to that reality.