Hot Seat Watch: 10 college football coaches feeling the heat in 2019

5. Randy Edsall, UConn

Edsall’s second run as head coach at UConn (4-20 over two seasons) has not gone nearly as well as the first (eight or more wins six times, five bowl appearances). His contract contains some of the most ridiculous bonus structure you’ll ever see too, for things like when the Huskies score first, lead at halftime, tackles for loss margin defensively and points per possession allowed. A better team would help Edsall collect more money, but as it is he earned $56,000 extra for delivering a 1-11 record last season. Former defensive coordinator Bill Crocker, who led a unit that set single-season FBS records for points and yards allowed per game in 2018, collected $14,500 in bonuses and offensive coordinator John Dunn got an extra $13,500 for parallel or similarly trivial incentives.

Edsall’s agent deserves credit for convincing UConn’s administration to agree to such odd bonuses on top of his base pay of $1.1 million, which ranked him 80th out of 123 FBS head coaches in 2018 (via USA TODAY). None of how he’s compensated is the coach’s fault since we’d all agree if some is good more is better and there’s never really such thing as too much money.

Edsall agreed to a five-year deal when he came back to Storrs, with a $3 million buyout that was set to decrease by $1 million annually over the first three years of the contract. Next season will be Edsall’s third back at UConn, so basic math suggests the buyout goes away completely after that.

Suffice to say, Edsall needs at least a handful of wins in 2019 to keep his job. And even that might not be, and maybe shouldn’t be, enough.