I see the length of contract coming up again and again, and while on one hand, I agree with it since it could cause us to hang onto a failing coach longer than we would otherwise (I'm not convinced that CPR is that, yet, because of some unique situations...namely the recruiting challenges during the reorg years, and admittedly his bad promotion of Mess, but I'll admit it's starting to smell like smoke in here)....you have to remember that JP didn't make those long contracts necessarily out of his thought that it was the best course of action, he did it because it was the course of action available to him at the time and place that he was...specifically, for a while there with the early bowl qualifying, and the viral videos of the locker room speeches, he had a potentially attractive coach for other schools to hire away, and a building a program at a historically underperforming school requires stability. Those schools could easily offer more money, but JP could offer a nice, long contract in a location that worked out well for CPR. While we have now forgotten that CPR was mentioned for some coaching vacancies because he sure isn't on any short lists in the last few years, at the time, he was, and with the resources at JP's disposal, length of contract was what he had to offer. Even at the time, I recall thinking "jeez, I hope this works out, but in his position, he kinda did what he had to do".
