Jim Harbaugh's contract at Michigan has gotten a lot of attention this off season, and rightly so, but there's another successful coach in college football working on an expiring deal.
Marshall's Doc Holliday, who just wrapped up his 11th season leading the Thundering Herd, is coaching in the final year of his deal as well. Holliday's contract is set to expire June 30th, 2021. Which means it is certainly possible that the 63 year old Holliday could have coached his last game with the program over the weekend with their loss to Buffalo in the Camellia Bowl. It's equally as likely that Doc has "more in the tank" and considering the success they've had, Marshall inks him to an extension.
Where the program goes from here is currently up in the air.
After the game, Holliday shared that he and athletic director Mike Hamrick have not discussed his contract situation, and with everything else going on it really hasn't been on his mind, he shares via the Herald-Dispatch.
“At the end of the day, Mike and I will sit down at some point and figure out what’s going on, but right now, I hadn’t even thought about it, to be honest,” Holliday said.
After a trying season where coaches and players have spent months on end away from their family's in order to mitigate COVID risk factors, Marshall started the season 7-0 and they were ranked in the top 15 nationally before dropping their last three straight games.
Holliday, who is 85-54 with 8 bowl trips and six bowl wins, said all those things have him focused on one thing at this point, and it is not his contract situation.
“I’m trying to go see my family maybe for a little bit. You know what I mean? I need a chance to get away and see my family, which I hadn’t seen for a long time. The same with our players, who haven’t seen their families.”
After the dust settles a bit, and Holliday and the rest of the staff and players are able to spend some time with their respective families, Marshall has a few options. They could choose to tack on a few years to Hollidays, or, if Holliday were to decide to hang up the whistle and the job were to open up, the work that Doc and his staff have done in turning the program around would make this a really attractive Group of Five job to a lot of coaches.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.