In December, the FootballScoop staff heard through multiple channels that Dana Holgorsen was on the verge of being fired at Houston.
Rumors of a coach's impending demise aren't noteworthy -- especially at that time of year -- but this was beyond that. These tips were pouring in from throughout the coaching industry, independent of one another, rising to a level beyond a standard rumor. What's more, another FBS head coach was supposedly lined up to replace Holgorsen. I spoke with this coach, who himself was aware of the discourse around him and was just as confounded as the rest of us. "If I'm supposed to replace Dana," the coach told me, "don't you think someone would tell me at some point?"
Needless to say, none of that came to pass. Dana Holgorsen is still the head coach at the University of Houston and, if he has anything to say about it, will remain the head coach at Houston for a long time to come.
Holgorsen said this to The Athletic on Thursday:
“We won 20 games in two years,” Holgorsen said. “We won bowl games in back-to-back years. I have five years on my contract with a f—ing impossible buyout. … So there ain’t no f—ing hot seat in my mind. There just ain’t.”
Holgorsen left West Virginia for Houston in 2019 and has since gone 27-20 in four seasons on the job. His first squad went 4-8 after starting quarterback D'Eriq King removed himself from the roster midseason in an effort to take advantage of the new-at-the-time 4-game redshirt rule. The 2020 team went 3-5 in a season played in fits and starts due to near-constant covid interruptions.
Holgo's Cougars at last hit their stride in 2021, going 12-2, ripping off an 11-game winning streak, reaching the AAC title game and defeating Auburn in the Birmingham Bowl. Buoyed by that campaign, Houston started 2022 in the AP Top 25 but finished 8-5 and tied for fourth in the American.
Now the Cougars are set for life in the Big 12. The 2023 slate includes visits from TCU, West Virginia, Texas, Cincinnati and Oklahoma State (plus a non-conference game with 2-time defending Conference USA champ UTSA, now in the American), plus road trips to Lubbock, Manhattan, Waco and Orlando.
Holgorsen has not been shy about the reality that it will be a ramping-up process -- to put it nicely -- to bring Houston's human and physical infrastructure up to a Big 12 level.
"What we're dealing with now on a day-to-day basis is going to be dead last in the Big 12," he said last month. "That's just facts. We've got to progress when it comes to that. It takes time, and it also takes money. We're not quite there yet."
As for his contract, an extension last year kicked Holgorsen's contract out through 2027, a deal which required UH to "negotiate in good faith" another extension upon the school's admission to a Power 5 conference, which has now happened. Consider Holgorsen's comments these past few weeks his attempt at tactful negotiation.
Holgorsen's original contract fully guaranteed his first three seasons, then called for a 60 percent buyout beyond that. Holgorsen will earn $4.3 million in 2023 with $100,000 annual raises, topping out at $4.7 million in 2027. If the buyout terms of Holgorsen's original deal applied to his latest extension, it would cost Houston in the neighborhood of $15 million to move on after the 2023 campaign. The Houston athletics department reported a total of $3.8 million in donations for the 2021 fiscal year, according to the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database.
However, U of H's finances aren't like most athletics departments. Sources close to the program have maintained that Tilman Fertitta -- estimated net worth: $8.1 billion -- would singlehandedly cover any buyout check, should such a check become necessary. This is a program that, within the last decade, fired Tony Levine coming off two straight 8-5 seasons and fired Major Applewhite after an 8-5 season in which he tied for first in the American.
Dana is making a public case that Houston's transition to the Power 5 is part of his ongoing, multi-step and multi-year transformation of Cougar football -- a reclamation that would be irreparably harmed by his removal. Here's hoping Fertitta agrees.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.