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Ten days before he got on a plane to Tennessee, Bob Shoop said he hoped to be at Penn State forever.
Things change quickly in the world of major college football.
Penn State’s celebrated defensive coordinator flew to Knoxville on Friday to discuss the same job at Tennessee with Volunteers coach Butch Jones. FOX Sports first reported that Shoop was in negotiations with the Vols.
“I don’t plan on going anywhere,” Shoop said on Dec. 29 in Florida while preparing for the TaxSlayer Bowl. “This is really a time for our team and looking forward to being out there Saturday with these guys.
“I hope Penn State will have me for forever and ever and ever. I love being a part of Coach (James) Franklin’s program. I love what we’re building here.”
A year ago at this time, another SEC squad — LSU — made a strong pitch to hire Shoop away from the Nittany Lions. In the end, he took less money to stick with Franklin, getting a raise that put him around $1 million annually.
That amended contract may be a sticking point. According to the coaching search website FootballScoop, Shoop’s buyout from Penn State is at least $800,000. It’s a hefty fee for a coordinator, one that goes on top of a seven-figure salary as well as Tennessee’s own buyout paid to former defensive coordinator John Jancek, who was fired on Wednesday.
“We live in an industry that is very competitive, particularly in the SEC, and very market-driven,” Tennessee athletic director Dave Hart said Friday on WNML radio in Knoxville. “We will do what we feel like we need to do and still be fiscally responsible to keep the excitement, energy and progress moving forward with Butch.”
Though the Volunteers have recently been on a lower tier than LSU thanks to two disastrous head coaching hires before Jones, Tennessee may be more attractive to Shoop, who enjoyed his three years living in the state while coaching at Vanderbilt.
Regardless, it’s an upsetting development for Franklin, who laid out his beliefs on staff mobility pretty clearly before the season started.
“None of our coaches should ever leave for a lateral move,” Franklin said. “It should be to become a head coach (for a coordinator) or a coordinator (for a position coach).”
Shoop has made no secret of his desire to become a head coach again and was briefly linked to the opening at Tulane at the end of the regular season.
His first stint in the big chair did not go well, going 7-23 in three seasons leading Ivy League cellar-dweller Columbia.
Making better memories as a head coach has been a motivating factor for him.
“Oh, of course,” Shoop said last week. “I’m as competitive as anybody. Anybody who knows me knows that. And I was a head coach and did not have a successful conclusion to my head coaching experience.
“So if the right opportunity presented itself for me and my family and the people that are important to me, and we sat down and talked about it, sure, that’d be something I’d be interested in.”
If Shoop were to leave, it would mean Penn State would have its fifth different full-time defensive coordinator in six seasons, with Shoop following Tom Bradley, Ted Roof and John Butler out the door.
With that in mind, the Lions would likely give strong consideration to promoting linebacker coach Brent Pry — who already holds the titles of co-defensive coordinator and assistant head coach — to help with continuity.
A month ago, Pry himself was a finalist for the head coaching job at Georgia Southern for the second time in three years.
“They were rumors for you (reporters) — they were reality for me,” Franklin said upon arriving in Florida for the bowl game. “I wasn’t hearing the rumors. I was hearing what was actually going on firsthand. As I’ve told you guys before, I’m going to be very, very supportive of our staff when they have a chance to take steps professionally that are going to be the right things for their careers and more importantly, the right things for their families.
“Some places aren’t like that. Some head coaches aren’t like that. We’re very, very supportive. And because of that, I’m able to be part of the process and know what’s going on.”