Thursday, January 5, 2012

The futures of Worthy and Narduzzi

There will be a press conference at 2 p.m. regarding Jerel Worthy's future. Either returning for his senior year or heading to the NFL.

Worthy was projected as a top-10 pick before the season, but slid out of the first round. His performance in the Outback Bowl has him as a late first- or early second-round pick. That's still good money. I expect him to leave.

It is interesting that his teammates on Twitter seem to not know what his decision is. That's not the case with Montee Ball, who reportedly told his teammates in the locker room after the Rose Bowl that he was coming back. Ball has a press conference scheduled at 4 p.m.

As for Pat Narduzzi, several reports have the defensive coordinator looking very closely at Texas A&M. Hondo Carpenter says A&M is set to pay him $600,000, with a chance for that to get up to $750,000.



Carpenter says MSU wants to raise his salary to about $305,000, which still would be in the bottom half of the Big Ten. Whatever the numbers are, it's clear that the MSU administration has to make a decision on how important football is. The admin has worked well with the Izzo situation and some facility upgrades, but letting Narduzzi go to another school as a defensive coordinator could be a big mistake.

I do think Narduzzi would take less money to stay at MSU, but it's going to have to be a competitive salary in the Big Ten.

Yes, Brady Hoke turned Michigan around, but he got a $900,000 defensive coordinator. More than twice the salary Rich Rodriguez got for his DC.

The balance between athletics and administration can be a tough thing (see: George Perles end as head coach), but this clearly will be a major moment for the future of MSU football. Will they pay to compete with the top teams in the Big Ten? Or will they hope a cheaper assistant can keep things afloat?

1 comment:

  1. The only thing I can lean on here, if Narduzzi does move to A&M, is that Dantonio is still a defensive minded guy. Don't forget he was the DC at Ohio State under Tressell. That said, having Dantonio take more ownership in the defense means he leaves a lot behind and I'm not sure someone as new as Dan Roushar can handle to offense on his own. Bottom line, MSU needs to pay this man! I can live with Narduzzi splitting for a head coaching job, not so much with him leaving for the same position.

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