By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – I agree with those who feel that Gary Barta is a little free and easy with the Iowa Athletic Department’s money when negotiating buyouts for his head football coach and for his men’s basketball coach.

As first reported by Scott Dochterman from Landof10, Iowa men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery signed an extension on Nov. 29, 2017 that says the UI would owe McCaffery $10.2 million if it fired him before July 1, 2018. That total falls to $9 million if McCaffery is fired before July 1, 2019, and decreses annually through the 2023-24 season.

McCaffery’s previous buyout included a $4.6 million payout if he were fired after this season.

Combine McCaffery’s new buyout with Kirk Ferentz’s buyout in football, which currently stands at $23.6 million if he were fired now, and it would cost the University of Iowa over $33 million to get rid of its football and men’s basketball coaches.

In both cases, that is a startling and unnecessary amount, and makes you wonder what the agents for Ferentz and McCaffery said to convince Barta to buyouts that give the UI virtually no leverage, at least for the time being.

Barta is either the most generous athletic director in the history of Iowa athletics, and maybe in the history of the Big Ten Conference, or he is just paranoid that his two most important coaches are threats to leave.

McCaffery's buyout makes even less sense when you take into account that a school would only have to pay Iowa $2 million in order to hire McCaffery.

Barta just seems to have caved when negotiating McCaffery's buyout, much like he did with with Ferentz's buyout. 

So Iowa fans have a right to question the buyouts, even though the money used to pay them wouldn’t come directly from taxes or other outside sources, but rather from the UI Athletic Department.

But just because you can pay for your mistakes doesn’t help to justify them.

And Barta didn't act alone. He might have come up with financial figures, but Iowa President Bruce Harreld also signed McCaffery's new contract.

McCaffery’s buyout seems way too expensive under any circumstance. But those fans who are upset because they think the new buyout would prevent the UI from firing McCaffery after this season are just fooling themselves or they refuse to look at the big picture.

McCaffery could have a $15 buyout and Barta wouldn’t fire him after this season, even if the team, which currently stands at 2-7 in the Big Ten and 11-11 overall, didn’t win another game this season.

To think that McCaffery deserves to be fired after this season, or that Barta is even considering firing him, is being a prisoner of the moment.

It is easy to rip McCaffery, and his new buyout, with Iowa struggling right now.

But we still don’t know how this season will turn out with Iowa only halfway through the conference schedule heading into Saturday’s game at Nebraska.

And you have to look at the big picture to see that Iowa has played in six consecutive post-season tournaments under McCaffery, including the NCAA Tournament in three of the last four seasons.

That doesn’t excuse his current team from being a sieve on defense, careless with the ball on offense and struggling to stay out of last place in the Big Ten.

But the good still outweighs the bad with regard to McCaffery’s job status. Remember, he inherited the mess left over by Todd Lickliter and has shown progress in every season except the current one.

Rip the buyout, but forget this silly notion that it would save McCaffery from being fired after this season.

In my opinion, the current team would have to continue to struggle, and next year’s team also would have to struggle for McCaffery’s job to be on the line.

It would suck to pay the $9 million payout after next season, but that would be the cost of doing bad business.

McCaffery’s annual compensation under his new contract isn’t so out of whack. Iowa would pay him $2.6 million in salary and guaranteed compensation for 2018-19 if the current team made the NCAA Tournament and $2.3 million if the current team failed to qualify for the NCAA Tournament.

It’s just the buyouyt that doesn’t make sense, especially with Iowa struggling.

The UI probably should’ve release something when McCaffery and Barta agreed in principle to the extension, which reportedly happened this past summer.

But Barta also was dealing with a potentially serious health issue after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.

The problem with not releasing news about the extension and then having the media expose it is that the Iowa could be perceived as trying to hide it under the current circumstances. The extension was reportedly signed on Nov. 29, which came during a stretch in which Iowa lost six of seven games from Nov. 20 to Dec. 7.

The buyout still would’ve raised some eyebrows if it had been released in the summer, but McCaffery was a lot more popular then. His previous team barely had missed making the NCAA Tournament despite having four freshmen starters, and his 6-foot-8 son, Patrick McCaffery, had recently committed to Iowa as a top-100 recruit.

It wasn’t that big of a deal when Fran McCaffery would lose his temper before this season because it was just Fran being Fran.

But now McCaffery's temper is a big deal with Iowa struggling.

McCaffery's buyout is also a big deal under the current circumstances. But it's not the reason he will keep his job for at least another season if he so chooses.

That has more to do with being fair and reasonable.