Thank you cards probably are not on the way but East Carolina can high-five Maryland (and in a roundabout way Michigan too) for six-figure savings on firing their former head coach.
As noted by ECU’s 247Sports affiliate site, the Pirates appear to be off the hook for ex-coach Scottie Montgomery’s $800,000 buyout as the result of his new contract with the Terps to serve as their offensive coordinator. The Washington Post notes that he will be paid that same amount in 2019 and at least $550,000 in the final two seasons of the three-year deal. Thanks to the mitigation clause in his contract with his former school, Montgomery will therefore get his checks only from Maryland going forward.
East Carolina and Montgomery parted ways in late November of last season after the latter posted a 9-26 record at the school.
The crazy thing is that the Pirates can also think Michigan for making all this possible. Maryland head coach Mike Locksley was set to hire fellow Alabama assistant Josh Gattis as offensive coordinator before the Wolverines swooped in late and plucked him to fill the same position. That opened the door for Montgomery to head to College Park after his stint as head coach to return to his roots as an OC after serving in the same capacity at Duke not too long ago.
ECU hired Mike Houston as their head coach not long ago and something says that his new deal with the program will definitely be including a similar mitigation clause just in case things don’t work out just like his predecessors.
