You're giving him too much credit. Holgorsen finished 4-5 last season in the conference, for an overall Big 12 record of just 15-21.
"He's underpaid compared to other Big 12 coaches" and "he's delivering value on the contract compared to his relative salary" has to be my favorite new idiotic argument made by the Dana fluffer boys. I didn't know we were playing football to win some hypothetical "best bang for the buck" column written on an economics blog somewhere. Silly me, I thought the object of playing football--as well as our stated goal at WVU--was to win actual championships on the field.
However, if relative economic value is the new messiah then we might as well go all the way with it. By that rationale, we ought to fire Holgorsen and lowball a new guy so that he's the worst-paid coach in the conference. Every season we finish 10th, the coach delivers exactly what we paid for and every season we finish above 10th, he delivered value over the contract. It's genius, we can't lose!
He's making what college football coaches make. His contract was negotiated after winning the conference and a record setting Orange Bowl victory. So his salary seems pretty reasonable.
His next contract, either at WVU or elsewhere will display his current market value.
If he's retained, then he should receive more compensation. If they don't feel he's worth additional compensation, why retain him?
This isn't like calling in an hour employee and saying, "Sorry, no money for raises this year, now beat it", or "We could only bump you up a $.25/per hour, maybe next quarter we can get you a full dollar". Dana has his attorneys and agent working on his behalf and as evidence of Dana's current contract, they obviously aren't fools.
If WVU feels they can no longer pay for Dana, they should cut bait and move on.