Exactly. If you guys can land Petersen, Patterson, or Kelly, then you consider offering in the $2M range. However, if you have to go get a coordinator like Wilson or Mullen or someone like that, then I wouldn't pay more than $1M-$1.5M tops.
Just because you can afford to pay $2M-$2.5M doesn't mean that you have to pay it to your head coach. I'll be curious to see what Byrne does about that. I am still not sure whether it was him or LT, but whoever it was made a big mistake in raising Croom's salary to $1.7M. I know other coaches in the SEC were making more, but they had earned it. You don't pay a coach money just because you can, and I feel like that's what MSU did with Croom's last raise.
I remember in 2005 during the search when we hired Orgeron that we had said we would be willing to offer in the $1.7M range for our new coach, but that was only if we managed to land an experienced coach that was worth the money. Instead, we landed Orgeron, and we paid him accordingly, in the $900K range, which was near the bottom of the SEC at the time. If Byrne brings in Mullen or Wilson and pays them $2M+, then that would be a dumb move.
