Retirement gives Caldwell 1st head coaching job

NCAA Football Betting Lines

07/15/2010 -

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -Robbie Caldwell has a thick drawl thanks to his South Carolina hometown, a place he notes had a population of 1,500 counting cats and dogs.

There were so few people he used to hunt dove out of his backdoor.

But Caldwell says he has always wanted to be a head football coach.

Now he's getting his shot in arguably the toughest job in the mighty Southeastern Conference - at Vanderbilt, the smallest school in the SEC and the league's only private institution.

And to make his task even tougher, Caldwell is replacing his old friend Bobby Johnson just seven weeks before the season opener.

Johnson, who first coached with Caldwell as graduate assistants at Furman in 1976, says ``Robbie ... tries to give you that little hayseed act a little bit.''

``He is a really smart guy, and he'll do a great job.''

Caldwell was introduced Wednesday as Vanderbilt's interim head coach following Johnson's retirement from college football. Caldwell, 56, went from dressed in shorts to line a football field for practice to promotion from assistant head coach to the top job all within a couple hours. He needed a quick shower before meeting reporters.

Now he has only a week to prepare for an even bigger introduction at the SEC's annual media days in Birmingham, Ala., where Caldwell will face hundreds of reporters. Vanderbilt officials scrambled to reflect the change in the team's media guide, and the clock just keeps ticking. Fall practice opens in about three weeks, and the opener is Sept. 4 against Northwestern.

Whether he keeps this job past the season finale Nov. 27 against Wake Forest remains to be seen. Vice chancellor David Williams is giving Caldwell the chance to earn the job, but winning and how the Commodores play will be a big part of the decision at a program that has had just one winning season since 1982.

Caldwell said he isn't feeling any pressure - yet.

``Well, I haven't had time to think about it, but there's pressure every week. We put pressure on ourselves more than other people, so we're kind of used to that,'' Caldwell said.

Caldwell has been a head coach only once before in 1977 when he coached the Hanahan High School baseball team to a 14-2 record. But Caldwell said he was the one who wanted to be a head football coach, not Johnson, when the men first started working together.

A Furman graduate and native of Pageland, S.C., Caldwell returned to Furman in 1978 and coached there through 1985. He moved to North Carolina State in 1986, a place he stayed through 1999 coaching the offensive line. He was named assistant head coach for his final three seasons, then moved to North Carolina for 2000 and 2001.

Then Johnson came calling, asking Caldwell to join him after being hired in December 2001 as Vanderbilt's head coach. Caldwell quickly said yes. He has coached the Commodores' offensive line since 2002 and was promoted to Vandy's assistant head coach a couple years ago.

``We've come a long way from selling radio ads to supplement our salary to this point here,'' Caldwell said.

``But again, I just thank Vanderbilt for the opportunity. And quite frankly when I came here people thought I was crazy. I left a major institution. We were doing well. ... We saw and we believed. We still believe. We think we should get it done and continue to do so. That's our goal.''

Folksy charm aside, Caldwell helped turn Chris Williams from an undersized project into the 14th pick overall in the 2008 NFL Draft. He has had seven players drafted by the NFL in his coaching career.

Center Joey Bailey has worked with Caldwell the past five years, and he thinks Caldwell is ready for the pressure of coaching in the SEC. He sees a coach so committed to his players that men he hasn't taught in 20 years still call or drop by to talk with Caldwell, yet a man so competitive he can't wait to get back onto the field after a loss.

``He knows football in and out. He works hard as anybody I think in the nation making sure we're prepared. He knows everything the defense is going to do before they do it. He knows everything our offense should do. Without a doubt, he's ready,'' Bailey said.

``He might not like to admit it. He's a very humble man. But without a doubt, he's ready to do it.''

Johnson did his best to prepare the program for his departure with all the schedules and plans in place for this fall.

But this is a program that went 2-10 in 2009, finishing the season on an eight-game skid. The Commodores must improve an offense that ranked 110th nationally, averaging a mere 16.3 points per game in a number that was much worse against SEC competition.

Caldwell may tweak Vanderbilt a bit here or there. But the coach groomed by the same men who taught Johnson doesn't have the time to make wholesale changes.

``I'm who I am. I've been coaching for a long time. Some say I've gotten too soft in my old age, but I look forward to the challenge,'' he said.Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

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FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.

And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.

Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.

So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.

Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)

The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.

As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.

The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.

In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.

Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.

And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.

So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.

There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.

So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.

And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.

There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)

Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.

Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.

Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.

So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.

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