Darrell Hazell fired as Purdue’s head football coach

Purdue has fired head football coach Darrell Hazell in his fourth season.

The news broke from multiple reports earlier on Sunday afternoon, and Purdue officially confirmed the firing around 4:30 p.m. ET. Director of athletics Mike Bobinski issued a statement on Sunday afternoon. Wide receivers coach Gerad Parker will serve as interim head coach moving forward.

”From the first time I met Darrell, I could tell he was a man of high character - a quality person who you would want leading a group of young men - but our inconsistent performance and inability to generate positive momentum thus far this season, along with the disappointing results of the past three seasons, made it clear to me that we needed to make a change.

This is not a decision taken lightly, and I respect and appreciate the dedicated effort Darrell has put forth on behalf of Purdue,” Bobinski said. “We have a lot of football still ahead of us this season, and it’s important that our primary focus be on providing our team with the best possible preparation and opportunity for success. I appreciate Gerad taking over on an interim basis and look forward to his leadership and the continued commitment and efforts of our entire football coaching staff.”

Hazell’s dismissal ends a four-year run in West Lafayette that never came close to working out well.

The Boilermakers have been bad this season and generally dismal since Hazell got to campus after going 11-3 as Kent State’s head coach in 2012. He started with a 1-11 year in 2013, jumped a little bit to 3-9 in 2014, then completely stalled out. Hazell won two games in 2015 before this season’s quagmire. Now, after a 3-3 start to 2016, he’s been removed.

Purdue fans will rejoice at Hazell’s firing. Our Purdue blog, Hammer and Rails, has been riding this train for a while, previously writing that Hazell had left the Boilermakers in a “subterranean crater” while bandying about potential replacements.

Hazell lost big and lost often in West Lafayette. The records were the records, but the manner of the Boilers’ losses was distressing on its own. His first game in 2013 was a 42-7 loss to Cincinnati. He didn’t beat an FBS team until Year 2 on the job.

Purdue isn’t in a good recruiting state, and no one expects the Boilermakers to regularly lure top talent. But they signed the worst-ranked class in the Big Ten in 2016, third-worst in 2015, and second-worst in 2014 and 2013. There was never a pulse.

Purdue’s ceiling is what it is. 1979 was the Boilers’ only double-digit-win season in school history. When Joe Tiller built the program into a fairly regular top-25 presence in the 1990s, the Boilers still topped out at nine wins. That’s good and nothing to be ashamed of, but it came before Danny Hope struggled to a 22-27 mark over four years. Hazell was never facing huge expectations. Merely hovering near bowl eligibility would’ve been entirely respectable.

But as a general rule, Big Ten coaches don’t get to lose almost all of their games over four years and stay gainfully employed. Whether mediocrity would’ve been good enough for Hazell doesn’t matter, because he never got close to it. This was pure badness, and it was bad from the beginning.

Purdue surely mulled replacing Hazell after the 2-10 2015 campaign, but he got to hang around another season. As with most things in college football, bank on money having had a lot to do with it.

Hazell was working this season in Year 4 of a six-year contract inked before 2013. He was making about $2.1 million annually, on average.

His contract contains a highly specific buyout schedule, which meant that firing Hazell got cheaper for the university with every passing month. (Such arrangements aren’t common.) The cost of firing Hazell went down by around $175,000 every month -- just about exactly what Hazell was making on the job.

Hazell’s deal came almost completely guaranteed, with the exception being bonuses he often hasn’t reached anyway. By the terms Purdue agreed upon with Hazell, firing him the day after last season ended would’ve cost the school $6.95 million through the end of 2018. Purdue would’ve spent three years paying for two head coaches.

Purdue had to stick with the coach for longer than many wanted, but doing so at least saved money. Under Hazell’s buyout schedule with Purdue, the school owes him just below $5 million to walk away now.

Further savings could be on the way. Hazell is now obligated to “use reasonable efforts” to find another coaching job, and if he gets one, his new salary comes out of what Purdue owes him.

The university will pay Hazell like a head coach while he likely coaches elsewhere, and someone else will inherit a barren roster that’s lost tons of football games. That person’s bar to clear won’t be so high. When it comes to who will replace Hazell, perhaps a certain recently fired coach could be in contention.