A couple of things from the SIU point of view.
Coach Lennon will get a 5 year contract at $200,000 per year. That will make him (along with Mark Farley at Northern Iowa) the highest-paid coach in the Gateway Conference.
There's no doubt that football plays second-fiddle to basketball at Southern. It's probably comparable to the situation there with hockey. SIU has had 6 straight trips to the NCAA tournament (5 as an at-large) and 2 Sweet 16 appearances. Chris Lowery's $750K salary is a little deceiving. Only about $300K of that is actually paid by the University. The rest is coming from "outside sources". Tonight, the Salukis will be playing in their sold-out Arena (seats about 10,000) against the 16th-ranked Butler Bulldogs. (It's on ESPNU at 8:00 Central time. Coach Lennon is supposed to be at the game.)
But the gap between football and basketball is narrowing. Before Jerry Kill came to Southern, there were some (somewhat) serious discussions about going non-scholarship or even dropping football. This year was the 5th-straight trip to the I-AA playoffs and had the Salukis not played brain-dead in the semi-finals, they should have had a chance to play Appy State in the championship game. Plus, 16 of the 22 starters are coming back next year. The attendance has improved to where we averaged almost 10,000 per game in our old, dilapidated stadium. As has been mentioned, there are plans on the drawing board and money approved for a new stadium to be in place for the 2010 season.
The major spots to fill will be replacing the all-conference QB that broke most all SIU single-season passing records last year and the top 3 wide recievers. But there are 3 QB's in camp that come highly-regarded. Two are classic drop-back passers while the third is more athletic and would be more of an option threat.
On an unrelated note, as a St. Louis-area resident, I got the opportunity to go to the Frozen Four at the ScottTrade Center last spring. It was quite an experience. I know that there are LOTS of Blues fans in the area that are REALLY looking forward to seeing T.J. Oshie wearing the Note next year.
