Although I've entered the lean-toward-firing camp, I'm not completely against retaining him if reduction of buyout is too steep of a limitation.
What concerns me about that is, I feel like we've entered the zone we saw in the McDermott era when the level of results required to rekindle confidence in the program gets more unrealistic as the stagnation continues.
(Rhoads isn’t quite at the point McDermott was after Year 3, but it’s approaching that — taking into account football/basketball relativity. At least CPR has actually defeated a few good teams (and one great one) along the way and got into postseason..).
If Iowa State finishes 3-9 or 2-10 this year, Rhoads may have to finish at least 8-5 in 2015 to balance the down-slope. Is that a realistic expectation? If it’s 6-7 with a bowl loss in '15, what will 2016 require? 9-4?
Failure to notch at least an additional win during both '11 and '12 complicates matters. If there were two higher-than-normal wins in that stretch, then followed by a two-season drop-off, there would be some discontent, but we'd at least know the staff was capable of resurgence.