Before I post the story for tomorrow, a couple points ...

1. As you can read below, Virginia Tech Athletics Director Jim Weaver clarified that defensive coordinator Bud Foster will receive $800,000 into a retirement account if he stays through the end of the 2014 season. So it’s not like Foster is going to walk into Weaver’s office the day after that season ends with an empty pillow case, and Weaver is going to dump 800 grand in cash into it. Yes, the money will be Foster’s, but he isn’t technically going to be earning $800,000 more in 2014, on top of his regular salary, if that makes sense.

2. This agreement is designed to make sure, as Weaver said, that if Foster is going to be a defensive coordinator, he’ll have that job at Tech. If Foster happens to get a head-coaching offer that he likes, it seems unlikely that this deal would keep him in Blacksburg. Just theorizing here, but if Foster gets offered one of the major-conference jobs he wants, almost all of those schools will pay their coach more than $800,000 a year.

Consider that East Carolina is not a major-conference job, but its coach, Skip Holtz, made nearly $900,000 last year ($605,000 in base salary, plus incentives). Foster doesn’t seem to be a serious candidate for that job, yet the point remains: This financial package, sweet as it is for Foster, might not prevent him from jumping at a head-coaching opportunity before the end of 2014, should one he wants present itself.

BY DARRYL SLATER
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

BLACKSBURG – Virginia Tech yesterday released the details of a financial agreement designed to keep Bud Foster as the Hokies’ defensive coordinator. If Foster stays in that position through the 2014 season, he will receive $800,000.

Foster and the school reached the agreement in mid-December, after Georgia, Florida State and Florida contacted him about their vacant defensive coordinator positions. Georgia offered Foster the job, he said, “but it was serious with Florida State as well.”

Tech Athletics Director Jim Weaver said at the time that he gave Foster the financial package because “if he’s gonna be a defensive coordinator, we wanted him to be here at Virginia Tech.” Weaver also said the amount of the payment would be released at a later date.

Foster and the school agreed on the $800,000 amount “right before Christmas,” Weaver said yesterday, but the official announcement wasn’t made until yesterday because other legal details had to be finalized.

If Foster leaves before the end of the 2014 season, he will not receive any of the $800,000. If he stays through that time, the money will be put into a “deferred compensation” retirement account, Weaver said, rather than into a traditional paycheck.

Should head coach Frank Beamer leave his job before the end of 2014, Foster will receive the $800,000 at the time of Beamer’s departure. The agreement includes no provisions for Foster to eventually succeed Beamer, 63.

It also does not affect Foster’s current contract. Last year it paid him $402,000, according to a USA Today database of college football coaches’ salaries, which includes assistant coaches’ salaries for 100 of the 120 schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Foster’s pay ranked 12th among all assistant coaches and seventh among defensive coordinators, according to the database.

Foster has a five-year rollover contract, which means the length of the contract is extended by one year after every season, so it always remains at five years.

Foster, 50, came to Tech with Beamer as an inside linebackers coach in 1987. He became defensive coordinator in 1995. His relationship with Beamer dates to 1979, Foster’s junior season at Murray State, when Beamer became that school’s defensive coordinator.

Regarded as one of the nation’s best assistant coaches, Foster has long expressed his desire to eventually become a head coach, preferably in one of the six major conferences. From 2004-08, Foster’s defense ranked in the top nine nationally in fewest yards and points allowed per game. This past season, the Hokies finished 12th in yards allowed and ninth in points allowed.

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If Foster remains Tech’s defensive coordinator through the 2014 season, he will receive $800,000.