NEW ORLEANS -- It hasn't been a great year for college football's leaders of men.

On the same November night, a Miami (Ohio) assistant coach allegedly punched out a fan. Another assistant punched out a press box.

Rick Neuheisel has earned criticism for his reaction to his recruiting violations. (Getty Images)

Kentucky knowingly hired a retread coach, Rich Brooks, whose career arc included major NCAA violations. The situation worsened when athletic director Mitch Barnhart failed to tell Kentucky president Lee Todd about Brooks' background before he was hired.

Coaches continued to change jobs and chase the money, sometimes not pausing long enough to tell their former players goodbye.

"I imagine if he tried to go back four days later," Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said of Dennis Franchione's hasty departure from Alabama, "he might not have gotten back out."

Amid that backdrop, the American Football Coaches Association Convention concluded here Wednesday with progress on many fronts.

Seemingly little of it was ethical.

Coaches want a fifth year of eligibility for players whose bodies would then be broken and bruised from a half-decade of football. They want job security but seldom reciprocate with loyalty when the next best thing comes along.

Increasingly, their tools of the trade are a slick agent and a bottle of Grecian Formula.

"It has it's own little way of working in this business," said former Auburn coach Terry Bowden said.

So do the corporations that run those sweat shops making Kathy Lee's clothes. Out of sight, out of mind your own business.

In case you missed the sport's updated scoreboard, coaches still have the upper hand when it comes to the roster. Don't forget that players are basically on a one-year "contract" with their scholarship. They can be "cut," have their scholarship taken away, based on performance.

Theirs is arguably the fastest growing profession for millionaires in the country. You can't deny them a right to a comfortable living, but something is wrong when Franchione is making $2 million per year at Texas A&M. Based on what? Winning a Sun Bowl?

Nothing against coaches earning all they can get. After all, this is a society in which Carrot Top draws a paycheck. But coaches supposedly have a higher calling.

It's hard to see vocation these days. Throw in the high dollars, the scandal and expectations and they are more CEOs than coaches. Fans sit in judgment like a board of directors. If the coaches win, they're geniuses. If they don't, and their stock plummets, they are out on the street.

Enron or end run, there's still a brutal bottom line that seldom factors in anyone but themselves.

"It really wasn't about the money," said South Florida's Jim Leavitt, who was courted by Alabama before being handed a significant raise and extension. "(But) I wouldn't have stayed at South Florida if they didn't step up."

Yeah, you remember that one. When they say it's not about the money, it's always about the money. Sometimes in the same sentence.

These aren't bad people. They are one of the most interesting and powerful sub-cultures on earth: Mostly white, mostly middle-aged men earning millions of dollars off the talents of amateur athletes.

This offseason already has been a great one for the coaches' Golden Rule: Never say never. In their profession, football coaches can get raises by merely drawing breath. If their names appear in print for a job opening, a skittish AD prodded by an agent can soon be offering a raise.

"There are certain buzzwords they use which mean, 'I'm interested,'" Bowden said. "A lot of times these guys don't know what they want to do. The kind of answers these coaches give, each one has a meaning. You know, it gives them options. I always felt that if they just said, 'I want to make it perfectly clear I'm not going anywhere,' that would be the end of it."

But why do that? Stoops was incensed that a reporter asked him about the Jacksonville Jaguars job after the Rose Bowl. Maybe the question was bad timing in Stoops' eyes, but such speculation never can hurt.

Stoops has gotten at least three raises since coming to Oklahoma in 1999. He is an accomplished commodity having won a national championship and two of the last three Big 12 titles.

Even when Franchione stated on his website that talk of him going to Texas A&M was "idiotic," he didn't shut the door. The speculation might have been idiotic to Coach Fran but you never heard him say, "I'm definitely not going to A&M and I'm definitely going to be at Alabama next season."

"One of these days these ADs are going to learn," said Jim Walden, who was a head coach for 17 years at Washington State and Iowa State. "The ADs of today, too many of them, don't truly understand how coaches think. If I've given you a nice raise in a contract, I'm really paying you for what I think you're going to do. I'm not going to bump your ass every time you do what I'm paying you to do."

But too often it happens. The coaches say their salaries are market driven. But there are market forces and insanity. A source here said this week that Michigan State's John L. Smith is getting $1.6 million a year in his new job. Now, Smith is a good coach and was great for Louisville, but $1.6 million?

The Smith situation was handled badly on both ends. Michigan State had gone more than three weeks before replacing Bobby Williams, using a Chicago headhunter to identify candidates. When they centered on the Louisville coach, word leaked during the Cardinals GMAC Bowl game with Marshall.

Louisville AD Tom Jurich was no doubt livid, holding a press conference at halftime to announce that Michigan State had asked for permission to interview his coach.

"If I'm his AD, here's what I'm going to tell him," Walden said. "'John L, you ain't getting a raise based on the season you had this year (7-6). We're not going to raise you to keep you from going to Michigan State. If they come with more money than we're paying you, you make a decision. You want to be there and take that money or be here and regroup. Right now I'm not going to give you a raise based on this season just to keep you here because that makes me look like an idiot.' "

Jurich is saving a lot of money and still has a fine coach in Smith's replacement, Bobby Petrino. But Smith has his $1.6 million, win or lose, and no doubt with a hefty buyout.

It used to be that only the top of the line coaches were earning a million. Bobby Bowden and Steve Spurrier were among the first. Now a million has become the coin of the realm, a monetary figure that is impressive to recruits but doesn't necessarily signify accomplishment.

"It's important in being a head coach (projecting) the image of commitment of recruits," Leavitt said. "I don't want to go to a press conference and say I signed a five-year deal worth $700,000."

In the current market, Leavitt is a bargain. He got a significant raise from his $180,000-per-year salary to approximately $500,000 per year ($3.5 million over seven years) after leading the Bulls to a 9-2 record in only their second year in I-A. Leavitt also had the coaches' best friend -- leverage.

"What happened was Alabama kept hanging around a little bit," he said. "It doesn't hurt."

Franchione raised the ire of an entire state when he didn't return to address his players after taking the A&M job. Fans in Alabama were mad, but it was hard to find indignation in New Orleans this week.

Franchione was not the first coach to leave in a hurry.

"When you get a phone call in coaching, there's not a transition period," Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said. "It's, 'Be there at 4 o'clock for the press conference.'"

Take away the emotion and Franchione can't be blamed. If someone offered to double your salary and wanted you to start tomorrow, what would you say?

"Each circumstance is different," said Chuck Neinas, a coaching headhunter based in Boulder, Colo. "Rick Neuheisel (when he left Colorado) came in and talked to his players. He was condemned for it because he came in and read a 30-second statement on a card and left."

It's just at Alabama they never thought it would happen to them.

"It's not as simple as, 'OK, let's get everyone on the phone and meet down at the football office because there will be 94 satellite link trucks," Tressel said.

When Tressel was interviewing at Ohio State two years ago, it was state-wide news. He decided early on to make it an open process with his Youngstown State players.

"I talked to them the day after I got back from interviewing," Tressel said. "I said, 'Hey fellas, I don't know how this is going to come out. You know I was there. I know I was there.' I was very honest with them. 'If anything does come up, I'll be gone because that's reality.'"

Schools have countered the job hop-scotching by adding monstrous buyout clauses. Georgia's Mark Richt is going to cost a suitor more than $1 million if he leaves. Even that is not a poison pill. If the coach is hot enough and the suitor is rich enough, more than likely a sugar daddy booster will pay the buyout.

Here's a novel idea: The buyout goes to the players. Put it in a trust fund, so it can earn interest and distribute it among the players who stay and earn their degrees.

The idea doesn't seem to run afoul of the NCAA. It adds credibility to athletic directors who say they are in to help the kids. Hey, even Kathy Lee would be jealous.

That's probably why it won't ever work. Just like the corporate collapses, in the end the only one who wins is the CEO.