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[QUOTE="Sherman20, post: 2993696, member: 6357"]
“Back when Hopkins was the Associate Head Coach, JB wanted to keep him. So as part of the deal to do this --- along with an expanded set of responsibilities, a title and a significant amount of money --- JB said that he planned to retire and even set a tentative date.”

This is not accurate, Townie, about the setting of JB’s retirement date. That was an agreement that JB and Syverud came to as a result of the sanctions.

You’re conflating two different developments. In the early 2010s, JB did previously make Hop associate HC, gave him a raise, etc and made him the head coach designate in order to fend off questions from recruits about his possible retirement. This happened when Gross was still AD. The idea was that JB could point to Hop and say, if I do retire before you leave, this guy will be your head coach. JB also wanted to guarantee Hop to have the job when he did decide to retire.

That all changed once the sanctions hit in March 2015 and the university was looking to save face from the bad publicity and JB’s second set of NCAA violations (I don’t think the violations were severe but the media perception was otherwise b/c of the NCAA’s public flogging).  Hop then became the official head coach designate and he and the school signed an agreement for Hop to take over after the 2017-2018 season when JB retired.
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