Do not be alarmed … yet? … but Dana Holgorsen still has not signed his contract with WVU. Not even the one he agreed to last December, when he was but an offensive coordinator. Things changed in a major way in June, of course, and I figure that has something to do with this delay. And for the record, he’s still contracted and bound to a term sheet. So there’s that.

But there’s also this: When complete — and at this point, it’s just a matter of putting the pen to the paper — you might be interested to find two things within the document. Make that, you might be interested to find one thing and not find another.

There will be no “no compete” clause in the contract and there will be a quirky buyout that is much nice to Holgorsen at the end of the contract than it is to WVU. The Mountaineers are not concerned.

“At the end of the day,” Luck said, “I’m delighted Dana is steering our ship into the Big 12. He’s been there and knows what it’s all about.”

My thoughts on this are simple and succinct. I think buyouts are, by and large, useless, but they have to be in the contract. You can’t perpetuate this “college athletics is a business” ideal and then not protect your interest. Still, rarely is the contract treated like cement.

Buyouts are basically a starting points for negotiations. You have to sit down and assess how much a school is actually damaged when a coach leaves. If you lose John Beilein and you quickly hire Bob Huggins and excite everyone who cares, there isn’t a great case to be made for damages. Every now and then, there is a WVU v. Rich Rodriguez and the dollar-for-dollar principle stands, but what looked like it might start a trend several years back and empower universities to hold their coaches to a strict standard of accountability has, unfortunately, faded over time.

As far as contracts are concerned, there’s a pretty big difference between a coach leaving and a school telling a coach to leave. A party is free to make the decision to leave a contract, whereas a party can’t force someone to stay in a contract. Still, I do think it’s strange the Holgorsen/WVU money is so different at the end, but probably because I don’t know of many others who do it that way.

I don’t understand the absence of a “no compete” clause. I’m guessing someone could make a good argument and convince me it’s a good idea, but right now, there’s nothing in Holgorsen’s contract that keeps him from taking a Big 12 job, even though WVU is in the Big 12. Forget the perceptions involved there. Do you think it’s in the best interest of a program’s immediate future to have your head coach leave and then coach against you and know intimately your personnel? That’s why it exists. It protects against the competitive advantage.

Any coach and his lawyer could fight it and probably win, but not for free.

As for me, I’m off for a few days and you’ll see me again on the ground in Miami Dec. 28. I might slide down the chimney every so often as news or ideas necessitate and the bat signal is at the ready. As for you, happy holidays. Thanks for everything.