FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas coach Chad Morris’ contract is finally official.
Morris, who was hired last December, reportedly signed the contract last week.
The principal terms of the 34-page contract are not changed from an offer letter Morris signed in December. His annual salary will be $3.5 million, $500,000 from the university and $3 million from the Razorback Foundation. The contract runs through Dec. 31, 2023.
Morris will be eligible for up to $1 million in competition-based bonuses and $200,000 in academic-based bonuses each year, and is eligible for three retention payments of $500,000 apiece, contingent that no “significant” NCAA violations have occurred and the program is not on NCAA probation at the time the payments are due in February of 2019, 2021 and 2023.
Dates of the signatures were not listed on the contract, but there are reports the contract was executed within the past 48 hours.
If Morris is fired for convenience on or before Dec. 31, 2022, he will be eligible to receive 70 percent of his $3.5 million annual salary for the duration of his contract. If he is fired on or after Jan. 1, 2023, he will be eligible to receive 100 percent of his annual salary.
The buyout terms in Morris’ contract are stated plainly and are not the legalese maze of Bielema’s.
Morris’ contract is also considerably less than Bret Bielema’s 70-page contract that was signed in August 2013.
Arkansas also paid Morris’ $2 million buyout at SMU, according to the contract.
Morris, who graduated from Texas A&M University, does not have a no-compete clause in his contract that would prohibit from accepting another job within the SEC.
Morris’ buyout if he took another job would be $3 million before the end of 2019, $2.5 million in 2020, $2 million in 2021 and $1.5 million in 2022. There is no buyout in the final year of the deal.
