There might have been some irregularities regarding how Pitt went about hiring Kevin Stallings.
IMO, this does seem like a possible conflict of interest.
https://thebiglead.com/2018/03/08/pi...s-search-firm/
Pittsburgh Is Paying Kevin Stallings $9.4 Million to Go Away, After Former AD Scott Barnes Screwed Them on Both Ends
The story of how this went down, though, shows how the insular and you-pat-my-back-I’ll-pat-yours world of college sports can leave the schools holding the bag while the actual decision makers move on.
In hiring Mr. Stallings, a head coach of 23 years at Illinois State and Vanderbilt whose selection has been met with hesitation from Pitt fans, athletic director Scott Barnes solicited Collegiate Sports Associates, a North Carolina-based executive search and consulting firm led by Mr. Barnes’ former boss.
The company’s founder and president, Todd Turner, was the athletic director at the University of Washington when Mr. Barnes was the school’s senior associate athletic director from 2005-08. Mr. Turner also was the athletic director at Vanderbilt in 1999 when the Commodores hired Mr. Stallings as basketball coach, a position he held until Sunday, when Pitt announced it had selected him to replace Jamie Dixon.
So Pittsburgh (presumably) paid six figures so the search firm could recommend an old buddy, and the hire has now produced a disaster in two years. Barnes, by the way, moved on to Oregon State in December of 2016, and spent only 18 months as the athletic director in Pittsburgh. It was a costly tenure, and one for which the school now gets to pay the final bill while Barnes is thousands of miles away.
