Years ago, maybe 2015, firings were being talked about. Here were a couple ideas I had that I think are applicable here:
1. 4 year contracts. If your prestige goes up from when you take over the job, you keep the job. So taking over B Duke and getting them to a B+ or above and you keep your job and get a new 4 year contract.
2. If you are at your baseline prestige or above at the end of the contract, you keep your job. This could be implemented with what is being proposed (coming no matter what we say???) here. If you are at A+ Duke and drop to an A you keep your job if you've been to the Sweet 16 or further in the previous 4 seasons. That helps protect the coach who did well for many seasons but was slammed with EEs or poor recruiting results and dropped one season.
3. Basing this only off of National Tournament success is silly due to the randomness in single games. So something where if Tier 2 finishes in the top 25 they are okay and if Tier 1 finishes in the top 15 any of the previous 4 seasons they are okay (just spit balling numbers)
So I guess in the new proposal it would look like this. You take over a job in tier 1 that is a mess (by the way, there should be less of these because with the excellent job change there should be less of Sims running teams into the ground and humans should have recruited some competent players). You get 4 years to simply increase their prestige (or make the Sweet 16). If you don't, you're fired. If you can't make B Duke a B+ in 4 years you really should be fired IMHO. Now it is a rolling 4 year window (by the proposal, I still prefer a new 4 year contract). So in year 5, you have to either increase prestige by a 1/3 of a letter grade, or make the Sweet 16. If you don't, you're fired. Hypothetically seasons go by and you make it and become established, A+ Duke. If you stay at A+ you're okay. If you drop to an A or below you look at the previous 4 seasons. If there are any Sweet 16s you're okay. If you were top 15 any of the previous 4 seasons you are okay. If not you're fired. Anyway, just my 2 cents. I don't usually post hypotheticals like this but the new admin seems to be listening, which is fantastic.