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Charlie Strong gets equivalent of a blank check when Tom Jurich promises to match anyone’s offer

There are books you can buy on the art of negotiating, and while we haven't read all of them, it's likely that one says something about never revealing publicly that you would match any other offer your employee gets, no matter how large that offer is.

We can only imagine Charlie Strong's agent sitting in his office, reading a report from CBSSports.com and dancing like a fool after seeing Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich's quotes that he would match anyone's salary offer to his football coach.

Here's what Jurich said to CBS, in what is presumably a preemptive warning to Arkansas, which will have to consider Strong this offseason after it moves on from John L. Smith:

"I will match anybody's salary," Jurich said. "I will match anybody in college. I will be supportive of whoever's here. Do they want to be here? When someone is being talked about, that's a compliment to our program. I've had it where you have coaches, and they're not talked about."

There probably won't be a ton of leverage in negotiations after that.

But this is a feel-good story for Louisville, because it seems Strong feels just as loyal to the school as UL feels towards him. Here's what Strong said on Jim Rome's radio show, via Card Chronicle:

"You don't just walk away when you're building a program," Strong said. "I look at the players I recruited here. I told them to come here for me and for this university. And then all the sudden I get a shot to go somewhere else and I walk away from them? I'm just not cut like that, Jim."

That's good to hear. Louisville has treated Strong well. The school extended his contract to seven years and increased his salary from $1.6 million to $2.3 million, according to CBSSports.com.

It would be nice for Louisville if it didn't have a coach abandon it at the first possible opportunity. Strong has done some great things with the Louisville program. And he'll be compensated well as long as he stays.

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