Shed no tears for Tommy Bowden.

His “parting of ways” with Clemson University Monday does not mean the two-time Atlantic Coast Conference Coach of the Year will be forced to find a shady pot on I-85 holding up a sign that reads, “I will coach for food – along with about $2 million per year.”

Nope, Bowden will be fine. He’ll wind up coaching somewhere else, probably by next season, and be introduced as the savior of whatever program hires him.

Meantime he’ll be able to drown his sorrows in $4 million, the ridiculous buyout that came with his ridiculous contract extension last December.

Blame Bowden for the Tigers’ inability to meet expectations on the playing field, but blame the school administration for throwing around vulgar amounts of money to reward mediocrity.

It’s not just Clemson, of course. College athletics lost its sanity when it comes to finances long ago. But I’m guessing you really couldn’t care less what has been done at other places.

Were you happy about the extension last year, one that came after Clemson had yet again missed a chance to go to the ACC Championship Game?

Did you think it was worth it for athletics director Terry Don Phillips and the rest of the higher-ups at the school to agree to up the ante to keep Bowden from heading to Arkansas?

“Tommy Bowden has made us a consistent winner,” Phillips said at the time.

True enough. Lots of bowls, a few nine-win seasons, a 69-42 record over nine years coming into the 2008 campaign.

That’d be great at Vanderbilt.

At Clemson more was expected. Yet at what point did Bowden ever show he could deliver more?

Using the standards set by a program that was once led by Danny Ford, 69-42 (72-45 counting this season) is mediocrity. Good elsewhere, but not nearly good enough in Death Valley.

Yet Bowden’s talent for staying one step ahead of the chopping block paid off literally and figuratively last season, as he managed a pay raise before overseeing one of college football’s biggest flops this year.

I remember talking to folks after the Maryland loss and wondering aloud if Bowden would last the season.

“Oh, yeah,” they said. “They just gave him that extension and they have that huge buyout.”

If you follow the news you’d think we were in a horrible financial crisis.

If you follow college football, you realize there is always enough money to throw at a coach – and even more money available when you have to use it to throw that coach away.

Dabo Swinney will run the show the rest of this season, but the speculation has already begun as to who Bowden’s full-time, top dollar replacement will be.

Maybe this time Clemson will make that person actually win a league championship – or at least a division crown – before rewarding him for something he hasn’t done.