Jilted. Lied to. Deceived. Betrayed.

Some people might think former Kent State head football coach Darrell Hazell did all of those things to us at the university.

Hazell accepted the position as head coach at Purdue University Tuesday night, and the Twitterverse was surprisingly balanced with vitriol and congratulations.

But, let’s reach out to the haters and explain why Hazell did what he did.

For people who are familiar with the business side of sports, the move wasn’t a big surprise.

Hazell was making $300,000 per year at Kent State. That’s a nice chunk of change for most people.

However, early reports from ESPN say he will make around $2 million per year at Purdue for six years; if you’re not great with math — that’s $12 million.

What would you do in that situation?

While Hazell has a steep uphill climb trying to turn around a struggling Boilermakers program, the Daily Kent Stater editorial board wishes him good luck in his future endeavors.

He led a team this season that gave this university a sense of pride. It has been 40 years since the Flashes have gone to a bowl game. The team had never reached 11 wins in a season or competed in a Mid-American Conference Championship Game until this year.

Hazell’s team racked up milestones seemingly every week, and Kent State football was actually exciting to watch.

The excitement around this program has been unprecedented, and even though the future may be blurry for Flashes football fans, we can always look back at this season as a highlight for the rest of our sports lives.

Thanks for the memories, Darrell. Good luck, and don’t forget to give Kent State a shout out if you end up giving a Hall of Fame speech someday.

The above editorial is the consensus opinion of the Daily Kent Stater editorial board.