Do College Football Coaches Make Good Money

Sam Pittman got his beginning chore as a Sectionalization I offensive line autobus more than than 25 years agone, at Northern Illinois. He and his wife, Jamie, packed up their small home in Hutchinson, Kansas and moved into a ii-bedroom duplex in DeKalb, Illinois. His annual salary was about $41,000.

Iii years later, the young offensive line coach had worked his mode upward to the top rung of the sport, a prestigious plan in a Power Five briefing: Oklahoma.

"I made $60,000 and I thought I was rich," recalled Pittman, now the caput coach at Arkansas.

Today, of course, most Football Bowl Subdivision programs are led by multi-millionaires, many of whom will make more coin in bonuses than Pittman made in his commencement year at Oklahoma in 1997.

Yet inside that broader tendency of skyrocketing salaries, there'due south also been a more than recent, subtle shift — i that even longtime practitioners like Pittman couldn't have predicted.

Coaching the offensive line has become one of the most lucrative jobs in the sport.

This year, for the get-go time, Us TODAY Sports reviewed assistant coaches' pay by position and title as function of its annual analysis of coaches' compensation. The findings testify that offensive line coaches at the 51 public schools in the Ability Five are making more than coin, on average, than coaches at whatever other position. And information technology'south not peculiarly close.

DATABASE: See a detailed break down of how much banana football game coaches make

According to USA TODAY Sports' positional analysis, the average scheduled pay for Power Five offensive line coaches this year is $500,871. That's nearly $75,000 more the average figure for quarterbacks coaches, who rank second, and $82,000 more than defensive line coaches, who rank third.

A majority of offensive coordinators also work with quarterbacks, and the analysis excluded offensive, defensive and special teams coordinators because of their larger chore portfolios and typically larger salaries.

But offensive line coaches are chop-chop gaining ground, with United states of america TODAY Sports likewise finding that their average total pay has increased by 30% since 2017.

"I'm surprised that it's changed, (simply) I remember it's justified," Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez said last week. "I just think it's i position that you can't take for granted. And it shows how caput coaches take valued the position group, and the person coaching them."

PAY CUTS ... MAYBE:When some assistant coaches accept COVID-19 pay cuts and others don't

HIGHEST PAYROLL:Two SEC school's coaches amongst highest-paid assistants in the game

When USA TODAY Sports first began tracking assistant coach compensation in 2009, the highest-paid offensive line jitney in the country was Alabama's Joe Pendry, who  fabricated $390,000 annually. And even so, Pendry — a former NFL offensive coordinator and longtime confidant of Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban — was something of an outlier at the position, in terms of pay.

Now, thanks in large function to the addition of secondary titles such every bit "run game coordinator," at least 32 offensive line coaches will clear that aforementioned mark this year — led past Georgia'southward Matt Luke, who is due to make $900,000.

"I think they should be valued upward at that place, beingness the highest-paid assistant on a staff," Pittman said. "They motorbus more people than anybody else besides the coordinators. ... It's more people, more than responsibility — to me, that makes your value financially greater, as well."

'People don't know a lot about information technology'

Offensive line coaches tend to be a unique breed — sometimes surly, generally tough-minded and ofttimes left solitary to manage their own group. It'south not the sexiest position to coach, nor the easiest. Pittman chosen it a "non-ego" chore.

"If the running dorsum rushes for 200 yards, he's a not bad running back," he deadpanned. "And if the same guy rushes for l, the O-line's terrible."

The insular nature of the chore is one part of what makes information technology challenging. The numbers are another. A Partition I football plan might have iii or 4 quarterbacks, and vi or vii broad receivers. But it will probable have xv to 17 scholarship players on the offensive line, if not more than.

For the offensive line coach, that means 15 to 17 players that demand to be recruited and adult, all with unlike learning styles, skill sets, goals, backgrounds and potential issues off the field.

DATABASE: See a detailed break downwards of how much strength coaches brand

"Non simply merely do you lot have more guys in a room to manage, and make sure they're living right and taking intendance of their academics and doing all those things, but and then on the field, you have to have your eyes on five guys," said Memphis coach Ryan Silverfield, ane of three FBS offensive line coaches to be promoted to the head coach job last year. "Not many positions really take to practise that."

As college offenses take evolved, offensive linemen are being asked to shoulder increasingly circuitous responsibilities. They might be asked to clear a pigsty for an inside run, then sprint out wide to block for a screen. They're diagnosing defensive fronts before the snap, and identifying coverages to anticipate where the ball will become.

They also have to communicate and work in tandem, on a play-by-play basis, in a fashion that players at other positions do not — "5 guys all synchronized pond," as Pittman put it.

And different at other positions, one star player'due south ability cannot mask the unit of measurement's faults.

"You might even have more challenges if y'all have ii all-Americans and three other guys — a couple of walk-ons, whatever it might be," said Bob Lattinville, who assists USA TODAY Sports with its almanac coaching pay review and represents offensive line coaches as an chaser with the law business firm Spencer Fane LLP.

"You really need to coordinate how they work together."

In many cases, the offensive line coach might also be the sole expert at his position, largely because of hiring and promotion trends across the sport.

Head coaches tend to exist former coordinators, who — on the offensive side of the ball — typically coached the quarterbacks, or another skill position. They might be designing and calling the plays, and know what the offensive line has to do, but when it's time to teach the right baby-sit about how to utilise his hips in pass protection, well, that's upward to the offensive line coach.

Ditto for recruiting. Silverfield noted that a 6-2 broad receiver who runs a 4.four-2nd xl-thou dash has a solid hazard to be a Sectionalization I talent. Identifying a quality Division I offensive lineman can be more difficult.

"Nigh people accept trouble putting on the film of an offensive lineman and proverb, 'Oh, well that's why this guy's good, not why this guy's good,' " Silverfield continued.

"A lot of people don't know a lot almost it. ... You've got to be able to trust somebody that you can let handle all that stuff."

What's in a championship?

For Westward Virginia athletic director Shane Lyons, there'south a simple caption for the upward trend in offensive line motorbus salaries.

"I retrieve head coaches are seeing that if you can have a successful offensive line passenger vehicle, and then your offensive statistics become up," Lyons said.

At the Power Five level, the average full pay for offensive line coaches has increased annually for at least three years in a row, according to USA TODAY Sports' analysis. And salaries for the top handful of coaches accept skyrocketed.

In 2017, the highest-paid offensive line coach at a Power 5 public schoolhouse was Oregon'due south Mario Cristobal, who made $700,000. Now, there are nine coaches who make that much — and eight of them have received at least $200,000 in raises in that iii-year span lone. (The exception is Luke, who was the head coach at Ole Miss in 2017.)

"Information technology's becoming more firmly established that a quality offensive line autobus is going to brand acme dollar," said agent Pete Roussel, who represents assistant coaches in every FBS conference.

Lyons said there'south been "a footling bit more of a bidding state of war" for height offensive line coaches in recent years, prompting some schools to give their coach a raise to ward off outside interest. Many also current of air up doling out a new championship and additional responsibilities, in part to justify the hefty new salary.

Co-ordinate to USA TODAY Sports' analysis, 10 offensive line coaches in the Power V now as well hold the title of "run game coordinator." Iii, meanwhile, are assistant head coaches, ii are associate head coaches and two are co-offensive coordinators.

"(It's) in order to make the separation, from a market place standpoint," Lyons said. "Those actress responsibilities and duties help try to justify the increase in their salaries, beyond the board."

Lattinville pointed out that some offensive line coaches' pay is simply a byproduct of seniority. While a young, hot-shot quarterbacks coach might be rewarded with a promotion, a veteran offensive line double-decker might get a pay bump instead.

"They stay, so they become bonuses," Lattinville said. "Rarely do they get promoted to the coordinator or head coaching spot."

Raising the bar

The rise in salaries for higher offensive coordinators has also been driven, at to the lowest degree in part, past a similar rise in the NFL.

Roussel said that, in past years, in that location has been a wide gap in pay between the pros and colleges, to the bespeak that a Power V offensive line coach would probably have needed to take a pay cut to become an banana offensive line coach in the NFL. Just he said that is no longer the case.

"That pay discrepancy has shrunk," Roussel explained.

(Compensation for NFL coaches is non publicly available.)

The specter of the NFL is one of several factors that could keep offensive line salaries, at the FBS level, on an upwardly trajectory.

Pittman remembers the moment, more than than a decade agone now, when he first heard that an offensive line jitney would exist making $200,000. "My Lord," he thought. But now, he's come up to view it every bit a natural evolution of the market.

Before existence hired by Arkansas, Pittman made $905,000 as the offensive line coach at Georgia in 2019, a loftier-water marker for coaches at that position over the past four years. He said it might simply exist a matter of time earlier an offensive line coach is making $i meg annually.

"You're going to pay a man what he's worth," Pittman said. "If you can become a dandy offensive line coach, and then somebody's going to set a new bar out there.

"I believe that they're worth every penny of it."

Contributing: Matt Wynn

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad. Follow Steve Berkowitz on Twitter @ByBerkowitz.

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2020/12/15/college-football-coach-salaries-why-offensive-line-coaches-make-more/3885548001/

Posted by: breedingalliat.blogspot.com

Share this post