Ground UH football in reality

ith the opportunity to hire a new head coach, it’s time for the University of Hawaii to take stock of its struggling football program. It can start by being more careful when spending money.

In retrospect, of course, head coach Greg McMackin’s $1.15 million annual salary was too high. He was by far the highest-paid coach in the Western Athletic Conference, even though he lacked a proven track record of success.

By way of contrast, the WAC’s most successful coach this year, Nevada’s Chris Ault, makes $438,952.

McMackin’s salary seemed to reflect more the grandiose aspirations of UH — still riding the high of June Jones and a trip to the Sugar Bowl — than a cold-eyed calculation of cost versus benefit for a relatively small Division I program. It’s a mistake the UH administration can ill afford to make again, especially in this economy.

There is a practical reason why the salaries of top college coaches continue to rise, even during times of fiscal austerity: Success on the gridiron brings prestige to a university that can boost its desirability and enrollment.

More important, a winning football team brings in money — from attendance and television contracts — that supports other, less-glamorous sports.

That’s not what UH got for its $1.15 million. Under McMackin, the Warriors had one winning season out of four; attendance fell, with a nearly 90 percent drop among students; and revenues declined, even with the addition of $818,000 in mandatory student fees.

Of course, Monday-morning quarterbacking is easy and rarely useful. There are no guarantees in the college football business. And there were some successes. McMackin and other UH coaches deserve credit for raising significantly the academic progress rates of their student-athletes. That’s real progress that the new coach should be expected to build on. McMackin also had his share of bad breaks, including untimely injuries.

Nonetheless, during a time of severe fiscal belt-tightening, UH administrators have a responsibility to mitigate risk. Replacing McMackin is one way. Hiring a new coach at a more reasonable salary, with incentives based on performance, is another.

The football Warriors will compete in the Mountain West Conference next season. While the chance to play in a more competitive arena has generated much excitement, this change comes with its own costs. UH will forfeit its share of pooled WAC revenue. UH will also subsidize some travel costs for its new opponents, something it didn’t do in the WAC.

Meanwhile, there’s still a $9 million athletics department debt that has accumulated since 2002.

So how much should the new Warrior coach get paid? It depends on who wants the job. For major-college head football coaches, the average compensation in 2011 is $1.47 million, a jump of nearly 55 percent since 2006, according to an analysis by USA Today. But most Mountain West football coaches make in a range of $500,000 to $860,000 a year. A number in that neighborhood seems more reasonable.