10th coach not an option Warriors can afford
Keeping up with the Joneses or, in this case, the Boise States and Colorado States, is about to get more expensive for University of Hawaii football.
The NCAA has before it a proposal to let the 128 Football Bowl Subdivision teams add a 10th assistant coach.
Teams are currently permitted a head coach and nine full-time, on-field assistants. That does not include analysts, quality control staffers, recruiting coordinators, video personnel, operations staff who have off-the-field responsibilities.
The strong likelihood is the 10th assistant position will be approved, the only question is when they will start: in two months or Jan. 9, 2018.
The Power Five Conference schools are chomping for an April start while several of the less well-heeled favor Jan. 2018 — or later — so they can try to come up with the moolah or rearrange their staffs.
UH is one of those shaking the piggy bank and checking behind the seat cushions for small change. Athletic director David Matlin said in an email the Rainbow Warriors “do not currently have funding for it.”
The ’Bows’ salary pool for their nine assistants is already approximately $1.2 million and adding another position probably means an additional $80,000-$120,000 plus benefits, depending upon the amount of experience a new coach brings. The average UH assistant made more than $120,000 last year and the ceiling on assistants who are not coordinators is $165,000.
For UH, this latest exercise is less about the insanity of trying to keep up with the big bucks marquee schools such as Michigan and Alabama, and more about the fear of falling further behind some of their Mountain West Conference peers.
Boise State and Colorado State, for example, are at least a couple hundred thousand dollars ahead of UH in assistant salaries while offering a lower cost of living.
If you saw the Michigan sideline when the ’Bows played in Ann Arbor in September, what the Wolverines had wasn’t a coaching staff as much as an army. In addition to their nine assistants — and head coach Jim Harbaugh — the Wolverines’ staff is composed of seven operations people, four analysts, five personnel staffers and a performance director plus the allowable contingent of graduate assistants.
“I just know there were a lot of people in head sets and khakis,” Nick Rolovich said.
At Alabama, it looks more like an NFL front office and it is not uncommon these days for the brand name schools to have football staffs of 25-30 people while UH and its peers are running 13-16.
For schools such as UH it isn’t just about a disparity in numbers. There is also the fear that some of the marquee teams — those that do not already have a their prospective 10th assistant stashed in an analyst job in anticipation of the rule change — will poach from their ranks.
Sort of like losing your defensive coordinator to Michigan.
There are, of course, some arguments that can be made for an expanded coaching staff such as improving the player-to-coach ratio at a level where 105-man rosters are the rule rather than exception.
But there is also an element of excess, expanding because football can. We’ve seen it in facilities, cost of attendance stipends and more.
Never mind that more than 80 percent of Division I athletic departments run at a deficit. In the athletic arms race, nowhere is the competition more furious than college football, which brings in the most money and knows few bounds in trying to out-spend the other guy.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
14 responses to “10th coach not an option Warriors can afford”
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The NCAA, as usual is to blame for this! If they were to set more modest standards for ALL programs, regardless of how deep their pockets are, then maybe there would be a liitle more parity between the Power 5 and the lesser programs, AKA Hawaii! All this would do if passed is allow an already ridiculously strong Power 5 to become even more powerful. What comes to mind is that these conferences along with the NCAA would want nothing better than to have college football reduced to just these conferences anyway! what that means is more money from TV and a guarantee that all the best athletes would go ONLY to these schools and not even consider a school like UH. Its very sad how the rich are relentless in all but killing smaller programs to guarantee fame and fortune in their coffers!!
You pretty much nailed it!
Make the NFL pay for it. Colleges are doing their recruiting and training for them.
Any player who leaves early for the pros should pay back the college or university for the expense the university had spend for their scholarship. I believe this is a fair trade off.
That’s ridiculous and has absolutely nothing to do with this story. Why should a student pay back for years they played for the school? The player played for the school during the years the university provided a scholarship. Not to mention that scholarships are one-year agreements. Your idea is mor0nic.
YUP ! Agree. Scholarships are a year to year agreement.
Nope! There are certain colleges that provide multiyear scholarships up to five years. It’s not only year to year agreement.
McCully, How does that help us? I do not believe we ever had a player leave early for the Pros so we get nothing from your proposal.
I think there were a few players that left…Ashley Lelie comes to mind.
They are going to approve the 10th on field coach but limit the number of analysts and off field people. There is a point where they start getting in each other’s way.
Mr. Ellison are you out there?
These coaches are way overpaid. An assistant making 165K? I don’t think the Professors at UH make that much. The big schools can afford these types of salaries because their program brings in millions, Hawaii’s football program is lucky to break even. UH needs to live within it’s means, even the head coach should be under 100K.
No sense in wasting taxpayer money, they aren’t going to shoot to the top no matter how much money the coaches make. Winning is more about the talent pool than it is about the coaches. Hawaii’s talent pool is shallow, the best players leave to go to the bigger, better schools. That’s just the facts.
UH Football more than breaks even…do you forget that its profits must subsidize all of the rest of UH’s sports (except Wahine Volleyball–which supports/funds itself–at least as long as Dave Shoji is still their coach!)
Ferd, you’re clueless. UH can find someone who will work cheap or for free, like Tomey, or maybe even a groveling Miano.