College football brain trusts are beginning to realize that all the money and fame imaginable doesn’t guarantee their schools of holding on to one of their most valuable resources: Coaches.
The laws of supply and demand are putting pressure on athletic directors to find, hire and keep good ones.
Elite head coaches are difficult enough to keep, but now there is also big pressure to hang on to their lieutenants. Coordinators with high visibility are huge assets who are expected to perform at high levels — especially in the Southeastern Conference.
And all of a sudden there is a run on defensive coordinators in the league. And the price of doing business has escalated greatly.
Ask Jeremy Foley, Florida’s athletics director. He employed three different defensive coordinators from December to February after Charlie Strong left for Louisville and took two Florida assistants with him. Shortly thereafter, Miami Dolphins assistant George Edwards was named co-defensive coordinator, but only lasted 27 days before going back to work in the NFL for Chan Gailey at Buffalo.
Quickly, Urban Meyer and senior staff members were out on the streets again, looking for another defensive coordinator. It is the mark of Meyer that he always seems to have a plan in a crisis, but even this seemed like he tested his limits on such short notice, given that he was about to lock down a top-ranked recruiting class and take a leave of absence.
Other SEC schools like Georgia and Tennessee had already picked their defensive coordinators — allowing Kirby Smart at Alabama, John Chavis at LSU and Ellis Johnson at South Carolina to be locked down – and the field of candidates was narrowed. Besides, Meyer had made up his mind he wanted a coach with an NFL background.
Enter Teryl Austin, secondary coach for the Arizona Cardinals, who became the Gators’ solo defensive coordinator, by all accounts a man with an excellent coaching pedigree at the highest levels. But let’s be honest here: Not exactly a household name around the SEC. But more on that later.
* * *
Just about the time the money tree began to grow significantly larger leaves, SEC athletic directors got tapped on their shoulders by agents. It was time to divvy up the fresh batch of cash that was coming with the new ESPN contracts. Immediately as the 2009 season began, the multi-millionaires got richer, as Urban Meyer, and Nick Saban reached the $4 million stratosphere, with Les Miles just a flea-flicker behind.
That was Round One, to be followed by the rush on defensive coordinators, with the highest paid ones about to have their paychecks nearly doubled by 2010.
Foley doesn’t really think the infusion of money was what changed the market, but he does agree that it was tumultuous. He thinks the market has fluctuated because there is a premium on good coaches — especially DCs.
“What you see here is that in this league, the competition is so fierce, the expectations are so high and there is so much at stake,” said Foley “If you have quality coaches, you have to pay them. If people come chasing your coaches, and you think it’s somebody that can make a difference on the field, then you’d better be prepared.”
All of a sudden, defensive coordinators became rock stars, or in the case of Tennessee, country music stars. Lane Kiffin brought his daddy to Knoxville with all of the fanfare of Tim McGraw coming to the Grand Ol’ Opry for a year, and probably for as much money. Monte was the first millionaire DC with a salary of $1.2 million.
Other than that, just a year ago, the highest paid DC in the league was LSU’s John Chavis at $450,000, followed by Alabama’s Kirby Smart at $390,000. Florida’s Charlie Strong only made $310,000.
Strong, long overdue to become a head coach, hit the lottery at Louisville with a raise to $1.7 million. But the price of hiring, and keeping, defensive coordinators skyrocketed — especially with the trend of hiring them from the National Football League.
Foley found out the hard way. He paid Edwards more than anybody on the Gator coaching staff (about $500,000) only to see him get snapped up by the Bills before ever coaching one practice snap.
Now Foley was in the middle of a run on DCs. Georgia was in the hunt, getting nice raises for people like South Carolina’s Johnson, who doubled his salary to $700,000; Smart, who went to $750,000; and Chavis, who went to $700,000. Finally, Georgia ended up paying Dallas Cowboys assistant Todd Grantham $750,000. That was nearly a half million more than the Bulldogs paid the departed Willie Martinez.
Why the gold rush for coordinators?
“Coordinators have a tough job,” said Foley. “They get as much criticism sometimes as the head coach does. They have a huge impact on the success of any program. People can see that success … like the impact Charlie Strong had on our success, as I am sure they did at other schools around the league.
“Finding defensive coordinators or offensive coordinators – ones that can compete in this league and bring value to your program … Sometimes you have to go to the next level to get them. And those folks in the NFL make a lot of money, too.”
* * *
One thing Foley has learned about hiring coaches is that you have to pay attention to the changing market and the laws of supply and demand.
It was the Florida AD who shocked the college football world by paying Steve Spurrier as much, or more in some cases, than NFL coaches make: $2 million. And not just because he wanted to flaunt the wealth of the program. He could see the storm clouds building and wanted to be proactive.
“That was the market for us and it was in our best interest to keep him at Florida and pay him that, even if it was what coaches made in the NFL,” Foley said.
Foley did the same with Meyer with the new contract that pays him in excess of $4 million.
Foley recognizes that when a school is trying to build a program, or maintain a program, people are your greatest resources.
“Your coach is obviously, in any sport, your greatest resource, as long as they are producing a product that can be successful,” said Foley “So if you have a key ingredient to that piece and suddenly you decide ‘it’s not worth paying another $200,000 or $250,000 — I’m going to let him go.’ It can have such a domino effect . . . What does it do to your staff chemistry? Is it the right thing for your institution? It can cost you more money in the long run if you’re not proactive here.”
Having learned his lesson about that when Spurrier left for the Redskins and he had to resort to hiring his third choice, Ron Zook, Foley will always have a Plan B.
“If you’re going to lose a key component, you’d better have somebody lined up to be plenty successful,” he says now.
* * *
We hear a lot about “Urban’s list,” that mythical lineup of future coaching prospects to which he sometimes talks about. This time as he flipped through the prospects, he had help from staff members who knew the candidate. Offensive coordinator Steve Addazio coached with Austin at Syracuse. Quarterback coach Scot Loeffler was on the staff with him at Michigan.
Truthfully, it was a small list because of all the particulars of the hiring.
“You’re limited when you’re looking at different people who could fit at this institution, fit into this locker room or this coaches room,” said Foley. “If you lose a linebacker coach, you can obviously replace a linebacker coach. But now you’ve lost a linebacker coach who’s a coordinator.
“It’s a big puzzle and you’ve got to make all the pieces fit. Sometimes it’s not as easy as it appears — sometimes it takes longer than the optimum. You’ve got to find the right person, find the right fit.”
Austin had come to the Arizona Cardinals as secondary coach from the Seattle Seahawks where he had a reputation for developing young players. He had made the transition successfully after 12 years at colleges — Penn State, Wake Forest, Syracuse and Michigan — but outside the coaching fraternity not all that much is known about him.
The fact that he came highly recommended by Meyer’s friend, Arizona Cardinals defensive coordinator Bill Davis, as well as Addazio and Loeffler, boded well for Austin, who was also interviewed and screened by defensive assistants Chuck Heater and Dan McCarney.
There were three key things about Austin that impressed them: (1) He was relatively young (44), with considerable leadership skills; (2) He was known as a strong recruiter; (3) He was a committed family man with five children.
He did want the solo title as DC, however, and became the highest paid member of Meyer’s staff at a little more than $500,000. Now it remains to be seen how he will fit into the group and how all of that will impact the team chemistry.
Next: Coaching Chemistry is as important as team chemistry.