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Can the tail wag the dog any more? - Printable Version

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Can the tail wag the dog any more? - OutsiderFan - 12-29-2014

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/writer/dennis-dodd/24918949/harbaugh-move-may-put-schools-on-brink-of-10m-a-year-coach

The highest paid football coach in the world could be in college, not the NFL.  Something doesn't seem right about this. 


Re: Can the tail wag the dog any more? - stupac2 - 12-29-2014

How much is Nick Saban worth to Alabama? Hard to say, but is 10M/year really that absurd over a coach who doesn't have them in the title game every other year? Seems more likely to me that he's worth that much than pretty much any CEO who makes that much is worth it to their company.

Re: Can the tail wag the dog any more? - thunder_chik - 12-29-2014

I say good for Harbaugh -- $8 mil buys a lot of Dockers.  He's gonna love those big noisy crowds and the rah-rah-rah at UM.

For most NCAA schools, football is all about generating revenue now anyway, so why shouldn't good coaches make a lot?

Re: Can the tail wag the dog any more? - yvonne - 12-29-2014

I don't remember this getting much play here when it came out, but Stanford magazine did an article (Sept./Oct edition) about the implications of some of the lawsuits — the Northwestern players' and O'Bannon suits. Stanford does not want to go the route of paying players. The direction of sports might lead to Stanford pulling out of the Pac-12, or even out of Div I sports. I see non-revenue sport athletes as the biggest losers here.

Re: Can the tail wag the dog any more? - washingtonismoney - 12-29-2014

I don't think it's crazy at all that the highest-paid coach is in college, not the NFL. In effect, a college coach is the GM as well as the coach. He has near-total authority over personnel: backroom staff, players and coaches. Add to that the marketing tasks a college coach is involved with (booster lunches, etc.), and the higher pay of college coaches makes perfect sense to me.

Re: Can the tail wag the dog any more? - Nan3cy - 12-29-2014

(12-29-2014, 11:42 AM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:I don't think it's crazy at all that the highest-paid coach is in college, not the NFL. In effect, a college coach is the GM as well as the coach. He has near-total authority over personnel: backroom staff, players and coaches. Add to that the marketing tasks a college coach is involved with (booster lunches, etc.), and the higher pay of college coaches makes perfect sense to me.

He has near total authority over personnel IF he's effectively the Admissions Office...

Re: Can the tail wag the dog any more? - CTcard - 12-29-2014

(12-29-2014, 11:35 AM)thunder_chik link Wrote:For most NCAA schools, football is all about generating revenue now anyway, so why shouldn't good coaches make a lot?

Actually, a most NCAA schools football is all about losing large sums of money and mollifying loud, aggressive alums.

At a smaller number of NCAA schools football is about trying to generate some revenue to partially offset the losses in the rest of the AD.

At a tiny number of schools (which surprisingly has often not inlcuded Michigan, but sometimes does) football and athletics does generate net revenue. It is true that Michigan is one of the few places that can pay a head coach an obscene salary and not have others pay for it elsewhere in the university.



Re: Can the tail wag the dog any more? - OutsiderFan - 12-29-2014

It's like the NCAA lawsuits are no longer on the minds of the Michigan AD/President.  I've for the most part been in David Shaw's camp on the paying athletes front.  However, if college coaches are being paid more than professional ones, I will change my mind.  College sports revenue growth as a function of holding down wages of the labor force, can only go on so long.  There is a tipping point for the end of major NCAA sport amateurism.  This Harbaugh and Michigan situation might not be that point, but it sure adds velocity to getting to it faster if it isn't.

Re: Can the tail wag the dog any more? - Hank 91 - 12-29-2014

(12-29-2014, 11:42 AM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:I don't think it's crazy at all that the highest-paid coach is in college, not the NFL. In effect, a college coach is the GM as well as the coach. He has near-total authority over personnel: backroom staff, players and coaches. Add to that the marketing tasks a college coach is involved with (booster lunches, etc.), and the higher pay of college coaches makes perfect sense to me.

I agree. If you're coaching in the NFL, that's kind of all you're doing -- coaching. Here's what David Shaw has to do (I'd imagine people like Nick Saban and Les Miles have to do a lot more.)

Recruit, hire coaches, coordinate recruiting, deal with admissions office, monitor academics of current players, prepare younger players to replace the 6-10 starters that leave every season, attend three separate media days, speak at close to a dozen alumni functions, interface with athletic director for scheduling issues, and -- I'm guessing -- sign off on any number of minor decisions that we don't even know about.

And then he has to coach the games.

Does the coach make the program? - BostonCard - 12-29-2014

Interesting article on Fox Sports:

http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/outkick-the-coverage/jim-harbaugh-is-the-big-ten-s-nick-saban-122814

Quote:Because here's the deal, the top coaches in college football are actually underpaid. You heard me right. Nick Saban is the best bargain in sports. Nick Saban isn't overpaid, everyone else who isn't as good as Nick Saban is overpaid. Saban's salary lifts the ceiling and the floor for college football coaches everywhere. Saban's success has been worth tens of millions of dollars in additional compensation to coaches who aren't as good at their jobs as he is.

Also interesting for the reference to David Shaw, who is left out of a lift of ten college coaches who could take a decidedly average Big5 program (Illinois, given as an example), and turn it into a winner year in and year out, like Saban at Alabama, because, "I think [Shaw] and Stanford are uniquely suited to one another and I'm not sure Shaw's success would translate as well at other schools."

BC

Re: Can the tail wag the dog any more? - Nan3cy - 12-29-2014

Interesting article. A line I loved: "How would Jimbo (Fisher) do with a competitive conference and a local police department that enforced the law?"


Football news from the 18th century - Redrum - 12-29-2014

Quote:David Shaw, who is left out of a lift of ten college coaches


Re: Can the tail wag the dog any more? - washingtonismoney - 12-29-2014

Most people evaluate coaches -- and players -- by what they can do to elevate an average situation (like Illinois) to an extraordinary one. But I don't think that's the right metric, because, as he notes with Shaw-and-Stanford, success is often situational. I'm not sure Saban's approach works well outside of a situation where you can gather hordes of NFL-ready talent. (But it works so, so well there.)

And I think some players are only valuable on good teams. That's probably most true in basketball, where a "glue guy" -- to use a VERY RANDOM example like Fred Washington -- is most useful for a really good team. Mike Dunleavy's a nice small forward for my favorite pro team, but I wouldn't want him for the 76ers.

Re: Can the tail wag the dog any more? - BostonCard - 12-29-2014

Good points, WIM, but let's remember Nick Saban coached two other Big5 teams.  In 5 seasons at Michigan State, he took a team that had gone 0-11 in 1994, and took them to a Bowl game in his first year there.  He went 34-24-1, and led Michigan State to the Citrus Bowl in 1999, finishing 9-2.

At LSU, he had inherited a team that had gone 2-8 (0-7 in the SEC) the prior year, and took them to a bowl game as well.  He had two top-10, seasons, including the 2003 National Championship, and went to a bowl game all 5 years he was there.

And obviously, what he has done at Alabama speaks for itself.  The bottom line is Saban has won everywhere he coached, and took three programs that had not done well immediately before he arrived and turned them into consistent winners, winning a national championship in two of them.


BC

Re: Can the tail wag the dog any more? - stupac2 - 12-29-2014

(12-29-2014, 02:03 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:The bottom line is Saban has won everywhere he coached

The Miami Dolphins would like a word.

Re: Can the tail wag the dog any more? - BostonCard - 12-29-2014

(12-29-2014, 02:15 PM)stupac2 link Wrote:[quote author=Boston Card link=topic=11421.msg109160#msg109160 date=1419887008]The bottom line is Saban has won everywhere* he coached

The Miami Dolphins would like a word.
[/quote]

OK, the asterisk that I added post facto was meant to say "in college".  Many excellent college coaches have floundered in the NFL.

BC

Re: Can the tail wag the dog any more? - washingtonismoney - 12-29-2014

(12-29-2014, 02:03 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:Good points, WIM, but let's remember Nick Saban coached two other Big5 teams.  In 5 seasons at Michigan State, he took a team that had gone 0-11 in 1994, and took them to a Bowl game in his first year there.  He went 34-24-1, and led Michigan State to the Citrus Bowl in 1999, finishing 9-2.

At LSU, he had inherited a team that had gone 2-8 (0-7 in the SEC) the prior year, and took them to a bowl game as well.  He had two top-10, seasons, including the 2003 National Championship, and went to a bowl game all 5 years he was there.

So.... here's my thinking here. My belief is predicated on two things, though I'll admit they're totally counterfactual and unprovable either way.

1) MSU is a strong example, but I think football has changed dramatically schematically since then. I'm not sure Saban's preferred pro-style approach on offense, and his complicated defensive schemes, work outside the context of top, top-tier NFL talent. It's not a dominant strategy, basically, but it works really, really well for its niche.

2) LSU is interesting as well. But while the program had fallen on tough times, Louisiana's a great state for football prospects -- number one per capita in sending players to the NFL, I believe. And I think time, also, is a factor.

But again, totally unprovable and speculative. If I were Illinois's AD and I could somehow get Nick Saban, I wouldn't let my suspicions get the better of me. (But I might prefer Urban Meyer.)

Re: Can the tail wag the dog any more? - washingtonismoney - 12-29-2014

Also, re: the Dolphins and Saban. The story I've heard a lot was that Saban really, really wanted Drew Brees as a free agent QB, but that the front office staff decided that Daunte Culpepper was their man. Oops! Saban might still be enacting his dictatorial reign of terror today if he'd landed Brees. (I'll remind you all that Pete Carroll was supposedly a guy who couldn't get it done in the NFL. Whoops! Speaking of situational.)

Also, speaking of SC-related what-ifs... supposedly, Nick Saban inquired about the SC job back when Carroll got it. His agent, however, assured him that no one could win at SC anymore. Whoops! One shudders at the thought of Nick Saban coaching SC.

Re: Can the tail wag the dog any more? - stupac2 - 12-29-2014

(12-29-2014, 02:32 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:OK, the asterisk that I added post facto was meant to say "in college".  Many excellent college coaches have floundered in the NFL.

Many excellent NFL coaches have floundered in the NFL. Belichick is a first-ballot hall of famer and might be the greatest coach ever, but he was mediocre with the Browns. Football is such a complicated game that it's really hard to figure out who's responsible for what.

Anyway, the lesson is if you put an asterisk in it needs to lead somewhere.*



*At least, if you want to get your point across.

Re: Can the tail wag the dog any more? - Farm93 - 12-29-2014

Harbaugh will bring significant $$ to Michigan.  He will bring in several times his salary in athletic department and university donations.  I have no doubt.  And in that way a college coach could command a higher salary than an NFL coach.  If a university could credibly claim that a football coach was the key to landing even one 9 figure donation then all is good in their world.

I suspect that Harbaugh's presence will easily raise big money even if he does not win the B1G Championship.  Michigan has plowed too much money into the football machine to have it run by a budget hire.  And with a good hire they will get far more than Alabama will from their coach.  Unlike Alabama, Michigan actually has a substantial endowment and is able to command large gifts, at least when the football team or economic conditions are strong.

FWIW - although the big house holds a lot of people, it is not particularly noisy.