Let’s first talk about the 7 million dollar salary. Pool, let’s use this tweet for reference:
I talked about the fact that Mickey was wanting 7 figures to stick around, and with us paying what we had to with Rhule to get him out of his Carolina Panthers buyout, the numbers get a little tricky. If Mickey who would more than likely get the Associate Head Coach title but not be a coordinator was going to get a million, you probably have to pay your offensive and defensive coordinators close to 1.5 a piece. That would take you to 4 million before we even talked about the other 7 assistants. I’ve said I think you need to pay Mickey, but let’s just assume for a second that it doesn’t work out… let’s talk about one of the things that pissed me off when Frost came here from UCF and his assistant salary pool.
I wasn’t as mad as others were when he brought his entire staff with him from Orlando. Turns out I was pretty wrong about that, but I understood it. Coaches rarely deviate from what works, and they just went 13-0. They just beat Auburn in the a bowl game. Why not bring everyone with you? While that proved to be a mistake despite me being somewhat ok with it, there was one thing that I always harped on on my previous message board.
I got so mad that when Frost brought his whole staff here he just instantly increased all of their salaries by sometimes more than double what they were getting. I get that a guy like Travis Fisher or Sean Beckton probably were hot commodities and needed a little incentive to come north. But a guy like Duval wasn’t being courted by anyone else, you didn’t need to take him from 185k to 400k just because you could. You didn’t need to take Ryan Held from 140k to 300k. Just because you have it doesn’t mean you have to spend it.
Circle it back to Rhule, I thought we would need to get to 7 million if we were paying an assistant who wasn’t a coordinator 7 figures. If Mickey chooses to go elsewhere, you may backfill him with a different WR coach, and one you can get for a more reasonable dollar amount (and get the same production). This is not to crap on Mickey, in my opinion i’m paying that dude. I’m just trying to level set on some expectations.
Here’s an example, Michigan and John Harbaugh don’t pay a single assistant (not even coordinators) over 1 million and they just won the east. Their entire assistant salary pool is 6.35 million, according to Trev, Rhule will get 7 million.
Again, i’m not saying to go cheap or that a guy like MJ doesn’t deserve it… but if we don’t get him to stay, it doesn’t mean we just have to go disperse it “because we have it”. Use it to upgrade some other positions where you may be able to get someone you thought wasn’t possible previously.
Rhule already using his philosophy handing out offers to speedsters
We talked about this article in many previous posts about Rhule, and how he found guys that could flat out fly that may be a bit unpolished as football players now, but have incredibly high ceilings.
And Rhule wasted no time going that route. His first offer was to a track All-American that runs a 10.8 100 that is currently committed to Virginia Tech
And he followed that up with a real surprising one to Jaylen Lloyd, who was at Omaha Central before transferring to Omaha Westside
Lloyd has a 10.4 100, 21.3 200, 50 foot triple jump, and the list goes on. Fits exactly what Rhule wants with guys that are fast as heck and have a ton of upside.
I would give one bit of caution on some of these…. doing this can really increase the chances of missing. I always look back at a guy like Kenzo Cotton or Ben Zajicek and they had all the numbers you wanted, but you have to really love football to be a contributor at a Power 5 school. Just offering based on track stats can be even more “boom or bust” than the normal recruiting process. But when you find some hidden guys no one is looking at, the ceiling is extremely high.
And this isn’t to say they will do it with every position and recruit, it’s just something to keep an eye on moving forward.
ShortSideOption Blog (asst salary pool)
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