First Gumby and now Norvell have taken pay cuts to fund NIL. Will be interesting to see if this continues. The prior player "salary cap" allowed these mid-tier schools to compete with richer schools on coach pay but they can't compete on both coach and player pay. Unless there is another player salary cap put in place, something has to give. I certainly think the players deserve a little more than the gumbies of the world deserve to be fabulously wealthy.
Coaches' salaries and NIL
- Thread starter chito_and_leon
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They took cuts because they make $8M plus a year and won 2 and 3 games respectively. The transfer to NIL is due to both optics and it helps them attract better players. If they had won 9 games this season there would have been no pay cuts. Let’s not kid ourselves
Right, it was a quid pro quo, you give us 7-12 wins per season and we will pay you your salary. You give us 3 wins once in blue moon and we talk of firing you, unless... You take a salary cut, and allow us to donate that cut to NIL. Not very nice for someone who has given them no less than 7 wins in any year, and averaged 9 wins in those 18 years excluding his first and last year. He has a bookend of 4(1st year) and 3 wins,(this year) and the rest is good.
It's like a performance based contract. If you win with subpar NIL, thus saving us NIL money, then you get the full $8m. If you don't win and we have to pony up more NIL, then your salary is adjusted down. I suspect this will not be uncommon as the market adjusts, with mid-tier coach salaries falling, except for guys who can win cheaply. There's only so much $$ in the pot.
Not sure this is entirely true. Norvell landed one of the prized QBs in the portal last season in Ugavalelei, and that kid was a tremendous flop. These coaches are becoming too dependent on the portal to build their teams and they all go after the high price free agents without a care as to whether or not the kid can actually play at the level you're hoping they can. In Ugavalelei's case, he couldn't cut it at Clemson and lost the job to a true FR which is why he entered the portal 2 yrs ago and went to Oregon State where he had a decent year against meh competition. I think FlaSt had plenty of NIL money but I swear it makes coaches lazy.
I don't know about Gundy. I mean last year he was brilliant for having Bowman and then this year that didn't work. Along with the fact he probably had the best RB in college football returning and on paper, OSU was probably the prohibitive favorite to win the Big XII. Those players didn't just suck all of a sudden and Gundy couldn't coach. So what happened to these guys? What happened to their teams? Which key players did they lose to the portal that they couldn't replace? Leaders, locker room guys?
There is going to a lot less paying 1M for high school QBs. Transfer portal guys are going to get huge money. Maybe they sign contracts for performance.
NIL maybe makes them lazy but it also makes them stupid. I still Can't believe OU opted to pay Jackson Arnold over Dillion Gabriel. Ultimately, it will be why Brent Venables gets fired.
They had to know Arnold couldn't throw right? Was there something that made them believe otherwise? He went against that defense in practice.
There is going to be something written about this Oklahoma State team. Weird, weird deal. Gundy is usually capable to getting it together. Maybe Gundy just decided to give up.
NIL maybe makes them lazy but it also makes them stupid. I still Can't believe OU opted to pay Jackson Arnold over Dillion Gabriel. Ultimately, it will be why Brent Venables gets fired.
They had to know Arnold couldn't throw right? Was there something that made them believe otherwise? He went against that defense in practice.
There is going to be something written about this Oklahoma State team. Weird, weird deal. Gundy is usually capable to getting it together. Maybe Gundy just decided to give up.
I think Gundy is like Saban and some of the other coaches who have just decided to quit, except Gundy isn't quite ready to sit at home and not do anything. He's an old school guy and he's pretty much done with the NIL and the entitlement mentality it has given the players. These coaches used to be able to sell winning and a chance at the NFL and the players knew which coaches could help you do that. Players don't care about that anymore. They want to be paid now and who the hell cares what's next, they got their $50k this year.
I'm not so sure. My guess - 2% of the players are locks to get a chance at the NFL and they want both to get paid now because they're stars and who wouldn't want to get paid if you can and to get prepared for the NFL. Maybe 10% have a chance at the fringe of the NFL and they want to get paid now because there is no guarantee of the future. And maybe 88% who have no shot at the NFL and so want to get paid now because it's the only chance they have. The guys you're talking about that don't care about getting prepared for the NFL don't care because they have no shot at the NFL regardless. Why not take the $$?
My point is I think guys are losing the drive to compete and be better...they're not playing for the fun and competition any longer and for a shot at the dream of playing beyond college. I think that is what coaches like Saban and Gundy and bennet (UVA basketball) are loathing. Look at Josh Jacobs...no NIL $, was 3rd strong most of his time at Bama, yet competed like a monster every day and was a 1st round pick. There's no drive for players like that anymore because they're getting paid now. There's no incentive based NIL to perform. More money if you're a starter, more money for TDs scored, more money for tackles or sacks. Maybe NIL needs to have an incentive based clause in it. Maybe they need an escalator clause that kicks in year 2 to keep players in place instead of chasing the portal.
I think a lot of those coaches enjoyed the purity of college football and that has been tainted with all the money taking over. How many coaches are going to feel pressed to play the kid at QB that's getting $100k in NIL funds over the kid that's a walk-on getting nothing right now?
We need more players with the mindset of some of the South Dakota St. players have this year. They had 8 players who were offered 6 figure deals to go to power schools, qb offered 7 figures, and all decided to stick around and go for a 3 peat. There's no desire to have to compete with anyone anymore, or help turn a team around. It's hard as a fan too to really be invested anymore when you have almost all new players every year, can't get attached to one because he'll be gone in a year. Needs to be some sort of rules going forward instead of just having it be a free for all anytime
Add to the list, short shortsightedness. No NFL, an insignificant amount of NIL burnt through by the time they run out of eligibility, and NO DEGREE, all of which in the end leads to dead end jobs for most or back to the streets at worst. The current system is doing a huge disservice to most of these young people.
Ahh, intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation. Perhaps we could have our good drboobay do a seminar on that?
I'm not sure that getting paid $100k a year now demotivates someone from working hard for the chance to make $10m+ a year in a few years.
I get a kick out of "a lot of those coaches enjoyed the purity of college football and that has been tainted with all the money taking over" in reference to coaches making $5m+ per year. They love the purity of other people not getting paid.
Knute Rockne got paid $10k a year, which is the equivalent of ~ $200k a year now. Switzer made $150k a year in '77 as the highest paid coach in CFB, ~$750k now. I'd love to see a return to purity in CFB in terms of salaries for everyone, but players deserve the $$ more than the coaches.
I mean, I get it, but how is this different than a guy who wins $1m in the lottery and spends it on luxury trips for a couple years and then ends up spending the rest of his life working at Burger King? They "spend" a lot of money on a personal conceit. Wouldn't we feel better if they took the NIL $ and invested it to create generational wealth for themselves and their kids?
Kids aren't rational about this any more than I was, or my grandparents were. 60% of them think they have the possibility of getting into the NFL if they work hard, no matter how they talk about it if asked. There is the rational self, and there is the real self. Those two don't finally get an introduction until their late twenties, early thirties. All this talk otherwise is just naive.
But is there actually any evidence to suggest that graduation rates are going down? Grad rates at D1 schools, which have NIL, are higher than grad rates at D2 schools, which I assume mainly don't. 2023 had the highest graduation rate for college athletes ever, tho that's more than FB. I agree with your conclusion if I accept your premises, but I'm not sure your premises are based on actual facts.
In that case, then NIL should be a positive since it's a very early indicator to them of what their FB skills are worth. When your buddy gets $100k and you get $5k, that "introduction" comes early and hard.
Are you really as pompous as you sound on here, or is there a real you. Despite all the input to the contrary, most kids don't learn those lessons until a few years pass. They still think they are supermen, and that they will just try harder. You are a poor Sophocles.
Any chance that there will eventually be limitations on how many times players can transfer? Is it unreasonable to assume NIL dynamics will eventually match up to contract stipulations like those in the pro leagues? No-trade clauses, multi-year contracts, etc.
Maybe I should have focused the comment toward kids that are on the fringe of NFL talent. Your always going to have those that hit the talent jackpot and make it to the league. Many of those could care less about the degree. Then there are those that are talented enough to play football at the collegiate level, but are realists and know that door closes and they need to make a living post football. I believe there's a majority that fit into that mold. It's those kids that are fringe or haven't had solid guidance to their abilities I worry about most. The current system allows them to bounce from one place to the next while chasing a few dollars. Though they may be completing enough credit hours to remain eligible to play, it's beyond my mind that they could be making true progress toward a meaningful degree. Academic programs are simply too widely varied from institution to institution to have the continuity within degree programs for the kids to be truly prepared to enter their chosen field. My guess is that there are many exemptions as to what and how credits and applied toward a particular degree program. Likely a whole lot of bachelor of arts, university studies, or other fluff degrees lined up for the fringe and NFL caliber players. To your point, the data shows those grad rates are going up for athletes as a whole, but using our rates as an example during Monty's tenure, many times that is on the backs of the athletes competing in non-revenue sports. I'd like to say my premise is based more on logic and my gut and the limited data available, but it's not. So, while plausible, there are certainly holes in my premise that can be exploited.
Yeah all this makes a ton of sense. I hope we get data to let people who are smarter than me analyze the situation but it's just too early I think. My main concern is, will anybody care? The NCAA focused on graduation rates while they were pretending to be an amateur body. But with them basically out of the picture, who is going to focus on making sure the guys you talk about are taken care of, or at least motivated to graduate? I don't see anybody who will care enough to move them in the direction they should go.
Coaches got paid for doing a job. But really all the coaches had to do was coach and recruit. Now they have to manage egos, like coaches in the pros have to. Look at how quickly Saban got out of the pro game to get back to college? Was it even a full year? I really think some of these coaches just want to coach and manage the game and not have to deal with contract/NIL negotiations and having to re-recruit players every year because someone is throwing a new pot of cash at them.
The answer is no. The courts have ruled that the NCAA cannot limit transfers and immediate eligibility as it violates antitrust.
I think congress could legislate a different system, I imagine that will eventually happen.
As the industry changes, different skills will be necessary, just like when any industry changes. But I have trouble seeing the coaches who have multi-million dollar salaries being the victims in any way.
I'm not saying they're victims in any way. I don't think the coaches think they're victims, they just don't want to deal with the BS.
