USA Today: Iowa football strength coach making almost $600,000 per year

You would have to pay me 100% more to live in most parts of Iowa. So I can see that.

Considering their athletic department is apparently running a deficit and Iowa is still not a top program after 17 years some people might question the expenditure.

I cannot speak for all Iowa fans or Alums but in my view, Iowa knows there will be ups and downs in the football program. Iowa pays more with the hope of maintaining continuity and stability.

Iowa may not be a "top program," but the team has won 2 B1G Championships; been to 2 Orange Bowls, 1 Rose Bowl, 5 other New Years Bowl appearances; 5 AP Top Ten finishes, 13 total bowl games in 17 seasons, etc, in the Ferentz Era. I'm not trying to be an ass, but the Gophers have 1 New Years Bowl appearance since 1962 and haven't won more than 5 Conference games in a season since 1973.

Maybe Iowa pays too much for Ferentz (maybe they paid Fry too much) but the Hawkeyes have a better record since 1979 (Fry's 1st season) than any of the traditional B1G programs except Ohio state and Michigan (excluding PSU (joined in 1993), Rutgers, Maryland and Nebraska).
 

Since 1979, Hayden Fry's 1st season at Iowa, the Hawkeyes have the following records:

270-176-6
5 Big Ten Championships
27 Bowl Games
7 Top 10 Finishes
16 Top 25 Finishes
Winning records against Minnesota (23-14), Wisconsin (22-10-1) , Iowa State (24-13).
B1G Coach of the Year 7 times.
14 First Round NFL Draft Picks and a player drafted every year since 1978.

Iowa is NOT elite, but the money the Athletic Department spends to maintain continuity (a hedge against the geographic disadvantages) is worth it based on these results.

The Gophers, just for reference, since 1979:

168-246-3.
14 Bowl Games
0 Top Ten finishes
0 Big Ten Championships
2 Top 25 finishes.
Losing Record against Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Penn State


I'm well aware of the glory days (pre-1968) and the Gophers All-Time winning record against Iowa. The point is that Iowa is paying coaches to try to rise above geographic and historic disadvantages. There has been some success since 1979. Jerry Kill was your Kirk Ferentz, imo. You may not like the comparison but Kill was the long-term guy. It is a shame his health ended his career. An amazing person and excellent coach, he is. Maybe Claeys will get the job done. I will him the best of luck.
 

http://qctimes.com/sports/college/b...cle_79fa6d20-89a6-5be9-98b2-7c64a6b0d2a1.html

"Iowa’s budget also includes $21.5 million the athletics department anticipates paying to other university departments, including Public Safety, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, parking, scholarships, utilities, university business services and residence services."


Thanks for the clarification. The $21.5m is for services rendered. It points out the importance of athletics to various university departments and their budgets.
 




S&C coach is the 2nd most important coach on the team for a developmental program. Therefore S&C for IA more important than S&C coach for AL. The players on a DI football team will spend more time with the S&C coach than with the head coach over the course of a season, and exclusively during summer workouts. S&C guys can heavily Influence a program. Good for IA to understand this and pay him top assistant money. S&C butters your bread in IA.
 

Again, if there is some sort of unique and arcane black magic being practiced at Iowa, which I strongly doubt, why don't we hire this guy or one of his longer-term assistants?

Strength and conditioning is more important at Iowa than the top programs? I don't think so. It is important everywhere and is relative to the level of competition.

More likely scenario is Ferentz is highly regimented to the point of anal retentiveness and like Kill tries to maintain all variables at the same values each season. Or, something.else.

Now, I fully agree Iowa has had far more success than MN during this span. Iowa has put a ton of guys into the NFL. And, you paid well for Ferentz, a proven winner. The Gophers give suicidal extensions to good coach's kids.. We hired a position coach for the football vacancy. It is our lot in life at the moment. None of this changes the fact I find tbe salary interesting.
 

Based on what I could find other similar schools paying their head S&C coaches, many of these guys would probably jump at the chance to get paid a fraction of what Coyle is making. Schools like K State, West Virginia, T Tech are paying these guys less than half what Iowa pays Coyle. Josh Stoner (MO)is making less than 100K. I get the continuity of the staff argument. But I think there are coaches who can step right in and get the job done for significantly less money. Apparently Iowa's athletic department disagrees with me.
 




Below is a link to the elephant in the room, not that I'm insinuating anything, and Doyle is a hell of a coach, A HELL of a coach. How is my coach-speak this morning?

Again, I am not insinuating if you ain't cheating you ain't trying. NOTE: this is just jabbing. I doubt Iowa has a systemic PED program.


"Even when players are tested by the NCAA, experts like Catlin say it's easy enough to anticipate the test and develop a doping routine that results in a clean test by the time it occurs. NCAA rules say players can be notified up to two days in advance of a test, which Catlin says is plenty of time to beat a test if players have designed the right doping regimen. By comparison, Olympic athletes are given no notice.

Most schools that use Drug Free Sport do not test for anabolic steroids, Turpin said. Some are worried about the cost. Others don't think they have a problem. And others believe that since the NCAA tests for steroids their money is best spent testing for street drugs, she said.

Doping is a bigger deal at some schools than others.

At Notre Dame and Alabama, the teams that will soon compete for the national championship, players don't automatically miss games for testing positive for steroids. At Alabama, coaches have wide discretion. Notre Dame's student-athlete handbook says a player who fails a test can return to the field once the steroids are out of his system.

The University of North Carolina kicks players off the team after a single positive test for steroids. Auburn's student-athlete handbook calls for a half-season suspension for any athlete caught using performance-enhancing drugs.

At UCLA, home of the laboratory that for years set the standard for cutting-edge steroid testing, athletes can fail three drug tests before being suspended. At Bowling Green, testing is voluntary.

At the University of Maryland, students must get counseling after testing positive, but school officials are prohibited from disciplining first-time steroid users.

Only about half the student athletes in a 2009 NCAA survey said they believed school testing deterred drug use. As an association of colleges and universities, the NCAA could not unilaterally force schools to institute uniform testing policies and sanctions, Wilfert said.

"We can't tell them what to do, but if went through a membership process where they determined that this is what should be done, then it could happen,'' she said."

http://www.mprnews.org/story/2013/01/01/news/steroids-in-college-football
 


Wiki tells me Brew had a 15-8 record at Central Catholic. Pitino 18-14 at FIU. What happened?
 




Most post-analyses I've seen show that it is generally a bad idea to hire a position coach to be head coach at any level of football.

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