UM will have to pay

By Mark Snyder

Detroit Free Press

When Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon discussed the coaching search after firing Rich Rodriguez, he stressed that it was important to pay at the market level — something Michigan had not traditionally done with its football coaches.

Yet Rodriguez was making $2.5 million a year as part of his total compensation (base salary around $315,000 and the rest from perks and outside compensation), which ranked around 14th nationally.

The six top-paid coaches had won a national title when USA Today released its latest salary analysis in early December. If Brandon wants a coach with title credentials — LSU’s Les Miles, who makes $3.9 million a year, is the only likely candidate in that group — he will be substantially raising the bar from Rodriguez’s pay scale.

That’s why Brandon cited the market and not a specific number at his news conference last week. Although it’s a factor somewhat beyond his control, he knows the salary offer should be enticing to some.

A national title is a unique resume point, but other schools approach that top of the pay hierarchy even for coaches without such credentials.

An HBO report last spring said that USC’s Lane Kiffin — hired with a 5-15 NFL record and 7-6 college record — was making $4 million as Pete Carroll’s successor. In September, Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz — who has been to two BCS bowls — signed a contract extension to reach $3.675 million a year. In December, Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino — who also has two BCS appearances and only one in his three years at Arkansas — got a raise to $3.56 million.

“It’s a matter of economics and it’s very much the same as professional sports for Derek Jeter or LeBron James,” said former LSU athletic director Skip Bertman. “The best coach at the time has some high salary; if you want to compete, you have to do that. The best example is Alabama going to get Nick Saban at $4 million [after 2006] when nobody was making near that much. Now, of course, many guys make that.”

Bertman was LSU’s AD in 2007 when Miles was in the mix for Michigan’s job. His salary jumped from $1.8 million to about $3.5 million because of a contract clause that if he won the national championship — which LSU did that season — he had to be paid as one of the country’s top three coaches.

Miles’ situation is interesting because of his buyout clause. His only buyout is for Michigan, and it’s for $1.25 million.

Coaches’ salaries took a big jump when Saban left the Miami Dolphins to take over Alabama on Jan. 3, 2007. (Rodriguez had turned down the job earlier.) And while the NFL is a viable competitor — Carroll, Saban, Petrino and now Jim Harbaugh have made the move back and forth in recent years — mostly that’s due to the schools pushing each other in salary battles.

And salaries may keep increasing.

“There is no ceiling,” said Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College in Massachusetts.