There seems to be a theme on this board that suggests WMU will need to dig deeper than 300-350 thousand to get a quality coach .....How deep do they need to go and can WMU afford it?

My guess is that Kathy gets this. Again I believe her 2 hockey hires showed her the benefits of going all in. I bet we will end up in the $425k range with additional income from camps/ bowl bonus etc. Total package $450+. Just a guess as to what it will take to get it done.

quote='goldsworth' pid='8667627' dateline='1354971526']
There seems to be a theme on this board that suggests WMU will need to dig deeper than 300-350 thousand to get a quality coach .....How deep do they need to go and can WMU afford it?
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(12-08-2012 09:06 AM)bronco1988 Wrote:  My guess is that Kathy gets this. Again I believe her 2 hockey hires showed her the benefits of going all in. I bet we will end up in the $425k range with additional income from camps/ bowl bonus etc. Total package $450+. Just a guess as to what it will take to get it done.

:iagree:

If we spend 300-350k on a new coach, that is just pathetic. He would be the lowest paid coach in FBS and on par with most FCS coaches. We need to spend AT LEAST 425-450k to get a quality coach. We need to make a statement with this hire: that we want to stay relevant at the highest level of competition.

$300-$350 as a base salary wouldn't be the lowest, but it'd be in the lowest tier. I think that base salary is just fine IF you couple it with extra-pay-by-performance, where they could make $600k-$700k depending on performance.

Thing is though, say we have that and we're like NIU for a year or two. He's making ~$650k. Great. He earned it. But that's not going to make him stay if a Pitt or Kansas offers to hire him for $1.3 million, which is twice that. So you mine as well just pay him max out at $500k base, enough to land him the job here.

Coaches aren't expected to make over $500k as base salary in the MAC. They're expecting to near-$400k. It's a stepping stone, a resume builder, while being more money than being an OC/DC at most colleges.

What we could do though, is that performance-based scheme, where it starts at $400k per year the first two years, then goes from $350k-$700k base salary based on performance (and still an outside-base pipeline of course)... BUT make his contract buy-out sky-high. Have those conditions so that the higher he is on that performance, the more ridiculous money would have to be paid to buy him out by some place. That way, no good-money mid-major or low-tier BCS conference school would get him. If we were really good, he couldn't really feasibly bolt swiftly unless it was a big-money big-conference school who has enough to pay their coaches $2m+ each year (typical BCS college is $1.2m-$1.6m).

And with that scheme, if we totally suck, we're paying him standard-MAC salary. No risk of loss on our part, really. If we're not that great and in a typical Cubit 7-5/6-6 year with a tough OOC schedule, he'd still be making $400k or a bit more a year, so he's not always under the gun on his salary. And if we're title contenders, around $500k... and if we're winning the West, higher, etc.

Paying assistants is key, can't have coordinators and position coaches leaving every year.

(12-08-2012 01:29 PM)DesertBronco Wrote:  Paying assistants is key, can't have coordinators and position coaches leaving every year.

Yes, forgot to mention this. Very true.