Raises for Assistants

It would make a nice NIL statement if all the assistant coaches would agree to put all these raises into a pool for 1 year, to be divided among all existing scholarship and preferred walk-on players. All the coaches like to talk about 'team' and 'loyalty' -- this would add some walk to the talk. And let's be honest, none of those coaches NEEDS those raises to live very comfortably in Iowa City.
Brian Ferentz definitely should NOT have received ANY salary increase, and as a matter of principle should not accept it.
 
These stories are starting to depress me. Even the newest coaches now make at least $275k. Something a corporate VP would make.

Brian Ferentz deservedly gets the lowest percentage raise at only 4.7% but that still works out to a $40k raise!

The OL coach gets a 50% raise from $400k to $600k and the OL was absolutely awful last year.

At least Phil parker is getting the credit he deserves.
 
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guffus said:
These stories are starting to depress me. Even the newest coaches now make at least $275k. Something a corporate VP would make.

Brian Ferentz deservedly gets the lowest percentage raise at only 4.7% but that still works out to a $40k raise!

The OL coach gets a 33% raise from $400k to $600k and the OL was absolutely awful last year.

At least Phil parker is getting the credit he deserves.
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Market price. Iowa has buttloads of money. I’m fine spending as much as needed on coaching.
 
guffus said:
These stories are starting to depress me. Even the newest coaches now make at least $275k. Something a corporate VP would make.
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Adjust your estimates upward 100% on the conservative end. VPs at nonprofits are making that. I know people in the Des Moines market (IT) who aren’t even at the AVP level making that kind of money.
 
Fryowa said:
Market price. Iowa has buttloads of money. I’m fine spending as much as needed on coaching.
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Exactly. I don't want our assistants to be underpaid relative to the competition, no matter how good (or bad) of a job you think they are doing. Underpaying would be a long term mistake. I would rather make the mistake of overpaying a little.
 
Fryowa said:
Market price. Iowa has buttloads of money. I’m fine spending as much as needed on coaching.
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Yes I am aware they are getting adjustments based on market value. That is part of what is depressing me. That market value for college football coaches is so high.

Oh well, normally you can justify it by saying coaching is a high risk profesion with a high probability of getting fired for poor performance. But Iowa coaches never get fired. So they are getting the market bump without the worry about getting fired.

Ok, maybe you still can justify if another school is trying to steal Iowa's assistants. But are you seriously going to tell me that if Brian Ferentz does not get a raise, that somebody is going to steal him away?
 
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guffus said:
Yes I aware they are getting adjustments based on market value. That is part of what is depressing me.

Normally you can justify it by saying coaching is a high risk profesion with a high probability of getting fired for poor performance. But Iowa coaches never get fired. So they are getting the market bump without the worry about getting fired.
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I mean, the comes with being employed by a stable program. You get fired for losing. And let’s be real, is there anyone here who wants more than one assistant fired?

Otherwise the S&C buffoon is gone, and Polasek (OC at Wyoming now I think?) is the only other guy on the staff besides Junior that I can recall anyone wanting to see gone.
 
JoeyLabasForPresident said:
I mean, the comes with being employed by a stable program. You get fired for losing. And let’s be real, is there anyone here who wants more than one assistant fired?

Otherwise the S&C buffoon is gone, and Polasek (OC at Wyoming now I think?) is the only other guy on the staff besides Junior that I can recall anyone wanting to see gone.
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Fair enough. Most of the coaches did a great job last year. Although I would say the jury is still out on the new OL coach. We better see some improvement this year in the OL or else he may be the next guy with a single-digit raise. I would not mind seeing better production from the RB and WR positions too.
 
You could speculate this year may be the last chance for Brian Fenerrz to prove himself, but I think it's fair to say that Kirk Ferentz would never fire Brian. Kirk would probably just retire first rather than be forced to fire him. And we all know Barta is never going to force Kirk to do anything.

But I wonder if maybe Kirk could hire somebody as the new Co-OC/QB coach and make Brian the Co-OC/OL coach. Then give the play calling duties to the new co-OC/QB coach. But who am I kidding, that's never going to happen.
 
guffus said:
Yes I am aware they are getting adjustments based on market value. That is part of what is depressing me. That market value for college football coaches is so high.
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Why are you depressed about salaries being so high? It all comes from football revenue and we have way more than almost every college out there. We’re in the top 20 nationwide which is saying a lot in the world of the Texases, Alabamas, Notre Dameses, and Georgias, etc.

Why should there be a cap on any profession?

Would you say there should be a limit to what teachers make? Lawyers? Garbage men? Custodians? That’s not how a free market works. You get paid what people are willing to pay you.

What if we said Jay-Z or Taylor Swift were only allowed to make $500,000 a year max? That would quite obviously never fly (and it shouldn’t); what makes them more important than a football coach, especially one being paid 100% from revenue generated by the team?
 
guffus said:
You could speculate this year may be the last chance for Brian Fenerrz to prove himself, but I think it's fair to say that Kirk Ferentz would never fire Brian. Kirk would probably just retire first rather than be forced to fire him. And we all know Barta is never going to force Kirk to do anything.

But I wonder if maybe Kirk could hire somebody as the new Co-OC/QB coach and make Brian the Co-OC/OL coach. Then give the play calling duties to the new co-OC/QB coach. But who am I kidding, that's never going to happen.
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Feels like neither are going anywhere. Either KF is going to retire before his current deal is up in 2029 or he's not. There's no firing or leaving for another job for him. And unless BF takes another job somewhere else he's not going anywhere either. He can have the 100th or lower rated offense every year between now and then and keep his job.
 
Hawkfnntn said:
Feels like neither are going anywhere. Either KF is going to retire before his current deal is up in 2029 or he's not. There's no firing or leaving for another job for him. And unless BF takes another job somewhere else he's not going anywhere either. He can have the 100th or lower rated offense every year between now and then and keep his job.
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I do think it's in Brian's and his pop's best interests long term for Brian to take an OC job somewhere else. Then he can prove it's not his playcalling and it's the scheme pushed down from HC. There just won't be alumni backing for Brian to take over unless things change dramatically on his side of the ball. And I just don't see it happening as is.
 
Hawkboys said:
I do think it's in Brian's and his pop's best interests long term for Brian to take an OC job somewhere else. Then he can prove it's not his playcalling and it's the scheme pushed down from HC. There just won't be alumni backing for Brian to take over unless things change dramatically on his side of the ball. And I just don't see it happening as is.
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Probably yeah. But does Brian wanna do that? He's been in Iowa City most of his life minus just a short stint where he was an assistant in the pros. Now he's married with kids and roots etc. He may very well be interested in doing just that. But maybe he wants to hang on and play this out in IC. There is the chance (not a very good one if not impossilble) that he turns things around offensively and coaches himself into position where others would like for him to take over the HC job. I say that only because 7 plus yrs is a lifetime in coaching and anything can happen. Just because we all see the angles as does he doesn't mean he'd play the one we would. (nor would we if we were actually in his shoes either)
 
It is one thing for Taylor Swift to be paid $20M a year, but does that mean all of Taylor's assistants should be paid $500k a year? I guess that is up to Taylor herself. She has to make judgement calls how much each assistant adds to her overall value. And in the end, whatever Taylor swift pays her assistants, ultimately gets subtracted from her $20M.

Maybe it should be set up the same way for Iowa football. KF gets paid a total amount and he can decide how much to give to his assistants, which for all I know, may be what is actually going on.
 
guffus said:
It is one thing for Taylor Swift to be paid $20M a year, but does that mean all of Taylor's assistants should be paid $500k a year?
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Again, we live in a capitalist economy, and the only one who should decide how much to pay someone is the person or entity doing the paying, period.

Should we arbitrarily put caps on what people can make because you yourself don't feel they're worth that much money? That'd be nonsense.

If you were the one writing the checks, by all means.

But as long as it isn't taxpayer money being used (which it isn't), then Iowa football has every right to pay whatever they please to any employee they please.
 
Hawkboys said:
I do think it's in Brian's and his pop's best interests long term for Brian to take an OC job somewhere else. Then he can prove it's not his playcalling and it's the scheme pushed down from HC. There just won't be alumni backing for Brian to take over unless things change dramatically on his side of the ball. And I just don't see it happening as is.
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Any OC job is going to be a backwards move for BF. No school worth its weight in manure would pay him to be an OC after seeing his tire fire performance plastered all over national TV these last few years. The only P5 places that would take BF as OC would be some bottom feeder like a Rutgers or a Kansas or a Vanderbilt. He's definitely not going somewhere like that, and he's definitely not going FCS. We are stuck with Brain Ferentz until donors decide he needs to go. Which unfortunately isn't going to be anytime soon.

Here's jhow it's going to pan out...Write this down, I'm not joking or being hyperbolic. Book it...

Kurt is going to stay on long enough and keep Barta as AD long enough to retire and let BF get the HC job. Donors who worship at the throne of Ferentzdom (remember, these people aren't fans like us, they're uber rich people who just like KF) are going to let this happen and it's going to be a BIG, loooooong contract. At that point LeVar Woods is going to be hired as an OC at an SEC school, do that for 3-4 years, and then he's going to get offered a 9 figure deal at a warm weather location as HC and he will win a natty. I am not kidding. He is that smart, and he is that good. Players love him like they loved Hayden Fry.

Meanwhile, BF is going to lead us down the path of 2-3 win seasons, and they'll be excused for a half decade or so as growing pains. By then some of the Kerk worshipers and their old money will have died out, and support will start to wane for Brain. Another 5-6 years of below .500 football and maybe, just maybe BF will be asked to leave. By then it won't much matter who the HC is because the damage will have been long done. Recruiting will be toast and we will be Illinois. A permanently garbage team that can only look back nostalgically at a time when we used to win ballgames and go to bowls.

Hear Ye This, And Hear It LOUD...

When LeVar Woods leaves this program for somewhere else, regardless of who the Iowa HC is, The Hayden Fry way and culture is dead. Period.

It doesn't have to end that way, but alas, KF will ensure it does.
 
SwirlinLingerie said:
How much do you think Brian Ferentz fetches on the open market?
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How much you think Kirk fetches on the open market after the 2007 season? Or maybe the 2012 season? Or how about the 2014 season?

I think time will tell on how good, or bad, of an OC Brian will be. Unfortunately his days of run or pass blocking on the OL are gone. OL improves and i believe the offensive stats will follow suit.
 
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