Money Talks

There may not be a bigger coaching story in FCS football this year than the news that broke Saturday night with North Dakota State coach Craig Bohl leaving for Wyoming. A main reason: money. Bohl will make a base salary of $300,000 per year and will be guaranteed additional compensation of $450,000 in 2014, a total of $750,000 in year one. That figure will rise by $50,000 in each of the five years of his deal, to the point where he will bring in a total of $950,000 of guaranteed compensation in 2018, if he's still with the Cowboys at that point. Then there's the incentives, which will put him over $1 million if he rides out his contract. The Forum in Fargo had a good graphic on this that I'll refer to here.

The gist of it is this: NDSU had no chance of matching the deal and athletic director Gene Taylor said as much Sunday in a press conference. He also remarked that the school has not been near the top when it comes to compensating its football coach in the Missouri Valley Football Conference.

Bohl’s base salary is $206,500 with annual increases of 5 percent. His performance bonuses, media and appearance fees and ticket sales compensation added up to an estimated $360,000 or more. That is not at the top of the Missouri Valley Football Conference, Taylor said.

“We may structure it somehow differently in terms of how you get to the final number,” Taylor said. “But I don’t see us going back a great deal because we want to get the best coaching candidate out there.”

I found that hard to believe. Bohl has the clause in his contract that gives him 3 percent of the ticket revenue sold for NDSU home games, which is probably in the $30,000 to $40,000 range. There aren't many programs with a clause like that, it appears. He was getting a raise of five percent each year and from June 1, 2012 to May 31, 2013, Bohl made $367,843, according to state payroll records, making him the fifth-highest-paid public employee in North Dakota.

He was doing pretty good and I suspect he's one of the best paid coaches in all of FCS, not just the Valley. For comparison, I pulled up all of the salary numbers I could find for head coaches in MVFC. (Please note: Unless noted, these are base salary figures. Like Bohl, most coaches are being compensated for media appearances for winning conference games or playoff appearances and those figures are not included.)

Illinois State's Brock Spack

Illinois State – Brock Spack: $258,072 (2013), $268,080 (2014)

Age: 51 - Signed through: 2016

Bonuses: $10,000 per playoff game; owes ISU $25,000 if he leaves before the contract expires. $500/month car allowance. 

Indiana State: Mike Sanford: $180,000.

Age: 58 - Signed through: 2017. 5-year deal signed in December 2012.

Missouri State: Terry Allen: $108,211 per season. 

Age: 56 - Signed through: 2014. Was not extended by AD Kyle Moats in 2012 and Moats said the university couldn’t afford to fire/dismiss Allen in 2013. 

North Dakota State: Outgoing coach Craig Bohl: $206,500.   

Age: 55 - Signed a contract extension to stay at NDSU on Jan. 1, 2013 through 2021. His performance bonuses, media and appearance fees and ticket sales compensation added up to an estimated $360,000 or more. Leaving for University of Wyoming at season's end.

Northern Iowa: Mark Farley: $296,280. 

Age: 50 - Signed through: 2015. A previous contract was extended by five years in 2008.

South Dakota: Joe Glenn: $131,060 in 2013-14; one year contract. Age: 64. 

South Dakota State: John Stiegelmeier: $160,012 in 2013-14; one year contract. Age: 56.

Southern Illinois: Dale Lennon: $216,456 in 2012; one year contract.

Age: 52 - Signed through 2014: Received two year extension in 2011. Initially signed for five years in 2007 at $200,000 per year. Notes: If SIU fires him, they owe him a max of one’s salary. If he resigns or leaves for another job, he owes SIU $100,000.

Western Illinois: Bob Nielson: $206,892 in 2013.

Age: 54 - Signed through: 2017. Signed a five-year deal in December 2012.

Youngstown State: Eric Wolford: $200,000 base salary. 

Age: 42 - Signed through: 2014, the final year of his initial five-year deal.

Bonuses: $20,000 for winning a national championship; A $3,000 bonus for each year the Penguins win the Missouri Valley Football Conference; A $3,000 bonus for each YSU playoff game; A $12,000 bonus if the Penguins earn an Academic Progress Rate score of 925 or greater; $50,000 each year for “marketing income,” (TV, radio, speaking engagements, sponsorships); Car allowance worth about $400 per month and membership in a local country club.

Missouri State's Terry Allen

In order, it goes like this (with the years at the school and school record in parentheses): 

UNI's Farley: $296k (13th year, 111-50)

Ill St's Spack: $258k (5th year, 33-24)

SIU's Lennon: $216k (6th year, 42-28)

NDSU's Bohl: $206k (11th year, 101-32)

WIU's Nielson: $206k (1st year, 4-8)

YSU's Wolford: $200k (4th year, 24-21)

Ind St's Sanford: $180k (1st year, 1-11)

SDSU's Stiegelmeier: $160k (16th year, 111-81)

USD's Glenn: $131k (2nd year, 5-18)

MoSt's Allen: $108k (7th year, 33-56)

A few interesting things out of that I'll cover via bullet points:

• The top of the conference gets paid like coaches who could leave someday. That's especially true for Spack, Lennon and Bohl. Nielson got a very good deal for coming from Division II Minnesota-Duluth last year and while Farley has made his home at UNI, there's nothing saying he couldn't try an FBS job someday. 
• Captain Obvious here but South Dakota stands out with one-year contracts. Almost every coach in the conference has received a five-year deal and the one-year deals are an issue. Luckily, both SDSU and USD have stable coaching situations (We think.).
• When Joe Glenn was hired almost exactly two years ago, he was starting at $126,000, very close to what John Stiegelmeier was making at the time at SDSU. He told the Yankton Press and Dakotan that he wanted USD to have more money for assistants. Meanwhile, Stig has jumped up to $160,012 this season. It makes sense, with SDSU making the playoffs twice and having more athletic revenues than USD in each of those years. 
• Interesting to compare Glenn's deal to the one that Bohl will be getting at Wyoming, where Glenn was the coach from 2003 to 2008. Glenn's first deal had a base salary of $140,004 per year for five years. With all of the incentives, it would bring him up to as much as $550,000 per year. Bohl will make a minimum $750,000 this upcoming season, without accounting for any additional incentives.
• Wow. Missouri State is in bad shape. Terry Allen probably would have been fired twice by now if the Bears had any money. But they don't and he's likely a lame duck head coach heading into his final year of his deal. This is why they've had to play two FBS games per year and Allen has not fared well there. I'm shocked to see him so low on the list and while there's some bonuses in play, he's much further down on the salary list than I first thought.
• Seven of the ten coaches in the league are between the ages of 50 and 56. The only outliers are the considerably younger Wolford, and Sanford and Glenn, who have both made FBS head coaching stops.
• UNI basketball coach Ben Jacobson makes $512,151 per year, twice as much as colleague Mark Farley. But Farley didn't bring his team to the Sweet Sixteen in 2010. 
• NDSU, South Dakota, Western Illinois and Youngstown State are the four schools that spend more money paying their football coach than their men's basketball coach. Given that most of the schools are in the basketball happy Missouri Valley Conference in the winter, that's not much of a surprise. The widest margin between the two is probably in Macomb, where Jim Molinari makes about $117,000, $93k less than the football coach Nielson. SDSU coach Scott Nagy has a base salary of $200,000 per season.

 

Kriens: The Poll Truth

Editor's Note: Travis Kriens is good friend of Traxler's Take and staff assistant for media relations at Tennessee State University. He is also a voter in the weekly Sports Network Top 25 FCS Poll.

What is the purpose of polls in sports?



In every sport not named Football Bowl Subdivision level college football, a playoff at the end of the regular season decides the eventual champion. FBS is also the only sport that takes the top two teams at the end of the regular season and faces them off to determine that season’s champion. Besides that, what is the reason we rank teams week after week?

In this week’s Football College Subdivision media poll, there are two examples of confusion.



South Dakota State is the first team receiving votes outside of the Top 25 and has a 5-2 record. Indiana State is ranked #15 and has a 6-2 record. These two teams played last month in Terre Haute, Ind., and Jacks soundly defeated the Sycamores, 24-10. Those that have Indiana State ranked over SDSU will argue ISU’s 17-14 win at then #1 North Dakota State is proof the Sycamores are the better team. I would argue the 14 points win for SDSU when the two teams faced each other is the reason why I have SDSU (#20) ranked ahead of Indiana State (#21).



There is a similar situation in the Ohio Valley Conference. #18 Eastern Kentucky is 6-2, while #21 Tennessee State is 7-1. TSU defeated EKU 23-20 less than three weeks ago. How you can have EKU ranked ahead of TSU when the two teams played recently and EKU lost is beyond me.



In a month's time, the regular season will be over and this won’t matter much because the FCS selection committee will take over. They'll select the 20 teams that will qualify for the 2012 playoffs and have a chance at the national championship. The polls at that point are meaningless. There will be a few teams inside the Top 20 that don’t qualify and a few teams outside the Top 20 that will and that's far from unusual.

It should be noted that the weekly coaches' poll is no better when it comes to ranking teams. So what is the purpose of ranking these teams week after week?



"I think the polls capture the national landscape,” said Craig Haley, who is The Sports Network Senior Editor/FCS Executive Director. “I think they are a guide for the members of the FCS playoff committee, but strength of schedule and results are important."



There are 121 universities that play at the FCS level. That’s a lot of teams to keep track of, so if the Top 25 does anything, it is used as a barometer. You may watch one or two FCS games a week from start to finish. How do the voters keep track of them and know that team A is better than team B or better than team C?

"Well, so much information is at the tip of our fingers with the Internet, so it's easy to be informed,” Haley said. “I send out a scoreboard to the voters before they vote. Over time, a team's scores usually reflect what kind of team it is."

That is really the only way to do a national poll the takes into account such a large quantity of teams. However, there is no way to watch the amount of games that you would need in order to make an informed and fair decision. As we know, the box score, the stats and the final score don’t always tell the story.



So who makes up the voting population?


"I hope all the voters are objective because The Sports Network wants a widespread panel reflecting all the FCS conferences,” Haley explained. “We have about 175 voters. Personally, I value the bigger conferences a bit more on my ballot, but I like schools that play a tougher schedule."



"I think the depth of the poll speaks volumes,” Haley continues. “We've been around a long time and the FCS schools respect The Sports Network. But in addition to the media, we have voters who are SIDs (Sports Information Directors). I think that can cause a problem if a voter tries to favor his school and conference. I see the ballots and it's not rampant, but it happens."



In last week’s poll, Georgia State picked up their first win of the season to improve to 1-6. They received 23 points in the poll, which is the same as voting a team third in the country. It’s no coincidence that Georgia Southern is a top ranked team and that whoever put Georgia State third meant to put Georgia Southern. Those are the kind of mistakes that can’t and shouldn’t be made by a voter.

Why do voters punish teams for losing to higher ranked teams? For example, if #15 loses to #1, why is #15 dropped in the polls the next week? Are they any worse of a team because they lost a game everyone expected them too? You, the voter, placed them at #15, which says that you don’t think they are as good as the #1 team or any team above them.



Late in September, #21 Montana lost to #7 Eastern Washington on the road by six points and dropped out of the Top 25 to #28. They dropped seven spots for losing a close game that they were expected to lose.



The most polarizing team early in the season was Northern Iowa. A top 10 team in the preseason poll, the Panthers lost four of their first five games to Big Ten foes Wisconsin (26-21) and Iowa (27-16), #3 ranked Youngstown State (42-35) and then #1 NDSU (33-21). Four games that Northern Iowa was not expected to win, all on the road expect for NDSU. People could not figure out how someone could vote for UNI despite being 1-4. They didn’t lose any games to anyone ranked lower than they were. If you vote with the philosophy of ranking the teams one through 25 based on who you think is better, it’s not that far-fetched to consider the Panthers as a ranked team. They did defeat SDSU this past Saturday 27-6 to knock the Jacks out of the polls.



Polls are most prevalent in college sports but in recent years they have made their way into professional sports.

 I don’t know of many things that are a bigger waste of time than putting together or reading NFL power rankings. They matter about as much as your single vote in the upcoming November elections. At the end of the season, the teams with the most wins make the playoffs. End of discussion.

That is not the case in college sports. With so many teams and a wide variety of schedules, you just can’t go by wins and losses. Recently, it seems like voters don’t even go by that anymore.