I’m not holding Auburn up as a paragon of virtue here, but the contrast between Jay Jacobs and Greg McGarity is jarring.
“Whatever it takes,” Jacobs said. “That’s what my role is with Gus and Bruce (Pearl) and all those guys. It’s ‘What do you need to be successful?’ Then I go out and get it for them.”
Muschamp’s contract is for three years and thought to be for $1.6 million per year, maybe even a little north of that. It will make him the highest paid assistant coach in the college game, moving the needle higher for the next prominent coordinator’s job.
“I’m comfortable,” Jacobs said. “The money we’ve been able to put in reserve – almost $30 million over the last 10 years – I’m real comfortable. We’re one of the few schools in the nation that sold out every game. This team played in front of a sellout audience every game.”
Football, Jacobs said, is important to Auburn people. As a former offensive lineman, a starter for the 1983 SEC champions, it’s important to him.
“That’s why I’m going to make doggone sure Gus has what he needs to compete at the highest level,” Jacobs said, “because that’s what we all expect.”
Again, it’s not about Georgia being Auburn. (In some ways, though – sellout crowds, big money put in reserve – it is.) But there’s got to be a happy medium between the two approaches, doesn’t there?
Get The Picture 
I talked to an Auburn friend today, and it’s going to be interesting to see how much egos come into play here. I imagine it’ll be tough for Muschamp to step back into an assistant role, right? Will his smash-mouth defense match up with Malzahn’s fast-break offense? Will they eat each other alive? It’ll be fun. I hope it backfires.
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This pairing does have the appearance of another one in the not so distant past–Boom and Charlie Weiss. Just sayin.’
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The second that McGarity has publicly said he doesn’t let the market dictate what he subjectively feels is the FMV of the contracts for his coaches is when I lost confidence in him. The leadership at Butts-Mehre is stuck in the 1970’s and it’s disgusting to me as a fan in the 21st century.
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Greg went to the BMW dealership and told it that he wasn’t going to let the market dictate what he would pay for an X6M. He said he would pay what he said it was worth. After all, the dealership just doesn’t understand.
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Never before have we witnessed someone be so literal about “whatever it takes”. #havenforcriminals
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Exactly why bobo will be the next HC, won’t have to pay him.
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perhaps we could acknowledge that hiring bruce pearl was a more horrifying and egregious moral failing than the hiring of jim harrick. harrick, after all, brought the most shame and disgrace to his host institution after he was hired to coach us (though even then harrick was a well known asshat).
pearl LIED to press, university, et al about his own willful ncaa violations at another conference school. he’s the new aubie hoops coach, ladies and gents. try the veal.
and how many players that got booted from athens will be starting for ye olde tigers net season? and how many of those players will play despite a recurrence of the same behavior? how many in tuscaloosa?
financial resources are needed. but GAWD i’ll vomit if clemson without the lake becomes bobby lowder and yella wood, baby.
and for all the folks that care not for morals or ethics as a prerequisite for coaching in god’s country, be sure in your letters beseeching mcgarity to hire saban you make sure that in addition to spending more money (which probably would be a good idea), that you also believe that integrity can be tossed aside as long as we win.
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apologies for the jumbled paragraph
perhaps we could acknowledge that hiring bruce pearl was a more horrifying and egregious moral failing than the hiring of jim harrick. harrick, after all, brought the most shame and disgrace to his host institution after he was hired to coach us (though even then harrick was a well known asshat).
pearl LIED to press, university, et al about his own willful ncaa violations at another conference school. he’s the new aubie hoops coach, ladies and gents. try the veal.
and how many players that got booted from athens will be starting for ye olde tigers net season? and how many of those players will play despite a recurrence of the same behavior? how many in tuscaloosa?
financial resources are needed. but GAWD i’ll vomit if clemson without the lake becomes the standard for integrity.
bobby lowder and yella wood, baby.
and for all the folks that care not for morals or ethics as a prerequisite for coaching in god’s country, be sure in your letters beseeching mcgarity to hire saban you make sure that in addition to spending more money (which probably would be a good idea), that you also believe that integrity can be tossed aside as long as we win.
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As a note, this message is not directed at any one person.
A lot of commentariat here seem to be confused about what “market prices” actually entails. The price for a coach is not what other schools are paying their coaches. The market price is what other schools are willing to pay for your coach. After the 2012 season, other schools tried to poach Bobo, Friend, and McClendon. All of them got raises. I would understand the complaints if the team kept loosing coaches to higher bidders for lateral moves. Richt has the coaches he wants. They will get raises after the bowl game. If someone tries to poach them, their raise will be bigger. You can get better coaches by paying more money for someone else. You will not get better coaching by paying the same guy more money.
I am kind of curious as to the personal finances of those who think the University and the Athletic Department as a bunch of penny-pinching misers. 130M is a lot of debt. 60M in reserves sounds like a lot, but they are not currently adding to the reserve fund. Instead, they chose to cash flow a number of projects like the renovation to Foley Field. In reality, the reserve fund probably doesn’t generate enough revenue to pay for debt service.
There is a lot of uncertainty related to future expenses due to the pending lawsuits against the NCAA. Full Cost of Attendence meausres would add a couple of million in expeses per year. It is true that there is a bunch of new revenue coming in from the SEC Network and the Playoffs, but, to me, it looks like the Athletic Department wants to see what that revenue looks like before spending it.
If you have a difference of opinion about priorities, that is fine. A lot of fans only care about football. McGarity has to deal with all of those pesky non-revenue sports where we do actually win National Titles. The last time they were doling out large sums of money for football, they decided the Reed Alley project and the BM expansion were more important than an indoor facility. Now that those things have been completed, the priority has become the IPF. I also have a feeling that they are going to open up the proverbial wallet for the new S&C staff.
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If you don’t think Ole Miss would pay $5M to get Richt (assuming he’s available), you’re crazy. Also, when those guys got raises, it was still less than the other schools’s offers.
No one gives a shit about other sports. And I don’t care what excuses you have about bills, the fact is this: every school in the SEC is getting about $20M-30M MORE from their TV deals 10-15 years ago. Your “excuse bills” haven’t gone up that much or anywhere near it.
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Gotta take exception to the “no one gives a shit about other sports” comment. There are many who do. I like to see all the teams perform well. I can’t wait for the day when we grab the Directors’ Cup from Stanford. (look it up.)
My younger daughter wants a Georgia letter like her grandfather and her old man. If she keeps riding like she does, there’s a pretty good chance she’ll earn one as an equestrian. You can count me as one who “gives a shit.”
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I have not doubt that there are probably a couple of dozen schools out there that would gladly pay Richt $5M a year to leave Georgia. The only problem for them is that he won’t. He has everything he wants in his current job.
The fact that coaches are willing to stay for less money shows that money isn’t the end-all-be-all to attracting coaches. There is a lot of value in getting to live in Athens and work for RIcht.
There are a lot of us who are fans of more than the football team. I understand that many people are not, but, like I said, his job is manage all 19 sports sponsored by the University. Our programs in golf, gymnastics, swimming & diving, equestrian, and tennis are at the top of their games and regularly win national titles.
I’m not sure what “excuse bills’ are, but most of that new revenue will be spent. They just want to see how much it is before they start spending all of it. The anticipation of that revenue is probably why they are now willing to spend the $15M-20M it will take for an IPF. Just be aware that substantial portions of that increased money will go to sports other than football.
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Nope. The market price is what you have to pay to fill a coaching slot.
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No, that is the market price for a coaching slot. The market price for an individual coach is what others are willing to pay to lure them away, or more precisely what you have to pay them not to accept more money from another institution.
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If a coach like Richt convinces everyone that he’s not interested in leaving Athens, essentially there is no market for his services. If that’s the case, why would he be in line for a raise after the bowl game?
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Personal pride. Just because he won’t leave Athens for a truckload of money doesn’t mean he wants to be the lowest paid coach in the conference. A pay raise / extension would also probably be justified by McGarity as a hedge against negative recruiting.
I believe McGarity’s previous statements about paying for performance will apply here. Richt has the team in the top 4-5 in the conference. His pay will probably get bumped up to top 5.
In my previous statements, I was really referring to the assistant coaches.
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McGarity’s statement about paying for performance was about team success, or at least so he claims.
I appreciate your optimism. I’m fighting the effects of watching business as usual at Butts-Mehre for three decades. It would be nice if you were right.
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They won’t be able to sit on the money. They aren’t adding to the reserves right now as they cash flow current projects. They have high levels of reserves, but I really think it is just prudence and fiduciary duty that leads to that. If the inflow of money is as large as I think it will, I think they will know that they will need to spend most of it. That doesn’t mean that they will spend it as liberally as the commenatriat wants, but they will take a slightly reactionary stance and spend the money. The results have been top 5 in the conference. I think spending will stay top 5 until the results are better than top 5. We might end up in a chicken or the egg scenario, but, with the natural advantages Georgia has, that shouldn’t be neccessary. We were 5 yards away in 2012 with this administration.
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I should add that I am in my mid 30s. I didn’t start really following the Dawgs until I decided that UGA was where I wanted to go for college. I don’t have 30 years of fandom under my belt, so I can’t comment much before the OT game against Auburn in 1996. In my experience, the Athletic Department has been willing to spend, buty they have been reactionary instead of proactive. I understand the complaints that they are reactive or have different priorities than the fans. I just reject the idea that they are complete misers who only compare about the reserve fund. Having handled a $20M budget in times of economic uncertainty, I understand their position.
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True but for whatever reason our coaches have depressed their value by not being poach able.
Much like you I use to have to hire people that were in demand. But because of corporate I could not offer them the salary (equal benefits), but I offered them a work place they wanted. More often than not people went with us. Sure they were underpaid but but they put themselves in that situation by wanting more than just the money.
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That works well if you have the luxury of having people who have been with you for a while and can appreciate a good work environment. It doesn’t work so well with recent hires, especially in a seller’s market, when they’re taking phone calls from head hunters on at least a weekly basis.
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I disagree. It works well if potential or current employees know how bad the work environment can be. They want the safety and the good work environment is over how bad the market really is and even people you interview will take less money for a better work environment. That is what Uga sells.
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I concur with Reipar. I have hired people in times of great leadership and bad. I was able to generate higher levels of profit and less turn-over when offering more autonomy vice a higher salary. Spending isn’t what is hurting the team.
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All I can say is that you guys are better at your jobs than I am. Or just luckier. 😉
And that includes my current staff, who’ve been with me from 17 to 31 years now.
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Yes, $130 million is a lot of debt but UGA AA has assets in excess of $330 million. Its net worth, expressed as “net position,” is over $192 million. The UGA AA isn’t insolvent and is not at risk of insolvency.
UGA AA can afford a change to full cost of attendance. The Georgia Bulldog Club says there are approximately 500 scholarshipped athletes. That is not the same as being committed to 500 scholarships, since in the Olympic sports many players share a scholarship. I don’t have the energy to figure out how many total scholarships those 500 share, so I will use the higher figure of 500. The O’Bannon order requires that the university supplement to cover the full cost of attendance. According to a Rivals.com article a while back the gap between a athletic scholarship and full cost of attendance at UGA is about $2,300 per year. If we assume that all 500 athletes get a full scholarship and would receive the full cost of attendance increase the increase is $1,150,000. Actually it would be less since many athletes would get a partial, rather than full increase. Our FY 2014 profit was over $11 million. We can handle it, even without the new money coming in. (The shares of name, image and likeness money capped by the O’Bannon case does not apply to athletes whose names, images and likenesses are not being used. The cross country athletes are out of luck relative to Todd Gurley.
I get back to a position I took in another thread. The purpose of a 501(c)3 is not to have a gigantic savings account it is to address the stated mission of the 501(c)3. We seem to have a tension at B-M between the mission and the goal of accumulating reserves.
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Good post, thanks.
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Does the state of Alabama just not have the same funding shortfalls that Georgia does? Does Auburn not have an “Auburn Foundation” in need of cash for expansion or do the alumni have that covered as well ?
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Winning creates happy alumni. Happy alumni contribute more to the University.
Simple strategy.
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So which is it? Did Auburn lose money the past few years, or are they building a fat reserve fund?
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Difficult to know the truth over there.
So many of their transactions are in cash.
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He is full of shit. They did not sell out every home game. They held a bunch back to sell on Stubhub themselves and then those of course either sold for next to nothing or were eaten.
You guys just don’t get how dirty of a game the secondary market has become. Would love to see a full on Charles Robinson Yahoo Sports investigation on this crap.
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True. Auburn pressures its top contributors to eat tickets to claim “sellout” and drive secondary market prices up. Their base ticket price and student activity fees are already at or near the highest in the SEC.
As long as their top contributors comply, you will not see any investigation.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/while-football-ticket-prices-soar-auburn-struggles-to-profit-1415750933
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