This article made the rounds yesterday. Well, mainly, this chart did:
School | Support staff pay |
1 Georgia | $4,481,974 |
2 Alabama | $2,949,321 |
3 South Carolina | $2,886,986 |
4 Tennessee | $2,823,177 |
5 Auburn | $2,821,608 |
6 Ole Miss | $2,664,181 |
7 Florida | $2,640,975 |
8 Texas A&M | $2,131,228 |
9 LSU | $1,662,278 |
10 Mississippi State | $1,478,330 |
11 Missouri | $1,254,997 |
12 Arkansas | $1,110,559 |
13 Kentucky | $1,063,822 |
*Vanderbilt is a private institution and does not have to adhere to public record law.
In fact, Georgia spent more than $4.4 million on its football support staff in the 2015-16 academic year, according to documents obtained from The Advocate. The Bulldogs easily led the league in support staff pay, about $1.5 million more than the second-highest program: Alabama.
LSU was ninth in the league in support staff pay at $1.6 million, and Kentucky was last at $1.06 million.
What went into defining support staff wasn’t made clear, but even Georgia itself admits to a good bit.
For example, Georgia lists 33 under support staff in one section of its website and listed 51 support staff members in its spring media guide, the Athens-Banner Herald reported in a story earlier this summer.
In any event, I don’t think anyone can argue that the athletic department’s financial support for football coaching with Smart is a night and day situation than it was with Richt.
It’s not like Butts-Mehre can’t afford it.
Read that carefully and then look at the bigger expenditure picture.
Conference wide, Georgia is eleventh in head coach compensation, middle of the pack in game payouts, yet third overall in spending. That money is going somewhere (one place being assistant coaches’ salaries).
Add to that the major capital expenditures we’re seeing and I don’t think Kirby Smart has much to complain about in that department.
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