Sunday, June 19, 2011

This is why you Fail

Thanks to Bob Latinville, a lawyer in St. Louis, we now have a statistical illustration (HT: Blutarsky) of my anecdotal hunch that the schools of the Big Ten pay significantly less than the schools of the SEC for coaching talent:

The SEC paid its assistant coaches an average of $276,122 in 2010, according to figures compiled by St. Louis attorney and agent Bob Lattinville of the firm Stinson Morrison Hecker.

The Big 12 was second at $232,685 and the Big Ten a distant fourth, behind the Atlantic Coast Conference, at $187,055.

So let’s see.  The Big Ten rakes in as much revenue as any other conference.  Its schools sit in states that were never that great at producing football talent and that situation has gotten worse as population has continued to head south.  Nevertheless, Big Ten schools don’t spend their lucre on the coaches who would allow them to make up for their lack of proximity to talent.  Are Big Ten fans so stupidly loyal that they will watch whatever mediocre product the Big Ten Network chooses to show?  Do Big Ten fans overlook the fact that the conference has fallen so far behind the SEC because they can tell themselves that schools in the South oversign and pay their players?  There is a perfectly legal way to spend money to improve the product on the field and the schools in the conference refuse to take it.  Is the Big Ten a conference of Pittsburgh Pirates?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

C'mon, it's the Big 10. They're not happy unless they can complain about the SEC getting a competitive advantage by doing something that's within the rules.

Sean said...

Never that good at producing talent??

Anonymous said...

I'd put Pennsylvania and Ohio toe to toe with any southern state in terms of producing talent over the last 30 years. And the SEC cannot claim Texas, so don't even bring it up. Never is a big word, Cletus.

And oversigning remains an abomination.

Michael said...

Look at the Rivals rankings for the last five years. Florida dwarfs Ohio and Pennsylvania combined in producing blue chip players. Hell, Georgia produces more blue chip players than either of those states. And if you think that Rivals is incorrigibly biased against the Midwest, ESPN produces a similar picture.

Adam Malka said...

I agree with the overall point, but doesn't Michigan get a mulligan here after the Mattison hire?

According to this report - http://www.annarbor.com/sports/um-football/greg-mattison-making-750000-as-michigans-defensive-coordinator/ - he should make at least three quarters of a million dollars next season.

I assume the report only takes base year compensation into account, though, so it's possible that those other guys will make more too.