Assistant coaches’ salaries spiking in football

Trickle down economics are alive and well in college football. With many contracts being negotiated or finalized, nearly a dozen schools in the NCAA’s 120-school Football Bowl Subdivision have made deals under which they will be spending at least 38% more on their offensive or defensive coordinator in 2010 than they did in 2009. These increases come a year after four assistants — Tennessee’s Monte Kiffin and Ed Orgeron, Texas’ Will Muschamp and Washington’s Nick Holt — joined Florida State’s Jimbo Fisher in having deals worth at least $600,000 a year. (Kiffin and Orgeron have moved to Southern California, and Fisher has become Florida State’s head coach.) They also come amid continuing financial distress within higher education. – USA Today

Lane Kiffin confused by Vols’ AD’s comments

Former Tennessee Coach Lane Kiffin is confused by Vols athletic director Mike Hamilton’s parting comments about him not being a “cultural fit” during his 14-month stay on campus. “I don’t think at the end of day that has anything to do with whether you score points or whether you win games. Where you’re from? I don’t know. That’s just my opinion. Is Nick Saban from Alabama? Is Urban Meyer from Florida? Those are two of the best coaches in the country. So I don’t think that really means anything.” – Knoxville News-Sentinel

Derek Dooley still working on final staff assignments at Tennessee

Derek Dooley has all the ingredients, but he hasn’t confirmed the final recipe. The new Tennessee football coach has at least left some clues that can help piece it together though. A quarterback recruit talked about his position coach when committing. A junior college tight end referenced the three guys who will all play a part in his development with the Vols. And though Dooley has downplayed the importance of resumes while making hires, those are also pretty valuable in figuring out where the UT assistants will work until the program releases official details and contract information. “I think what’s important to know is, when I’m looking for a coach, you really have to have two critical components,” Dooley said last week. “One is the obvious. He’s got to be very good at X’s and O’s, have a history of good coaching, that’s the obvious. “But more importantly, to me, you’ve got to be a good person who believes in what I believe in coaching and how we’re going develop these young men, how we’re going to support them, how we’re going to coach them, that they believe in the staff dynamic, they believe in the team chemistry.” – Knoxville News-Sentinel

Tennessee not disclosing Derek Dooley’s salary

Derek Dooley is the new UT football coach, right? But has he really been hired yet? The UT Athletic Department isn’t saying what Dooley will be paid or what the other terms of his employment are because the agreement hasn’t been finalized. Tiffany Carpenter, the department’s director of public relations, says she hopes to have numbers by late this week but doesn’t know when copies of the memoranda of understanding between UT and the coach or any of his new assistants will be available. Dooley likely is now the highest paid public official in East Tennessee, if not the entire state. It is hard to imagine any other public agency announcing the multimillion-dollar hiring of an employee without immediately telling how much public money it is spending. – Knoxville News

Tennessee investigating USC assistant Ed Orgeron

Officials at the University of Tennessee are preparing to investigate the staff that bolted for Southern California last week. Specifically, athletic director Mike Hamilton is concerned with contact that former UT coaches might have had with the Vols’ committed and enrolled prospects, as well as contact those coaches, who are now at Southern California, may have had with personnel still employed by the athletic department. Current employees of the athletic department will be scrutinized. Hamilton said phone records and e-mail will be checked to see if any employees transferred recruiting material to USC, specifically to former UT recruiting coordinator Ed Orgeron after he left Knoxville for Southern California. – Knoxville News Sentinel

How Lane Kiffin wound up at USC

How exactly did Lane Kiffin end up at USC anyway? Agent Gary Uberstine played a big role in the series of events that occurred at the university after Pete Carroll left for the Seattle Seahawks. Uberstine represents not only Carroll but also Kiffin, Ed Orgeron and Steve Sarkisian. When it became clear on Monday that Jaguars head coach Jack Del Rio was staying in Jacksonville and not taking the USC job, Uberstine’s coaching clientele became the Trojans’ main targets. While Sarkisian, Washington’s head coach and a former Trojans offensive coordinator, would have been a credible hire, Kiffin’s ability to assemble an all-star staff of assistants and his workaholic nature in regard to recruiting made him the perfect replacement for Carroll. – National Football Post

BREAKING NEWS: Tennessee Hires Derek Dooley

According to WNML-FM in Knoxville, Derek Dooley will be named the head football coach of the Tennessee Vols. Dooley, 41, is currently the head coach and athletics director of Louisiana Tech. Dooley started his college coaching career with a one-year stint as a graduate assistant at the University of Georgia in 1996. Dooley spent the 1997–99 seasons as wide receivers coach at Southern Methodist University, while also holding the duties of assistant recruiting coordinator during his final two years. In 2000, Dooley was hired by Nick Saban at LSU as the Tigers’ recruiting coordinator/tight ends coach, a capacity in which he served until 2002. Dooley then spent the 2003-04 seasons coaching the Tigers’ running backs and special teams. In 2005, Dooley left LSU with Saban when the latter became head coach of the Miami Dolphins. On December 17, 2006, Dooley was hired as the new head coach at Louisiana Tech University, where he went 17-20. - WRBC

David Cutcliffe rejects Tennessee, will stay at Duke

Staff issues have apparently ended any possibility of an agreement between Tennessee and Duke head football coach David Cutcliffe for the former Vol offensive coordinator to be named UT’s next head coach. WNML radio has reported that Cutcliffe has pulled his name from the list of candidates and will remain at Duke. An official release from Duke is thought to be forthcoming. A deal seemed close to materializing on Thursday when Cutcliffe began assembling his staff. However, the Vols still have six current staff members on campus and Cutcliffe would have been required to retain at least some of those coaches. – Knoxville News-Sentinel

Tennessee Set to Hire David Cutcliffe

Duke head coach David Cutcliffe will be named Tennessee’s next head coach barring a last-second snag in negotiations, a source told the News Sentinel. UT athletic director Mike Hamilton declined to confirm an agreement with Cutcliffe, who was an assistant coach at UT from 1983-98 and from 2006-07. Hamilton said only that UT was still in the interviewing process. One issue between the two parties is Cutcliffe’s staff. Cutcliffe, who has spent the last two seasons at Duke, would like to bring many of his coaches to Knoxville with him, but the Vols still have six coaches leftover from the staff assembled by Lane Kiffin, who left UT to become the head coach at Southern California on Tuesday. Cutcliffe’s staff is expected to include former UT running backs coach Kurt Roper, who has been Duke’s offensive coordinator under Cutcliffe. UT interim head coach Kippy Brown is also expected to be retained as receivers coach. Hamilton said Brown was a candidate for the head coaching job, but Brown seemed open to working under Cutcliffe. – Knoxville News-Sentinel

With Will Muschamp out, Vols could turn to David Cutcliffe

Will Muschamp, Texas’ defensive coordinator and head coach-in-waiting, has turned down a lucrative offer to be Tennessee’s new coach, sources close to the situation told ESPN.com. Tennessee athletics director Mike Hamilton continues to work toward having a coach in place by this weekend, and one of the candidates the Vols are zeroing in on now is Duke coach David Cutcliffe, who is a former Tennessee offensive coordinator. Sources told ESPN.com that Cutcliffe has talked with Tennessee officials, although he’s not the only candidate the Vols are considering. Air Force’s Troy Calhoun and Louisiana Tech’s Derek Dooley are two other coaches on Tennessee’s list, while the Vols might also be interested in talking to Clemson defensive coordinator Kevin Steele. Tennessee made a hard push for Muschamp and made it clear that money wasn’t an issue. But in the end, Muschamp felt like it was best for him to stay at Texas, where he’s already contractually in line to replace Mack Brown when Brown retires. – ESPN.com

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