Moore and Minter agree to 3 year extensions
I saw the thread on Herbert, forgive me if I missed one on the two primary coordinators.
According to the deal, both are set to receive $1.15 million this year, $1.2 million in 2024 and $1.25 million in ‘25.
They are also eligible for annual $100,000 bonuses if Michigan’s offense/defense can finish top-2 in points scored/allowed in the Big Ten and top-10 in FBS in scoring offense/defense.
GO BLUE!
fire the money cannons!!
Well, here are the top 10 highest-paid assistant coaches as of December 2022:
- Todd Monken, Georgia OC, $2,005,000
- Jim Knowles, Ohio St DC, $1,900,000
- Barry Odom, Arkansas DC, $1,850,000
- (tie) Matt House, LSU DC, $1,800,000
- (tie) Jeff Lebby, Oklahoma OC, $1,800,000
- Tosh Lupoi, Oregon DC, $1,735,000
- Pete Golding, Alabama DC, $1,725,000
- Pete Kwiatkowski, Texas DC, $1,700,000
- (tie) D.J. Durkin, Texas A&M DC, $1,500,000
- (tie) Jim Leonhard, Wisconsin DC, $1,500,000
So, I wouldn't say that Michigan is blowing college football out of the water with these contracts. But hopefully they're good enough for retention purposes.
#2 is worth every penny and even more, to us!
Jim Knowles should have a clause that he has to donate 5% of his salary to a charity that provides recovery services to burn victims every time he gives up a 50+ yard touchdown to Michigan.
Did Knowles really think Michigan couldn’t pass the ball? His strategy made no sense otherwise.
There is a small sliver of me that every now and again thinks Harbaugh was very intentionally making the passing game look underwhelming, or very intentionally staying away from it for the first 11 games of the season just to lull OSU into a false sense of security.
Most of me thinks that is insane. Why deliberately hinder the growth of what should be half of your offense, but its the biggest game of the year, and while you did win the most recent matchup you're still (at the time) only 1-5 in the rivalry as a coach. Your entire legacy at Michigan is defined by what you do against OSU, so why not give yourself every possible advantage, I suppose.
I thought that too, but was he going to risk the Illinois game for that? That game was a hot mess and was too damn close to a loss.
Harbaugh and staff were sort of on record — I guess, grain of salt etc — that the Illinios game was meaningless. The coaching staff figured that even with a loss in it, beating OSU and winning the B1G still put us in the CFP. They had zero reason to risk anything and every reason to, um, hide the ball, so to speak.
I imagine Knowles shitting bricks with each bomb over his DBS heads
No. But he did know that they couldn't stop our run without selling out.
I will donate to #2s NIL
Not sure if the other contracts include bonuses but our guys can earn an additional $400K if they go undefeated in the regular season and their unit is top 2 (in the B1G) and top 10 in FBS.
Jim Leonhard left a pretty good gig. He was interviewed for the Eagles' DC job but did not get it.
DJ Durkin! WTF!?!?!?!
It's probably thanks to Texas oil money.
Interesting that 80% are DC's.
Interesting observation. Why is that? I would have thought that good OCs are tough to find and retain.
It's a small sample size and may mean nothing, but it seems to indicate there is a premium on someone with the ability to neutralize today's high-powered offenses.
Monkin is with the Ravens now (he was still with Georgia in Dec when that list was put together). Not sure what Georgia's new OC is making.
Jim Knowles lol
Monken is in the NFL now, Barry Odom took the UNLV job, Tosh Lupoi is given so much to "distribute it" amongst a number of top tier prospects, Pete Golding got the can, and Jim Leonhard is taking a year off.
So 4 of the top ten already outta there, and Lupoi really is mostly a recruiter. I'd wager Dan Lanning calls and installs the defense and Lupoi is a talent acquisition specialist.
Yes, Michigan hasn't put them in the top 10 but if you consider the experience of guys in the top 10 versus Moore and Minter there's a difference. Most in the top 10 have been successful coordinators for 10+ years versus two for Moore and ~5 for Minter. After Moore and Minter's contracts are up in 3 years (or possibly renegotiated earlier) they'd likely be in position to argue that the people on this list are their comparables.
- Monken: 10 years of OC experience in college and NFL plus head coaching experience. As others have noted, he's back in the NFL now.
- Knowles: >10 years of DC experience
- Odom: >10 years of OC experience. Is now Head Coach.
- Matt House: 10 years of DC experience.
- Jeff Lebby: ~5 years of OC experience.
- Tosh Lupoi: 3 years of DC experience, plus position and PGC coaching roles in NFL.
- Peter Golding: >10 years of DC experience
- Pete Kwiatkowski: >15 years of DC experience
- DJ Durkin: 10 years of DC experience
- Jim Leonhard: ~5 years of DC experience
Jim Knowles getting paid 1.9 million to get smoked by Michigan makes it even better.
Keep it rolling!
Who are these guys?
Oh - they are the ones that led Michigan's offense and defense. Yeah - three year extensions sound perfect - and, they are worth every penny.
Hopefully, they have an additional bonus for - 1) winning the B1G, and 2) winning an NC.
Go Blue!
But, but what if Harbaugh decides to keep their bonuses - which would be a real horseshit move?
/s
Nice to get a $50k bonus each year plus incentives. Hope this is enough to keep them around. I'm not sure how well these salaries stack up against Alabama or the NFL, but I imagine $1m+ for a few years goes a long way in Ann Arbor.
They can pretty much live like kings in Ann Arbor on that much money.
especially in 1988
Moore and Minter are so well-compensated that with their kind of money they can almost afford to eat at Zingerman's every day.
Zzzzziiiiiinnnnggggggg!
Those guys should never again have to pay for a beer in AA.
Or for a sandwich. How ironic… almost able to afford it but dont have to.
I'm happy for both of them.
My question is, how much of a deterrent are these contracts for them taking a HC job? Like, I assume the program offering would need to be a big one to be able to materially improve on their salary. But is there also a buyout?
If we lose assistant coaches to other programs that means we are winning and that is a sign that the program is healthy. With the right culture and winning as we currently are that is a good problem to have.
We are paying and seem to be finally catching up on NIL and attracting recruits. We need this win over Ohio, at home with our mature 5* QB as they rebuild to solidly be in the drivers seat in this only now renewed recent rivalry.
I like where Michigan is at - the walk in the desert to get back to here has been brutal.
I don't think an assistant's buyout would stop anyone from pursuing them as college HCs or NFL assistants if they do well. And Harbaugh doesn't strike me as a guy who would block a staff member from moving up in the world. Maybe it'd prevent a lateral move to another program.
There is no buyout for taking a D1 head coaching job, and it would be dumb for Michigan to attempt to include one. Not that the coach would ever sign such a contract anyway.
The point of a buyout is to deter your employees from leaving for a lateral position. If you’re actively trying to prevent your employees from taking promotions, you’re a bad person and good employees won’t want to work for bad people. Now what DOES attract good employees, is seeing people in positions at your school moving on to better opportunities. Position coaches becoming coordinators is going to attract better position coaches. Coordinators becoming head coaches is going to attract better coordinators. People want upward mobility, not dead end jobs.
As much as we may love having Moore and Minter on staff, we’re not trying to lock them down to a lifetime of coordinating Michigans offense and defense.
I would rather see the bonuses go toward 100K for beating Ohio State as I see that as more valuable then Big Ten Points allowed or all of FBS anything. I would ask a public NIL group to donate a match to that bonus and pay out 200K - that is something I would throw my money toward.
Why doesn't Harbaugh just take all their raises and bonuses and keep them like Shit Face in EL?
Wonderful but no more stupid blitzes please. Blitzing is fine, just please no stupid ones. There weren’t even that many (the OSU gameplan was like 95% masterful) but like heart attacks, you don’t need all that many to shorten my life.
The thing about blitzes is they're brilliant when they work, and stupid when they don't.
delayed safety blitzes from 10 yards off the line of scrimmage never work. they can lose that package.
Especially when run against an experienced QB.
User avatar does NOT check out!
It's all fine now because it didn't matter, but if you remember, the 42-yard Stroud-to-Harrison TD was caused in part because that was like the one time we didn't double cover the dude, and instead sent Rod Moore on a safety blitz where he was 15 yards from the line and had no chance to affect the play. Though, looking back on that play, that was one where, if you can take your fan hat off, you just acknowledge it was perfect execution - Stroud put the ball right were Harrison was going to be and Gemon's coverage wasn't even terrible, it was just a flawless throw and route.
This feels more important than any player coming or going
About time they were rewarded for the last two seasons of work! And yes, I know Minter arrived before Spring practice last year, but he was able to pick up exactly where MacDonald left off without losing a beat using the pieces still around from the previous season. If MacDonald was awarded with an NFL contract, Jesse earned Mac's pay raise for running the same thing a little better - without the NFL edges!
Congrats to both, they've earned this!
Fantastic news. This plus extending Ben Herbert.
I like this though I imagine it will be tough to keep them forever. Nice to feel a tad stable, even if it's not actually true