Question: Why Do NFL Coaches Rarely Make Lateral Moves To College?
With the NFL coaching carousel set in motion, it got me wondering why we don't see more pro coaches make lateral moves to the college ranks, especially head coaches. It's not strictly about money. The average NFL head coach salary this year was $4.6M (per coacheshotseat.com), compared to an average of $3.5M among the top-30 highest paid NCAA football coaches (per USA Today). (What's a cool million anyway? Just another Porsche 918 Spyder for a guy like me. I'll show you my sweet new U-M plates later).
But seriously, we've seen our share of Weisses and O'Briens and even Sabans move from NFL coordinators to college bosses, but the Mattisons who go from coordinator to coordinator or head coach to head coach from NFL to NCAA seem less common.
Is there a clear reason for this? Are college jobs just not as esteemed? Or maybe way too much work for the same money when you factor in recruiting, schmoozing boosters, etc.? Will this change now that college coach salaries are ballooning like track-home prices in 2006?
I would think that someone like Schwartz or Leslie Frazier would be a dynamite college head coach candidate. Recruits seem to really like the idea of signing up to play for a guy who has coached in the NFL and knows what it takes to get there. I'd be throwing money at Frazier if I were Texas or Penn State (. . . or Michigan? <ducks>).
December 31st, 2013 at 2:28 AM ^
I think it's all prestige... those colleges who have enough of it can pull NFL coaches (Bama, on more than on occassion, Florida with Weis, us with Mattison, etc.)
December 31st, 2013 at 2:39 AM ^
On the flip side, I think college gigs are cushier. Rare is the NFL head coach who attains the folk hero stature guys like Bo and Woody and Bear and DKR, et al. attained in college. Even if you're at a small school you can become an icon to that school's community. The way the NFL is currently structured, no coach will ever spend more than a decade with a team again whereas colleges plan to keep the same coach in place for 10-20 years.
Greg Schiano will likely never look for another job in his life once he's installed in Happy Valley. If he'd tried to make a go of it as an NFL DC, chasing that next head coaching gig? Who knows... Marty Schottenheimer went through 4 head coaching positons and he was actually a top end coach.
December 30th, 2013 at 10:50 PM ^
December 31st, 2013 at 12:00 AM ^
32 such jobs mean the focus of the job (to win) is the constant.
Gruden showing up at 345 am every day is not, apparently, that far fetched.
You're looking at a million hours of pre-draft player evaluation which you may (or may not) have a say in vs. college coaches who (at the whim of 18 year olds) can at least be their own player personnel departments
Most NFL coaches not named Belichick have to deal with a GM
Four words: Jerry Jones; Daniel Snyder
December 31st, 2013 at 1:43 AM ^
You can bang your hot blonde assistant on your motorcycle and not have it raise the same kind of eyebrows that being an employee of an educational institution does.
December 31st, 2013 at 5:08 AM ^
in terms of talent on the field. No college team has the talent that even the worst pro team has. Coaching the best players in the world is the pinnacle of your career path, and even at Alabama you don't get to do that.
December 31st, 2013 at 6:57 AM ^
The people who say college coaches work harder/have longer hours than NFL coaches are very very wrong. College coaches are limited in the ammount of hours they can put in by the NCAA (practice limits and no contact periods). This has changed a bit due to the new collective bargaining agreement but NFL coaches still have to work more hours.
December 31st, 2013 at 1:38 PM ^
I thought that was the biggest difference in hours. College coaches have a 12 month job.
December 31st, 2013 at 7:02 PM ^
Ummm... why would you think NFL coaches don't work in the offseason? Between film review, scouting, off season work outs, team management, ect... they probably work more during the offseason than they do during the season.
December 31st, 2013 at 9:57 AM ^
I agree with most of the answers here, but I think you're driving at something that coaches are going to start figuring out - you can spend 2-4 years as an NFL coach, get fired (as they all do) and then get a job at a pretty great college program where you have a good chance of keeping a single job for decades and becoming the focal point of an entire city in a way that is just impossible in the NFL, except in Pittsburgh.