Baker accepted the Bama job

[JoMo MoJo]

Man some of you guys on here have no 17ing clue. Whatever we’d pay they’d pay more. How many of you have a job where your current employer dictates who you can and cannot interview with or take another job with. If you don’t like Joe or Cohen that’s fine but to claim they aren’t doing enough to keep coaches is asinine. What’s the better choice, try to keep a guy who wants to leave or get a guy who wants to be here. Flame away!

I think the point that you missed is he left to coach under Saban who is a megalomaniac and a cult of personality unto himself. He shreds coaches and berates them and demasulanates them on the sidelines. Sometimes, working for a nicer boss has its benefits.

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

I miss the days when assistants could stay as long as they wanted**

 

[Msubulldogfan1]

On the surface, I’d say yes. We aren’t losing anyone to even the Auburn’s, LSU’s, or Georgia’s. It’s Bama and the NFL. You pay your HC and you pay your coordinators. You pay your position coaches enough to stick around for 3-4 years or so. The relationship with Baker was mutually beneficial for him and MSU. Now it’s time for another guy to step in, and we’ll find a good one. Outside of the one year John Blake debacle at the tail end of Jackie when he was all out of 17’s to give about being competitive, we’ve had a good DL coach every year for nearly the past 3 decades. It’s gonna be OK.

I guess you forgot about Florida taking our HC and DC last year? And reportedly Leaving for UT if not Florida. They also took our AD, and Geoff Collins recently.

 

[anon1787432961]

Every coach that plays for saban hates life. Yet every coach loves Dabo. Hmmmmmmm.

Guess some are slow to figure that out.

 

[Fighting Irish.sixpack]

^^THIS IS THE WINNER^^

Cohen has Templeton disease and it appears to be worsening. #intheblack

I have been told this ever since John Cohen took over that he has taken the internal workings of the athletic department back to the days of Larry Templeton, and no one listens to me!!! We have serious issues going on within our athletic department, and none of our fans want to believe it!!

Stricklin was a geeky nerd, but he carried on internally what Greg Byrne started. Cohen has come along and taken us back a decade to LT, with the exception that he is a dictator who you better not cross! If you are a staffer and your opinion is not like Cohen's or if you question a decision............................... FIRED!!!!!!!! How many times have you see Cohen interact with the fans? How many times as a fan have you seen him around and about our fans? NONE!!!!!!!!!!!!


Wake up people, and start putting the blame on John Cohen, the most Mississippi State Athletic Director hire ever!!!!!!!!!

 

[Go Budaw]

I guess you forgot about Florida taking our HC and DC last year? And reportedly Leaving for UT if not Florida. They also took our AD, and Geoff Collins recently.

Florida took a guy who had been here 9 years and who left for very little (if anything) more than he would have made here. Collins left before we got serious about paying our coordinators good money, which didn’t happen until Cohen took over. Stricklin also had other reasons for leaving, which went far beyond money. Mainly his ego....and his desire to be SEC commissioner one day. You didn’t name anyone except Collins that another school flat out bought out from under us, and that was before we made corrections to our pay structure there. My guess is you won’t see a big difference with Baker either.

 

[Dawgzilla]

Collins actually took a pay cut when he went to Florida, but maybe he figured if he performed well he would eventually get more money at UF than he would ever get at MSU.

 

[Go Budaw]

Collins actually took a pay cut when he went to Florida, but maybe he figured if he performed well he would eventually get more money at UF than he would ever get at MSU.

Ok well I stand corrected then and that only further backs up my point. He also could have figured that it would be easier to launch a head coaching career from there, and he was probably right....considering he was only there two years before landing the Temple job. Overall, he was only at Florida for half the time that he was at MSU.

 

[DoggieDaddy13]

Just be grateful we had Baker when we did. He did a good job.

NEWS FLASH!!! We are damn lucky to be a stepping stone program now. For 75 years of our football program we've been WHERE COACHING CAREERS COME TO DIE! and die spectacularly.

Given where we are now, we will get a strong DL coach who will likely be eager to prove himself in a competitive program so he can get an offer from Bama or some other top tier program. We ain't top tier yet. But we're a hell of a lot better place for coaches to be than we used to be.

Our coaching salaries may not be competitive with Bama's. They damn well shouldn't be until we find staff that can beat Bama - at least once - and that goes for the HC down to the water boy. And the AD too.

 

[was21]

Other programs were beginning to perceive Mullen as a rising star in college football corching and so assistants who had been with him awhile gained worth. That's how it works...sometimes

 

[olblue.sixpack]

Wasn’t it reported that JoMo accepted less money, so he could pay his assistants more? Is that not true?

Only the homliest of homers bought that one.

 

[Dawgzilla]

According to USA Today, Mississippi State is 35th or so in the nation in total assistant coaches pay, and 13th in the SEC, with Vanderbilt not reporting.

http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/ (you can click on each column to re-sort the data, and see that we are about 35th in assistant pay)

I don't know how accurate the USA Today info is, but I'm guessing that one reason these guys are leaving is money.

 

[HumpDawgy]

No competes would probably only be tied to the same job title since you wouldn't want to keep a position coach from moving to a coordinator role. So to get around this, schools would add bs descriptions to the new job.

Oh, you can't be d-line coach at Bama because that's the same thing you had at State? Fine, we'll make you assistant defensive coordinator as well.

Well, maybe we should give ALL our assistant coaches the title of "Position coach AND Assistant Head Coach". Every coach is an assistant head coach. Second, make sure to have large buyouts in the contract and VERY large buyouts if the coach is hired by an SEC school. If Bama wants to poach our good coaches (days before signing period), they will have to pay us a lot of those crimson bucks to get them. We need to stop with the mentality of "Well, they didn't want to be here, so we will release them from their contract.....BS." We can try and be as noble and gentlemanly as possible all while finishing behind these teams each and every year. This is a business and we need guys who are more savvy and cut-throat running things if we ever want to get over the hump.

 

[Charlie Varney]

Here is another list from USA Today. It has assistants listed from highest to lowest pay...

http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/football/assistant

 

[8dog]

What you pay someone is not the same as what you can or are willing to pay

 

[Imadick]

The last column in that table

Here is another list from USA Today. It has assistants listed from highest to lowest pay...

http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/football/assistant

Total assistant pay total is the tells the story. We are way behind the other SEC schools.
We are paying $3.5 mil total according to that list.

 

[BlueRidgeMtns]

Which is why we need to be Peach Nehi.

 

[Bulldogg31]

Which is why we need to be Peach Nehi.

That’s Ole Miss. Very popular with white kids back in the 50’s.

 

[Go Budaw]

Here is another list from USA Today. It has assistants listed from highest to lowest pay...

http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/football/assistant

Bob Shoop at $400k....which we all know is far less than his total compensation. I kind of question the accuracy of that list, even though I know Shoop has some supplemental payments he’s still getting from Tennessee. In general, these lists are always highly questionable because many universities don’t report what is being kicked into salaries by the private fundraising arm, if they use one. We use the BDC to supplement basically all our coaching salaries, and in many cases that portion is way more than the university’s public portion.

 

[kired]

ESPN thinks of us as a root beer --- just throw a logo up there, A&W, Mug, Barqs. Close enough.

 

[Dawgzilla]

I have no idea how diligently USA Today worked to get its numbers, but our coaches are public employees and their total compensation package is public information no matter where the money comes from. If our Athetic Department is not reporting those numbers then we are making ourselves look bad for no reason.

 

[engie]

Bob Shoop at $400k....which we all know is far less than his total compensation. I kind of question the accuracy of that list, even though I know Shoop has some supplemental payments he’s still getting from Tennessee. In general, these lists are always highly questionable because many universities don’t report what is being kicked into salaries by the private fundraising arm, if they use one. We use the BDC to supplement basically all our coaching salaries, and in many cases that portion is way more than the university’s public portion.

We pay the same way everyone else pays. Not submitting accurate numbers is on us. And I agree that they aren’t accurate. But it doesn’t paint any better perception.

Being what we are, which has been gone over in detail, we’ve got to overpay to keep people that we want here. I’ve posted the numbers before. We’ve got the money and are sitting on it for inexplicable reasons. Just let a coach that had us in a position to potentially swing prevailing sentiment on Moorhead in the final month of recruiting walk to our biggest rival for some of these players. I have no doubt we were paying Baker fairly. Imagine had we been overpaying him $150k with a 3 year deal... just makes this a lot harder to do.

 

[Go Budaw]

We pay the same way everyone else pays. Not submitting accurate numbers is on us. And I agree that they aren’t accurate. But it doesn’t paint any better perception.

Being what we are, which has been gone over in detail, we’ve got to overpay to keep people that we want here. I’ve posted the numbers before. We’ve got the money and are sitting on it for inexplicable reasons. Just let a coach that had us in a position to potentially swing prevailing sentiment on Moorhead in the final month of recruiting walk to our biggest rival for some of these players. I have no doubt we were paying Baker fairly. Imagine had we been overpaying him $150k with a 3 year deal... just makes this a lot harder to do.

If you really think Brian Baker is the difference in us beating out or not beating out freaking Alabama for a recruit, I don’t know what to tell you. And even if he was the difference, it’s going to be the same problem next year, or the year after that, and eventually he’s gonna leave one way or another. It’s not like we can ever say, “Well, this guy is probably job shopping, let’s pull him off the recruiting trail a year before signing day and put somebody else on all these blue chip guys”. Everybody deals with the same thing this time of year. We aren’t unique.

 

[Go Budaw]

I have no idea how diligently USA Today worked to get its numbers, but our coaches are public employees and their total compensation package is public information no matter where the money comes from. If our Athetic Department is not reporting those numbers then we are making ourselves look bad for no reason.

I don’t see how it makes us look bad. It doesn’t make it any harder to hire a coach away from us by the numbers being accurate. Whoever interviews one of our guys is still gonna find out what they are truly making and offer accordingly, no matter what USA Today says. Vandy doesn’t report anything. Does that make them look bad?

 

[engie]

If you really think Brian Baker is the difference in us beating out or not beating out freaking Alabama for a recruit, I don’t know what to tell you. And even if he was the difference, it’s going to be the same problem next year, or the year after that, and eventually he’s gonna leave one way or another. It’s not like we can ever say, “Well, this guy is probably job shopping, let’s pull him off the recruiting trail a year before signing day and put somebody else on all these blue chip guys”. Everybody deals with the same thing this time of year. We aren’t unique.

Why does Dabo keep all his guys?

Why did Freeze up until the wheels started to come off?

Sure. If we continually pay fair market or slightly less, given our inherent disadvantages, this will continue to happen nonstop. By the time the other offer is on the table, we are fried.

Overpay Baker by $150k. Pay him $550-600k - and Bama never makes the call in the first place. And everyone is crystal balling Byron young to us today. You think Dabo is fielding calls about Venables as a defensive coordinator anywhere else? Why not? Because he has continually rewritten the book on how well you can take care of assistants and has been rewarded with extreme loyalty.

If we pay them like they are average, they are always going to leave us like we are stepping stones. And we never take a full step forward. And statistically eventually we miss on a couple of these replacement hires and it actually goes sideways.

 

[HumpDawgy]

It doesn't matter that the cost of living is cheaper in S Vegas than other places, its a prestige kinda thing for these coaches. They might make more in the long run here with other factors, but their pride doesn't want the smaller salary compared to their coaching counterparts.

 

[Dawgzilla]

Reporting nothing is better than reporting incorrect information. I'm not saying having incorrect numbers in USA Today makes it any harder or easier to hire/retain coaches, I just don't think we should allow ourselves to be portrayed as the cheapskates of the SEC if we aren't. It looks bad. If the numbers are accurate, then we simply are the cheapskates of the SEC.

 

[Go Budaw]

Reporting nothing is better than reporting incorrect information. I'm not saying having incorrect numbers in USA Today makes it any harder or easier to hire/retain coaches, I just don't think we should allow ourselves to be portrayed as the cheapskates of the SEC if we aren't. It looks bad. If the numbers are accurate, then we simply are the cheapskates of the SEC.

http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

In revenue, we are 12th in the SEC of 13 teams that report it, barely edging out Missouri. Is it really that surprising that we are 13th in assistant coach spending? That doesn’t mean we are cheapskates, but somebody’s gotta be at the bottom and it makes sense that it’s a school that has proportionally small revenue numbers. I’d bet that even if the correct figures were reported that we would still be 13th. If we want to raise the spending, we’ve got to raise the revenue. Thats why its all the more silly that anyone thinks a measley $100-$200k more for Baker would deter a school like Bama from taking whoever they want from us.

 

[Dawg_Nation]

When is that s.o.b. midget going to retire? He's not going to win another national championship. Already signing some of our recruits, and now the piece of s**t is stealing our coaches.

 

[CrookedLetta4Eva]

We will sign Pickering. No concerns

 

[Dawgzilla]

Yes, that's the whole point. Posters in this thread were claiming that money wasn't the issue and that coaches were leaving for other reasons (such as not liking Moorhead). Money is a key factor. You wanted to quibble over how accurate the salary figures from USA Today are, but they are certainly in line with our revenue.