How Much Value Do Big 12 Coordinators Provide?

Oklahoma State assistants have always been paid a lot compared to the rest of the league — this has been a pillar of the Mike Gundy era — but this year’s numbers especially stand out. The only two schools that pay their assistants above $3 million a year reside in the state of Oklahoma.

Here are the Big 12’s public universities, according to the Des Moines Register — remember, Baylor and TCU are private schools who are not required to release this financial information.

• Oklahoma: $4,337,000
• Oklahoma State: $3,308,347
• Kansas State: $2,985,000
• West Virginia: $2,935,000
• Iowa State: $2,319,000
• Texas: $2,313,828
• Kansas: $2,299,000
• Texas Tech: $2,225,000

Even more stunning is what OSU’s coordinators make compared to the rest of the league’s. Mike Yurcich is one of just three offensive coordinators north of the $500,000 a year mark. Of course he’s about half of what the Texas and OU OCs mark.

• Sterlin Gilbert, Texas: $991,667
• Lincoln Riley, Oklahoma: $900,000
• Mike Yurich, Oklahoma State: $500,000
• Dana Dimel, Kansas State: $430,000
• Joe Wickline, West Virginia: $425,000
• Tom Manning, Iowa State: $350,000
• Rob Likens, Kansas: $350,000
• Eric Morris, Texas Tech: $260,000

Glenn Spencer is the third-highest paid defensive coordinator as well.

• Mike Stoops, Oklahoma: $900,000
• Tony Gibson, West Virginia: $750,000
• Glenn Spencer, Oklahoma State: $600,000
• David Gibbs, Texas Tech: $550,000
• Jon Heacock, Iowa State: $454,000
• Tom Hayes, Kansas State: $430,000
• Clint Bowen, Kansas: $400,000
• Vance Bedford, Texas: $316,667

I thought it would be fun to combine coordinator salaries with my efficiency charts from yesterday. We looked at how many points teams score per drive and how many the give up. This provides a good snapshot of where you are as an offense and defense in your own conference.

For the offensive coordinators, I simply matched up their salaries with their points per drive. I divided the PPD by the salary and used a multiplier of 1M to give us a real number. As you can see, Texas Tech is, um, getting a lot of value. It is No. 1 in the nation in points per drive and paying its offensive coordinator less than anyone in the Big 12. This is sort of a false number because Kliff Kingsbury is intimately involved there, but it’s still shocking compared to the rest of the league.

The numbers below don’t really measure anything other than the fake value I wanted them to measure. Oklahoma State is doing pretty well in this category. OU and Texas both pay their coordinators a lot more money (nearly double) to get slightly more production. There is probably a way to normalize the fact that, you know, because you are OU and Texas you are expected to pay more money and there is a ceiling on how many point you can score per drive, but we don’t have time. This is a quick and dirty snapshot.

On the defensive side, I multiplied points per drive given up with DC salaries and divided by 100,000 to give us a manageable number. Lower is better in this case. Poor Mike Stoops. Actually, not poor Mike Stoops. He’s making $900K a year, and his defense stinks. Kansas State has the best defense in the league so far and is paying its coordinator the third-lowest salary in the Big 12. Glenn Spencer is right about average. Also, that Texas number is a little iffy since, you know, its defensive coordinator now makes like $5M a year ….

Again, this is not meant to be anything but a quick snapshot of how much value each coordinator in the Big 12 is providing. I am not a statistician, and I know there are far better ways to look at this, but I think it provides a decent picture. And it passes the eye test for me. Glenn Spencer seems like he is providing about average value, and Mike Yurcich seems like he providing slightly above average value. It’s unfortunate that TCU and Baylor don’t release their numbers because it would be interesting to see where they fit in.