OSU’s Overall Assistant Pay Goes Down, but Kasey Dunn Gets a Nice Bump

Bill Haisten of the Tulsa World did some good reporting here on OSU assistant salaries, and boy is it good to be an OSU assistant coach.

There was nothing earth-shattering, I suppose, but I do have a few notes and thoughts on what Haisten brought to light. But first, let’s look at the salaries of all 10 of OSU’s coaches up against what they (or their predecessor) made in 2018. Here’s the Tulsa World‘s numbers.

• The big raise was of course Dunn going from $410K to $550K. If you don’t want to do the math, that’s a raise of nearly $12,000 …. a month. It would have ranked Dunn just outside the top 100 of last year’s assistant coach salaries, which actually seems about right.

• Mike Yurcich started at $400,000 in 2013, which when you factor in the rising cost of contending in Power 5 football is probably an equivalent number to what Sean Gleeson is starting at this year.

• It’s interesting that Oklahoma State’s RB coach makes half as much as its defensive coordinator, no? Not that those numbers should be flipped, but close your eyes and imagine paying twice as much for allowing 40 a game in the Big 12 vs. paying for somebody to coach Justice Hill, Chuba Hubbard and Deondrick Glass. I realize it’s apples to pears or plums or whatever, but the idea of it is a curious one.

• Knowles, by the way, was not paid like a top-10 assistant in the Big 12 (Yurcich was No. 5). This year, OSU won’t have anyone crack the top 10.

• $500K for an offensive line coach is a LOT! But it’s also about what Charlie Dickey was making last year at Kansas State ($480K), and paying for a sound OL is like paying for fast WiFi, you almost can’t spend too much. Aside: Dickey was making $200,000 when this blog started. Hashtag amateur athletics.

• OSU is paying more for defensive line coaches than an offensive coordinator.

• Dan Hammerschmidt might be the biggest bargain on this list.

• Gundy had a really interesting quote in the Tulsa World on Saturday about all of this. All of the stupid, crazy money being tossed around to men telling 19-year-olds where to stand and how to run (I realize it’s far more complex than that).

“We’re all overpaid for what we do, but it’s supply and demand.”

This is true. However, they aren’t as overpaid as they were in 2018 when nine assistants made $4.15 million. This year, with Yurcich out of the picture and Gleeson taking over, that number has actually gone down to $4.145 million. Although with Gundy’s $125,000 raise, the total bill to Mike Holder is still the same.