NCAA Football

Buckeyes Have a Bargain in Tressel; Hawkeyes Hoping Magic Beans Sprout Soon

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Attention KMart shoppers: We have a blue light special in Columbus, where right now we're offering 22% off of national championship winning coaches.
So says Forbes, which is out with a list it calls The Best (And Worst) College Football Coaches For The Buck (slideshow warning). According to their algorithm, Jim Tressel's $2.6 million annual salary is under the market rate for coaches with similar achievements. The Buckeye boss should be making just under $3.2 million a year.

That sounds like a lot of money, mostly because it is. Yet Forbes says that even Pete Carroll (2007 compensation estimated at $4.4 million) is underpaid. They say Southern Cal's coach should be making about a Chevy Cobalt more than $5 million a year, based on his two national titles. (No word on how the Stanford loss affected his overall value, alas.)

So cheer up, Buckeye fans; you may have lost two straight BCS Title Games, but (a) you actually made it to two straight BCS Title Games, and (b) you didn't overpay for the privilege.

Of course, if somebody's underpaid, somebody's overpaid too. Who's the most overpaid coach in college football, according to Forbes? Hint: his name rhymes with "irk parents."

Like you needed a hint anyway. Kirk Ferentz makes more than $3 million a year, while his team struggles to break .500, and his players accumulate so many off-the-field problems Ferentz is starting to make Barry Switzer look like LaVell Edwards. It's hardly news that Ferentz is under just a bit of pressure this season, and his rock-star salary is part of why. But just how overpaid is he?

Take a poll of Iowa fans right now asking what appropriate compensation for Ferentz would look like and you'd probably get an answer like "half a glass of warm lemonade and some expired Arby's coupons." Forbes, however, asserts that Ferentz's 19-18 record over the last three seasons is worth only about 71 percent of what the University of Iowa pays him. That means he's worth $2.4 million dollars a year, which is only $200,000 less than Jim Tressel actually gets paid.

It's hard to argue with Forbes's judgement on who's overpaid and who's underpaid, but man, if 19-18 over three years is worth $2.4 million a year, what Jim Tressel has done has got to be worth a lot more than $3.172 million. Of course, they also calculate that Syracuse's Greg Robinson was overpaid, but still worth $825,000 annually over the last three years. Good luck finding a Syracuse fan who agrees with that assessment.

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