How Does Texas Tech Football Assistant Coach Salaries Compare to the Big 12

USA Today released their assistant coach salary database and we get an idea as to how the Texas Tech coaches compare to the rest of the Big 12. I didn't have time to pull every salary and the private institutions, like Baylor and TCU do not have to report the same data, but it's still good to consider, especially in light of Texas Tech looking to hire a new defensive coordinator. Before we get to the assistant coach salary pool, I did want to point out a provision in head coach Kliff Kingsbury's contract where there is a limit to the amount that he can spend on assistant coaches. This is pretty standard in head coach contracts. The thing that varies is the amount, where you have some head coaches give up some of their salary so that the head coach can have a bigger assistant coach pool.

Keep in mind that contracts can be amended pretty easily, so this amount isn't written in stone, it's the amount right now and from everything that I'm gathering, it wouldn't surprise me to see Kingsbury have some latitude here with how much he can spend and that this amount will change with the new hires on the defensive side of the ball.

Texas Tech

Before we get to the data, it would help to explain the different columns. Since these are all screen shots, here's the labels that should go on top of each column of numbers: School Pay, Other Pay, Total Pay, Max Bonus, and Staff Pay Total. The next part here is that the Red Raiders are essentially around $2.1 million in terms of the assistant coach salary pool and former defensive coordinator Matt Wallerstedt was the highest paid assistant coach. Also note that there was a slight increase from Kingsbury's contract (I'm guessing it is the 3% increase, but I haven't done the math).

The Big Money

I'm dividing these salaries into the three different categories. Texas Tech doesn't have the annual budget (I don't believe) to get into this range of salary, which is the ranger where Texas and Oklahoma are. It's almost double the amount for what Kingsbury can spend and I think it is out of Texas Tech's price range.

Oklahoma

Texas

Again, I don't think that Texas Tech has the sort of budget and finances that would support this amount, especially Oklahoma, but I think it should be better than what it is.

The Lower End

Let's contrast the big money with the lower end of the conference in terms of salary, which is Kansas and Iowa State:

Kansas

Iowa State

As you can see, this is the range where Texas Tech is in terms of paying assistant coaches.

Middle of the Road

Personally, I think this is where I think Texas Tech needs to be. A couple of things to point out. Two of the teams have true offensive coordinators, so there's going to be an increase there, but I think across the board, you'd like to see Texas Tech have a bigger pool to get a bigger fish. In the "Big Money" category, the two defensive coordinators are making really big money and I think that in order to lure a guy that you think is going to change the program, Texas Tech is going to have to increase it's budget. As stated above, I think that's entirely possible and plausible over the course of the next few weeks as Kingsbury finds a new defensive coordinator (perhaps) or at the very least two new defensive coaches to replace John Scott, Jr. and most likely Matt Brock.

Kansas State

Oklahoma State

West Virginia