Cameron Giles wrote: ↑Wed Jan 12, 2022 7:56 pm
Ice wrote: ↑Wed Jan 12, 2022 7:22 pm
College football has changed big time with the instant transfer portal and pay for play schemes these days. Thinking this is a good structured job is just plain silly.
If a coach has any designs on the NFL one can count on one hand college teams that can compete with ANY NFL job which offers far more structure these days. Kiffen isn't at one of those programs.
BTW Matt Rhule is making a fortune with a guaranteed contract. That is a terrible example as he could always go back to the minor leagues if he desired.
College coaches still have better job security even with NIL and the Transfer Portal. Why else do you think someone like Lincoln Riley didn't leave Oklahoma for the NFL? Hell, even Matt Campbell has stayed at Iowa State despite interest.
Again, the argument isn't that you don't make more money in the NFL. It's that you don't have much job security and it's not worth leaving a great college situation to pursue unless you have something to work with or you have significant power.
Minnesota is damn near a full-fledge rebuild. There will always be openings like that in the NFL every cycle.
I think Rhule earned about $1million more than Kiffin this year (~$8.5mil vs $7.5mil), which isn't chump change by any stretch, but it's also not remarkably more. From listening to a lot of interviews over the years, that really isn't enough to move the needle for everything else they give up leaving college to coach in the NFL. Kiffin has been in college for over a decade now since his stint with the Raiders, and I'm hard pressed to believe he hasn't been contacted in all that time with an offer again from the NFL, and come to that same conclusion: not worth it (for him).
Plus, money is important to everyone when it comes to job satisfaction, but there are a lot of other things that play into it. It's almost a completely different job coaching grown men who've played the sport for 20+ years and are multi-millionaires vs a bunch of children who've played for less than 10 years and still get care packages of ramen and ez mac from their mom's (maybe showing my age, I don't know what broke college kids eat these days). Almost everyone referenced this as just one of the many reasons Urban would fail this year, and then watched it play out before our eyes (and in the media). I don't think Kiffin is quite as bad as that, and has calmed a bit over the years, but I'd be hesitant to believe he would change his personality and coaching style that much to fit the difference. On Kiffin's personality, college coaches in general are revered in and around college towns as though they are gods. Add in Kiffin's larger than life persona and ego, I'm sure he's feasting on that. Esp when he's turning around teams like FAU and Ole Miss; likely hasn't paid for a meal or drink out in some time. When you put all the pros/cons on a scale, there seems to be a lot more to lose than gain in making a move back to the NFL. I guess in Kiffin's case it could trigger an ego thing after the Raiders debacle to want to come back and change his legacy; but I think he's already been doing that in college and can continue doing it much easier there.